Official 2007 AAAs ‘hot theorist’: Gabriel Tarde

Agamben move over — my money for the ‘high-concept’ theorist to hit the AAA this year (unless I am _so_ far ahead of the fashion trend I am _two years_ ahead of my peers) is Gabriel Tarde, who is not only getting “a conference in his honor”:http://www.tarde-durkheim.net/Conference.htm but also an entire “special number of Economy and Society”:http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g782301949~db=all.

On the one hand I applaud the Strathern-Latour axis’s attempt to create a coherent movement by forging a disciplinary history by excavating the loosers of Edwardian theory wars since, on the whole, I have a soft spot in my heart for Edwardian theory wars. On the other hand… _Tarde_? Don’t you think it’s about time we dusted off someone who could at least write, like _Bergson_?

Alex Golub is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He studies mining and petroleum development in Papua New Guinea, as well as American culture in to the online game World of Warcraft. You can contact him at rex@savageminds.org