The New Encyclopaedia Project

This project aims to experimentally explore the development of global knowledge through encyclopaedic thought. The impetus is the problem of how to deal with the de-classification and re-classification of knowledge in the wake of globalisation and digitalisation. The project originated with a group of TCS editors and Japanese scholars, but has since expanded beyond the English-speaking world into an international network involving people in China; Korea; India; Sri Lanka; Taiwan and Singapore; Brazil and South Africa.

The group is composed of:

• Mike Featherstone, Couze Venn and Tomoko Tamari (TCS Centre)
• Ryan Bishop and John Phillips (National University of Singapore)
• Scott Lash (Goldsmiths College, London University)
• Maria Esther Maciel (University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte)
• Roy Boyne (Durham University)
• Shunya Yoshimi (Tokyo University)
• Kenichi Kawasaki (Komazawa University)
• Tetsuo Maruyama (Bukkyo University, Kyoto).

Colloquia have been held at:

• Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, June 2001
• Cambridge University, July 2001
• Nottingham Trent University in August 2002 and August 2003
• Kobe University, October 2002
• Tokyo University, Yonsei University, Korea University, Seoul National and Kyoto Bukkyo University in October 2003
• Singapore in April 2004 and December 2004
• Tokyo University, July 2005
• Istanbul, July 2006
• Kyoto, Kaifeng and Beijing in September 2006
• Kings College London, January 2007
• University of Tokyo, July 2007
• Seoul National University, November 2007
• University of Johannesburg, April 2008.

The first volume Problematizing Global Knowledge was published as a Theory, Culture & Society special issue in May 2006 with translations into Turkish, Portuguese and Chinese contracted and being carried out. Work is currently underway on two further cluster volumes: Megacitie; Problematizing the Urban; and Food: Problematizing Taste, with colloquia and conferences scheduled for Istanbul; Heidelberg; and Belo Horizonte in 2008 and others planned for Calcutta; Singapore; and Tokyo in 2009. We have just started work on the Africa cluster.

While at the NEP Megacities conference in Johannesburg we were able to confirm that Achille Mbembe and Sarah Nuttall (both Witwatersrand University and Duke University) would edit a special issue on Africa for Theory, Culture & Society and also be a part of the editorial group which will soon begin work on the Africa cluster.