Biography: Dant and Francis

Tim Dant and David Francis, Manchester Metropolitan University

Tim Dant is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University and a member of the Knowledge in Organisations Research Group (KORG). In the past he has been a researcher working on social policy and community care issues. His current research interests are in the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of culture and in particular the sociology of material culture. He is the author of Knowledge, Ideology and Discourse (Routledge, 1991) and has recently published 'Fetishism and the social value of objects' in Sociological Review, vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 495 - 516, 1996; 'Thoroughly Modern Mannheim and the Postmodern Weltanschauung', Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, anno XXXVIII, no. 4, pp. 531 - 558, 1997; and 'Playing with Things: Objects and Subjects in Windsurfing', Journal of Material Culture, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 77 - 95,1998. At the moment he is completing a book on Material Culture for the Open University Press.

David Francis is a senior lecturer in the Deptartment of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University and a member of the Knowledge in Organisations Research Group (KORG). His main research interests are in ethnomethodology - especially ethnomethodological studies of work - and qualitative method. He is a co-author of Perspectives in Sociology, (Routledge, 4th edition: March 1998). He has also published numerous journal articles and book chapters in ethnomethododology and conversation analysis, the most recent being: 'Negotiation, Decision Making and Formalism: The Problem of Form and Substance in Negotiation Analysis', in J. Wagner and K. Ehlich (editors), The Discourse of Business Negotiation, (Mouton de Gruyter, 1995); 'Reality Analysis in a Classroom Storytelling' (with S. Hester), British Journal of Sociology, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 95 - 112, 1997; 'Narrative Intelligibility and Membership Categorisation in a Television Commercial' (with C. Hart) in S. Hester and P. Eglin (editors), Culture in Action: Studies in Membership Categorisation Analysis (University Press of America, 1997); and 'The Soccer World as Journalistic Work: Managing the Production of Stories about a Football Club', (with L. Marr and D. Randall), Rassegna Italiana di Sociologica, January, 1998.