dan hirschman tricked me
A few weeks ago, I was having dinner with econ soc trainee Dan Hirschman and Jerry “I’ve Got a Cool New Book” Davis. At one point, our dinner conversation went just like this, except that I’ve heavily paraphrased and completely invented much of it:
Fabio: Blah, blah, performativity is for posers, blah, blah.
Dan: What do you mean?
Jerry: The fried chickpeas taste like bacon. Very bacony.
Fabio: Well, I can’t put my finger on it, but it seems as if performativity is a facile concept in that actors can just summon new social structures, kind of like a zippy self-fulfilling prophecy.
Jerry: Chickpeas, anyone? They’re really good.
Dan: Well, Fabio, what do you think of Foucault?
Fabio: Blah, blah, [insert tedious academic ramble], construction of subjects is cool, blah, blah, blah.
Dan: Ah ha! If you believe people can create epistemic systems and our subjectivities form within those systems, then Callon’s performativity is a pretty easy extension!
Fabio: You have tricked me, Dan of Ann Arbor! Curse you and your European social theory!
Jerry: I’m eating the last chickpea.
Actually, I ate the last chickpea that night, but that’s besides the point. If you’d like to read Dan’s version of this conversation (chickpea free) and his informative discussion of performativity, click here. And, Kieran, if it’s one thing that Dan, Jerry, and I can agree on about your upcoming visit is that you *will* love the chickpeas.
The chickpeas were less good than the amazing gnocchi. Jerry certainly knows his fine vegetarian dining.
The sad thing is I’m coming to think I may not be (precisely) a Foucauldian after all. More on this story as it develops…
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Dan Hirschman
March 29, 2009 at 4:13 am
Is that just one of several possible things you could agree on about my upcoming visit, or the only thing you could agree on?
Also, I was kind of hoping that Jerry kept insinuating chickpeas into the conversation as part of some social influence experiment that would pan out at the end of the story there.
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Kieran
March 29, 2009 at 4:38 am
Nope, Jerry just loves the fried chickpeas.
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fabiorojas
March 29, 2009 at 2:49 pm
I just came upon this post, and can swear that the conversation transpired precisely the way Fabio described it. (Dang, those were some good chickpeas.) I note that in Dan’s telling, I am an anonymous skeptic of Callon; here, I have a clear identity as chickpea enthusiast.
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Jerry Davis
April 3, 2009 at 1:16 pm
[…] “Dan Hirschman Tricked Me!” Fabio: You have tricked me, Dan of Ann Arbor! Curse you and your European social theory! […]
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