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This article examines the HBO television series The Wire as an example of a popular cultural form that stimulates the sociological imagination. It provides some examples of how it functions to do this. A brief case study of one character — 'Snoop' — is examined to illustrate a set of more general observations. It is suggested that The Wire, although still containing strong narrative elements, provides an intriguing popular cultural example of what Andrew Abbott has recently called a 'lyrical sociology'.

Fabio Rojas interviews historian and novelist Ada Palmer.

This paper seeks to introduce the oeuvre of the Polish science fiction author, Stanislaw Lem, whose work is argued to carry significance for students of organizational conduct. Singling out his most famous novel, Solaris, for particular attention, a critical interpretation is offered that selectively highlights Lem's epistemological and ontological pre-occupations concerning scientific inquiry and the human condition. These concerns are seen to resonate with contemporary issues in the field of organization studies. In particular, the rhetorical role of mimesis, viewed as a synthesis of rational and non-rational human motives, within Solaris is taken to inform a wide range of human conduct. The paper concludes by calling for a realist mode of organizational discourse that explores the dialectical relationship between what it characterizes as `solar' and `lunar' dimensions of human behaviour. A new challenge to organization studies will be not simply to learn from the substantive concerns of literary genres such as science fiction, but also to aspire after the narrative skills of their leading exponents.

As the investment expectations for EdTech businesses have been growing during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, there is a need to reflect critically about the pedagogical implications of trends like datafication, platformisation and technological solutionism. Recently, social science fiction has been used to stimulate critical, sociological imagination about the future uses of educational technology (Macgilchrist et al., 2020; Selwyn et al., 2020). This paper expands the use of social science fiction for the current Italian context as a method for critical analysis in research and in teacher education. Two vignettes are developed to illustrate two scenarios of possible configurations of educational technology within primary schools in the year 2026. It is shown how opposite technological configurations manifest different under- lying pedagogical assumptions regarding children and teacher agency, literacy and the politics of knowledge. By relating the use of educational media to issues of pedagogy and didactics, writing and discussing social science fiction provides a significant opportunity to promote reflexive uses of technology in education. ; Con l'apparizione del COVID-19 e la DaD a livello globale il settore EdTech (educational technology) celebra nuove opportunità di investimento e di crescità. Questo rende necessario riflettere criticamente sulle implicazioni pedagogiche di tendenze come la datafication, la platformisation e il soluzionismo tecnologico. Recentemente, la social science fiction è stata utilizzata per stimolare l'immaginazione critica sugli usi futuri della tecnologia educativa (Macgilchrist et al., 2020; Selwyn et al., 2020). Il presente lavoro pro- pone la social science fiction nel contesto attuale italiano come un metodo di analisi critica da usare nella ricerca e nella formazione degli insegnanti. Attraverso la scrittura di due vignette vengono illustrati due possibili scenari sull'uso di tecnologie educative nelle scuole primarie nell'anno 2026: due configurazioni tecnologiche opposte ...