Houdart Sophie

Biography

At the time of her PhD thesis – an ethnographic study of a biological laboratory in Japan (2000) and its development – Sophie Houdart focused on internationalisation/universalization phenomena and new forms of nature institutionalisation in Japan. Taking as her empirical framework the preparation and unfolding of the most recent world exposition to take place in Japan in 2005, which took as its theme the rediscovery of “nature’s wisdom”, she studied the formation of what can be likened to a cosmological system with vague universalising desires. Since this system contributes to the dynamics of the modern world and is involved in an international network of production and communication, it proposes an order that applies to the world. Like modern Western cosmology, which produced – in the course of its (particularly scientific) history – true universality-generating machines, the study of Expo 2005 supplied an opportunity to observe the rhetorical, practical implementation of this type of alternative machine.

Research Interest

Internationalisation and universalisation in Japan, conception of contemporary cosmologies, anthropology of artistic creation and scientific and technical innovation, digital culture