ABC Colloquia Fall 2017

 The ABC Colloquia are focused on current social science and business research, based in art and aesthetics

We are happy to present our 2017 fall term ABC program around three important topics featuring international researchers from Denmark/Switzerland, France/UK and Sweden all approaching their respective fields in an ABC mood.

Emma Stenström, Director of ABC Center at SSE
Pierre Guillet de Monthoux, Director of SSE Art Initiative

The sublime state: aesthetic protocols of international commercial and political security

ABC Colloquium with Professor Anna Leander, University of Geneva

Date: October 26 
Time:  15-17
Place: Bonnier room, Stockholm School of Economics, Sveavägen 65 floor 6 
 
What is the place of Art and Aesthetics in political challenges of international security politics in states of fear, terror and major risk? The goal, as Nietzsche once put it, must be not to displace our fear of sublime monsters with the superficial yet distracting beauty of fairy tales, but to “redeem” and “transform” our “monsters and enigmas” through a profoundly political engagement with the sublime.
 
Daniel Bereset’s The Broken Chair in the courtyard of United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) was made for Handicap International, to protest the use of landmines, cluster munitions and – later – all the consequences of war for civilians. The chair stands “in delicate balance on three legs – the fourth having been violently blown off as if by an explosive charge. A way of showing that even mutilated, victims of war violence are still standing tall, with dignity”. In designing it, Bereset was recognizing that “there is nothing more powerful in art than the anecdotal” and avoided images of violence that would avert the gazes and have a numbing effect. His artwork was questioning though not choking evocation of weapons. What is the political relevance of visibility and aesthetic protocols in opening a constructive discourse on security?
 
Professor Anna Leander is researching business in international politics and especially on the role of private military and security companies. She explores the transformation of politics through commercial security expertise, risk-models, and regulatory arrangements. She studies the political security strategies as it is reflected in marketing, web communication and digitized/big data.

Aesthetic identity play – Jean Paul Gaultier’s Bridal Dress; on fashion as it emerges

 
ABC Colloquium with assistant Professors Maja Korica Warwick Business School and Yoann Bazin; ISTEC Paris

Date: November 9
Time:  15-17
Place: Bonnier room, Stockholm School of Economics, 
Sveavägen 65, floor 6

Based on a micro study of Jean-Paul Gaultiers’ Bridal Dress, during the preparation for the 2010 autumn/winter collection we revisit the making of aesthetic identity. In particular, a number of authors, from Chia (1996) to Gioia and Patvardhan (2012), argued that rather than being fixed, organizational identities are always in flux, with change, not stability.
 
So identity is in flow and hardly a matter of stereotypes and set standards. So how do one research Field of Flow? By using Loic Prigent’s (2010) ‘The day before’ documentary we explore analytically how constant flows of creativity unfold to temporally accomplish an identity, via coordination practices through which joint sense and aesthetic judgement are negotiated.  What our account has highlighted is the temporal elements, the fluid pasts, presents and futures, which come to matter in that field of what Jean-Paul Gaultier may become, and the material expression of such resolutions, alongside relational processes of aesthetic judgement. Far from being fluffy, fuzzy and ephemeral the worlds of fashion constitute a great accessible show-room laboratory for studying the making of art and identities as something concrete and material.
 
Dr Korica is involved in the process philosophy organizational research with professor Tsoukas at Warwick and Dr Bazin is the founder of the French society for Philosophy and Business and the editor in chief of the Society and Business Review. In addition they both are engaged in furthering tutorial pedagogy in business school to augment intellectual challenges for business students.

Art in Business Schools; receptions and reflections of an art show

ABC Colloquium with Dr Erik Wikberg and authors of the new book Standard Length of a Miracle

Date: December 13

Time:  15-17
Place: Bonnier room, Stockholm School of Economics, 
Sveavägen 65, floor 6

Does art in business schools make any difference? What happens when art is curated inside a business school? Dr Erik Wikberg, the editor of a coming publication treating the Goldin+Senneby show 2016 at SSE, will lead a discussion with some of the authors on the potential of hosting art in the school. The task of the business school is neither to engage in pure art history nor to embark on art sociology.

Fore more information: contact Robert Stasinski Communications Manager and Editor, 0707 83 09 59, M: robert.stasinski@hhs.se