Rob Shields D.Phil.

Henry Marshall Tory Research Chair and Professor, Sociology / Art and Design, University of Alberta, Edmonton Alberta Canada.
Founding Editor, Space and Culture

The Henry Marshall Tory Chair is named for the first President of the University 1908-1929, first President of the National Research Council of Canada, 1928-1935, and first President of Carleton College 1942-1947, now Carleton University, where I also studied and taught. A summary of my research around 2005 can be found in U of A's Work of Arts. Contact: rshields (one word) at- ualberta ca

Events and Courses

• Material and Virtual Culture, SOC634, University of Alberta (Not offered 2009) - An interdisciplinary course in the arts and social sciences.

• History of Design AH409/509 / Built Environments SOC445 Fall 2009-10) An interdisciplinary course on design and different social spaces: digital, urban, architectural, natural with a focus on cultural capitals from global cities such as Salvador and New Orleans to peripheral cities of the Global North such as Iqaluit.
• Examples of recent and upcoming talks: Theory Weekend, Boreal Centre for Bird Conservation, Slave Lake Alberta Sept 11-13 2009; Politics of Public Space, TU Delft March 14-15; American Association of Geographers March 2009; Ottawa Canadian Sociological Association May 27; Liminal Coastlines, Univ. of Brighton June 7...
• Podcasts of recent and past speakers including Distinguished Visiting Scholars - Ann Game, Proboscis, Thomas Gieryn, Ken Hillis.

Research

Innovation, the Virtual and Urban Culture

• Changing Work Days and Places in a Small Town (SSHRC-funded Research Program 2003-07) - the changing information space of a small town from the points of view of youth and a group of health workers.
  • With Andrea Sharkey, 'Technology, Communication and Citizen Participation in a Rural Town Youth Centre' Canadian Sociological and Anthropological Association Conference 2005.
  • With Andrea Sharkey, 'Abject Citizenship – Rethinking Exclusion and Inclusion: Participation, Criminality and Community at a Small Town Youth Centre' in Childrens' Geographies 2008
  • ‘Les Sciences Sociales et les Virtualités’, Sociétés 91 (Spring 2006/1). 2006. pp. 55-67.
• The Culture of the Building Site (SSHRC-funded Research Program 1999-2002) - Innovation, skilled labour and the organizational culture of construction and engineering projects:
  • Building Tomorrow: Innovation in construction and engineering co-edited with Andre Manseau (London: Ashgate 2005).
  • ‘Building the Future: Innovation, Design and the Virtual’, Nordisk Arkitekturforskning - Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, 18:4. 2005. pp.13-20.
  • With Kevin West, ‘Innovation in Clean Room Construction: A Case Study of Co-operation between Firms’ Construction Management and Economics. 21:3 (June) 2003. pp. 327-334.
• The Impact of the Knowledge-Based Economy on Work in the Public Service: The Virtual Organization of Expertise and Knowledge (SSHRC Challenges of a Knowledge Based Economy Strategic Research Grant 2000-2004):
  • The Virtual (London: Routledge 2003).
  • ‘Biotech Barbeque: A Regulatory Figuration and Policy Making’. Fast Capitalism 2:1. Summer 2006
  • ‘Boundary-Thinking in Theories of the Present: The Virtuality of Reflexive Modernization’. European Journal of Social Theory 9:2. 2006. pp.223-238.
  • ‘The Role of the Virtual in Knowledge-based Economies, Organizations and Localities’, SEED Journal Semiotics, Evolution, Energy, and Development. 2003.
  • With Edwina Taborsky, ‘The New Knowledge Speak: The Implications of Contested Definitions of Knowledge and Information,’ Australian Journal of Information Systems, 8:2, 2001. pp. 142-149.
  • ‘Intersections in Cultural Policy: Geographical, Socioeconomic and Other Markers of Identity’ Canadian Ethnic Studies, 35:3. 2004. pp. 150-164.
• Production and Use of Built and Virtual Environments
• ‘Knowing Space’. Theory Culture and Society 23:2-3. 2006. pp.146-49.
• With Andres Kurg, ‘Linn, urbanisus, virtuaalsus - Vestlus Rob Shieldsiga’, Virkerkaar 4-5. 2004. pp. 153-159.
• ‘Visualicity’, Visual Culture in Britain 5:1. 2004. pp.23-36
• Internet: Virtual neighbourhoods and local communities (funded by the Varenius Initiative, NCGIA, University of Santa Barbara, National Science Foundation 1999).

Social Spaces: Tourism, Shopping Malls, Spatializations, Ethics

• Currently: Social Landscapes: Fort McMurray Collaboration with Prof. Sara Dorow (PI, Univ. of Alberta); Iqaluit: City of Sovereignties (Spatializations of the Arctic and Arctic Sovereignty) a range of research, partly in collaboration with Philip Steinberg, Florida State University; Ecologies of Affect: Placing Nostalgia Design Hope (Co-Edited Book with Ondine PArk and Tonya Davidson) in collaboration with students and faculty; and Spatial Questions (Under contract, Sage).
• What is a City? New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina co-edited with Philip Steinberg, University of Georgia Press, May 2008. [click above to order from Amazon]
• Lefebvre: Love and Struggle - Spatial Dialectics (London: Routledge 1999). ISBN 0415 09370 8 Pbk. [Order from Amazon]
• Cultures of Internet, Editor (London: Sage 1996). ISBN 08039 7519 8 Pbk. [Order Cultures of Internet-Amazon]
• Lifestyle Shopping: The Subject of Consumption, Editor (London: Routledge) 1993. ISBN 0415 06060 5 Pbk. [Order Lifestyle Shopping-Amazon]
• Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity (Routledge, London 1991). Outstanding Book of the Year Award, Library Choice ISBN 0415 08022 3 Pbk (Out of Print. Contact me)
• ‘Flânerie for Cyborgs’, Theory Culture and Society 23:7-8. 2006. pp. 209-220
• ‘Culture and the Just City,’ Distinktion. 2:3. 2002. pp. 37-44.
• Flexible sociality in Korea (American Sociological Association Conference Aug. 1997)
• 'Power and Procession' in Tim Dallett's Driving the Ceremonial Landscape, Ottawa: Gallery 101. 1996.
• 'The Dialogical Challenge to Verstehen' in British Journal of Sociology June 1996.
• Flow, Keynote Paper, The Welfare City: Sociality, Semiotics and Architecture. PhD Seminar, Centre for Urban Studies, Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark (Nov. 12-15 1997)
• Cyberpunk Cinderella: Subjectivation and Contextual Illness in C. Juul-Christensen ed., Meeting of the Waves: Everyday Life in Advanced Societies 1997
• Cutting up Continents: Nunavut and Quebec in The Dividing Line: Borders and National Peripheries 1997

Past Activities

• Sabbatical in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil 2007-08.
• Board Member, City Region Studies Centre, University of Alberta 2007-. Advisory and Admissions Committee Member, MA in Communication and Technology, Facultyof Extension, University of Alberta 2006-.
• PAGSE (Partnership Group on Science and Engineering) "Leader of the Future" 2004.
• Professor, Sociology/Anthropology and Acting Director, Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies 1998-99, Co-Director, Centre for Research on Culture and Society, Carleton University, Ottawa Canada 1992-95, Carleton University, Ottawa Canada 1991-2004.
• Nokia Visiting Professor, Centre for Urban and Regional Planning, Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki Finland.
• Lecturer, Culture and Communication with Sociology, and Co-Director, Design Society and Space Research Unit, Lancaster University, Lancaster U.K. 1995-1997.
• Commonwealth Scholar, Urban and Regional Studies Doctoral Programme, University of Sussex, Brighton U.K. 1985-1988.

Corrections:6xi2008 - rs