ICTs in the Contemporary World seminar

Elena Esposito
Facoltà di Scienze della Comunicazione, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy

Wednesday 21 June 2006
3.00 - 5.00 p.m.

Economic theory complains about the apparent lack of realism of its concepts and the scarcity of contacts with the real social dynamics – expressed first of all by the difficulties connected with the notion of information and the countless imperfections it presents. Can this be linked with the interpretation of probability and its relationship with reality? Studying the connections among probability theory and fiction, born both at the end of 17^th century, one can try to suggest a different way to interpret the real effects of statistical calculations.

Fiction refers explicitly to an invented world, that becomes real in its consequences: our ambitions, hopes and expectations are by now constructed with reference to models drawn from the experience of fiction, without which we would lack the necessary communicative competence. One can think that the effectiveness of probability should be interpreted in an analogous way: the “calculus of uncertainty” builds up its own fictitious world, which provides decision makers with criteria for taking real decisions in face of a future that remains unknown.

Elena Esposito teaches Sociology of Communication at the University of Modena-Reggio Emilia. She studied sociology and philosophy in Bologna, Bielefeld and Berlin and taught in Urbino and Vienna. She published several works on the theory of social systems, media theory and social memory. Among them: Soziales Vergessen. Formen und Medien des Gedächtnisses der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M., 2002;  Die Verbindlichkeit des Vorübergehenden. Paradoxien der Mode, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M., 2004; “The Arts of Contingency”, Critical Inquiry, 32, 2004. p.7-25; Reform und Innovation in einer unstabilen Gesellschaft (with G. Corsi, Eds.), Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart, 2005.

Please note places will be available on a first-come-first-serve basis - registration is not required.

For any further queries regarding this seminar or to request information about future events please contact Maha Shaikh, Research Coordinator. m.i.shaikh@lse.ac.uk

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