SPIN September Newsletter

1) Ongoing

• • The SPIN family activity at We the Curious in Bristol, ‘The A-Z of Secrecy,’ is still up and running every Saturday and Sunday at 2pm this month. Do consider visiting to join in and observe the project in action! 

2) Upcoming events (save the date!) 

• • SPIN is hosting, with the SWDTP, the book launch for Professor William Walters’ new book State Secrecy and Security: Refiguring the Covert Imaginary on 22^nd September at 5pm (GMT+1). Join our panel for an evening to discuss the book’s themes. Link to more details and sign up: https://wp.me/pb19Tu-nT

• • Our bi-monthly Research in Progress seminars resume this month. The next one is scheduled on the 29^th of September at 2pm. Do join in to catch up on research or share a research problem.

• • This year, SPIN is sponsoring a panel at the annual International Studies Association-Northeast Conference Nov 4^th-6th, entitled ‘Rethinking Secrecy, Space, Power’ in association with the SPIN project exploring new conceptions of space (spatialities) in secrecy studies (panel convened by Dr. Clare Stevens, Portsmouth). ISA-NE is a great conference so if you plan to attend, do attend our panel.  

• • More SPIN-SWDTP events over the next 12 months; for more information or to suggest an event that is secrecy and/or ignorance related, please email us.  

3) Writing 

• • We are delighted to share 2021 SPIN fellow, James Mansfield‘s publication ‘Ruination is a Form of Time Travel’. In his SPIN blog, James introduces uses of fiction in contemporary art practice, and links these methods to his publication. Read the blog at https://wp.me/pb19Tu-o4

• • SPIN-ster, Pat Deppen has just published a new piece in Tom Dispatch connected to his work documenting the global network of US military bases.

• • SPIN is pleased to share two new undergraduate student essays on ignorance now available on our blog:

• • • ‘Ignorance: An Undemocratic Threat from Above‘, by Nicola Fincham, Politics and International Relations BSc student at University of Bristol, which challenges traditional ideas of education as the key to fighting ignorance.

• • • ‘The Role Ignorance Plays in US Politics’, by Grace Williamson-Beare, Final Year Student, Politics and International Relations BSc, University of Bristol.

• • SPIN-sters Dr. Claudia Hillebrand and Dr. Elspeth Van Veeren have new book reviews of recently published books:

• • • A review of Secrets in Global Governance: Disclosure Dilemmas and the Challenge of International Cooperation in World Politics 
    • A review of Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War and Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics

4) Welcoming new members  

• • We are also pleased to welcome new SPIN-ster Dr. Chloe Peacock who joins us from October as an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow exploring how ignorance frames UK criminal justice and social policy responses to the 2011 British ’riots’. Read more about Dr. Peacock and her project, Read more about Dr. Peacock and her project, Justifying ‘Justice’: Tracing the role of ignorance in the cultural politics of punishment in the UK