October 2021 SPIN Round-up Newsletter

Below is a round-up of some of the events and projects which we’ve been working on at SPIN this October:

• Over 2021, SPIN has nurtured a partnership with Bristol’s We The Curious to develop ‘A-Z of Secrecy and Ignorance’, a new set of activities for school-age children and their parents to work through, to gather data on understandings of secrecy and ignorance. We’re hoping to publish these findings in a paper or series of interviews soon.

• SPIN is happy to share the recording of ‘Charles W. Mills: Legacies of Thought in Bristol’ seminar, co-hosted by Centre for Comparative and International Research in Education (CIRE); Centre for Black Humanities; Education, Justice and Memory Network (EdJAM) to mark the passing of Mills and his intellectual and personal contributions, including his work on white ignorance.

• In September, SPIN hosted the book launch for Professor William Walters’ ‘State Secrecy and Security: Refiguring the Covert Imaginary‘. In the book, William Walters calls for secrecy to be given a more central place in critical security studies and elevated to become a core concept when theorising power in liberal democracies. A video recording of the event is forthcoming.

• If you are attending the International Studies Association-Northeast Conference (Nov 4th-6^th) this year, do consider joining us. SPIN is sponsoring a panel 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). 

• Prof. Brian Rappert’s upcoming Zoom-based show “Magical Encounters”, Nov 8th 19:30-21:00, offers a highly innovative session that makes use of entertainment magic to explore themes about how we live together with secrecy and deception. Though tickets are sold out, do consider registering for a future date. 

• On Nov 24^th at 1pm, we’re pleased to welcome Adam Sisman, author of John Le Carré: The Biography (2015) to talk about researching, interviewing and writing about such an elusive subject and key figure in the history of UK intelligence, known for his work in British intelligence and for his influential fiction. Register via Eventbrite here.

• Our next bi-monthly Research in Progress seminars is scheduled on the 24^th of November at 3pm. Do join in to catch up on research or share a research problem. 

• SPIN’s online workshop ‘Revelations’ on the 14th January 2022 seeks to provide greater refinement to ‘Revelations’, a concept often invoked but insufficiently examined. Do consider submitting an abstract and joining us. Further details on the SPIN website.

• 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. 

• We are pleased to welcome Max Perry, whose research looks at the ways secrecy & ignorance are structurally built into the technology of record keeping and how the medical record thrives on a strategic deployment of invisibility. Read more about Max’s project here.

• We are also pleased to welcome new SPIN-ster Dr. Chloe Peacock who has joined this month 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 here.