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.