MCSI Speaker Series: The Idea of Waste
26
Nov
Tue
John Scanlan explores what waste is and why it seems to be intrinsic to human life, at every turn, in every age and epoch. This lecture is part of the 2024 MCSI Speaker Series: "Talking Trash"

John Scanlan’s talk starts with the premise that waste is inevitable in human society—and ends with a meditation on its inevitability. The Idea of Waste explores how we have grappled with both the material reality and the specter of this shapeshifting phenomenon throughout history—utilizing it, dreaming of overcoming it, yet never escaping it. Scanlan explores what waste is and why it seems to be intrinsic to human life, at every turn, in every age and epoch. Finally, he demonstrates how waste never disappears, but rather only proliferates anew. Scanlan’s compelling narrative shows waste to be both an enduring material consequence of human activity and an idea or state of being.
John Scanlan is a cultural historian at the University of Central Lancashire. His previous books include On Garbage and Memory: Encounters with the Strange and the Familiar, both published by Reaktion Books, as well as several books about popular music. He studied Philosophy and Sociology at University of Glasgow, where he obtained a PhD for a study of the cultural history and aesthetics of disorder in western society. He was later an AHRC Post-doctoral Fellow in the School of History at the University of St Andrews and subsequently held lectureships at the University of Bristol (2007-08) and Manchester Metropolitan University (2008-15), where he taught cultural and historical sociology. In 2012-13 he was Acting Director of the Centre for Transitions in Society and Space at Manchester Metropolitan University, and co-led the REF 2014 submission in Sociology. His work on the cultural history of 'waste' has been internationally recognized, and translated into French, Italian, Croatian and Arabic languages. He has also been the subject of national and international radio programs, including BBC Radio 3's 'Night Waves', 2005, ABC Radio National Australia's 'The Philosopher's Zone' (2005), and 'Perspective' (2006). In 2012 he acted as an advisor and appeared as an expert in the 2012 BBC TV series 'The Secret Life of Rubbish'. He also recently appeared as an expert on the BBC World Service series, 'A History of Wastefulness' (2018).
This lecture is part of the 2024 MCSI Speaker Series: "Talking Trash"
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