Brian Moeran final lecture

Performing Magical Capitalism: An Anthropological Approach

Brian Moeran

Brian Moeran is Honorary Professor, Faculty of Modern Languages and Cultures/Global Creative Industries, University of Hong Kong, and was, from 1998 till his retirement on 31 January 2016 Professor in Business Anthropology at ICM, CBS. A social anthropologist by training, he is internationally recognized  for his ground breaking work in the making and dynamics of the creative industries, based on extensive research on advertising, art marketing, ceramics, fashion magazines, olfactory marketing, and the publishing industry, mainly in Japan but also in cross-cultural comparative perspective. He is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the on-line Open Access the Journal of Business Anthropology.

Abstract

Magic has been described as “one of the most pernicious delusions that ever vexed mankind.” Yet it can be seen at work in all sorts of modern business practices ⎼ from central banking to healthcare systems, by way of economic fora, legal contracts, and almost all forms of cultural production.

Magic is used to deal with uncertainty, and uncertainty underpins all business transactions ― from agriculture and open sea fishing to economic forecasting and financial trading. Because magic speaks to realms other than material reality, it engenders a sense of enchantment in our modern world.

Every magical system consists of magical practitioners (magicians, shamans, witch doctors), magical rites, and magical representations (or spells). It includes one or more central operations in which the magician performs ― an economic summit, a trading floor, an operating theatre, a film set, a court of law, a television talk show, or fashion collection. This performance is designed to effect transformations (in share prices, in a patient’s health, in the interpretation of a political or criminal act, in defining “fashion”), so that often just saying something makes it true. Magical performances tend to be strictly prescribed in terms of time and “qualified spaces” (Davos, monetary policy committee rooms, courts of law, concept restaurants, fashion runways, award ceremonies, and so on), and so enable magic to be effective, creative and to do things.

This lecture, too, is a performance – with a magician who will use the magic of language to transform his audience’s thinking in a ceremonial rite of retirement!

Programme

Registration

Please register at seminar.icm@cbs.dk before May 26, 2016.