February 2022 Newsletter

A round-up of some of the events SPIN worked on at the end of 2021 and an update of what to keep an eye out for in 2022.

SPIN, in collaboration with The Martin Parr Foundation, is pleased to announce a new secrecy/ignorance-themed photography commission with London-based photographer, Emily Graham. The work produced through the commission will be showcased this spring via the MPF Instagram, on the SPIN website/socials and through the publication of a limited run of postcards through the MPF. Emily will also join SPIN in a special talk to discuss her work. Details to follow.

In November 2021, SPIN members presented their papers at the ISA North East Virtual Conference for a panel on Secrecy and Spatiality.

SPIN is happy to share the recording of the panel and book launch for Professor William Walters’ new book State Secrecy and Security: Refiguring the Covert Imaginary. In the book, 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. Watch our fascinating panellists discuss the book and its themes by here.

SPIN is excited to share a recording of guest author and researcher, Adam Sisman, author of John le Carré: The Biography, who joined SPIN for a conversation in late 2021. In the recording, Sisman discusses researching, interviewing and writing about the elusive David John Moore Cornwell (aka the globally successful spy fiction author John le Carré). Listen to the recording on YouTube.

January saw Prof Brian Rappert host a workshop on ‘Revelations’, and often used but under-examined concept. Stay tuned for the work emerging in connection with that project, or for more information, please contact Brian.

February 9th, Dr. Emily Van Duyn will discuss her newly published book Democracy Lives in Darkness: How and Why People Keep Their Politics a Secret, which argues that political secrecy has become a necessity for mainstream partisans and the result of intensifying political prejudice and segregation within and across communities. Sign up to the event via Eventbrite.

Our next bi-monthly Research in Progress seminars is scheduled on the 16th of Feb at 2pm. SPIN-sters and guests are welcome to this informal chat to catch up on research or share a research problem. CANCELLED DUE TO THE UCU STRIKE.

At our upcoming lunchtime event, Poisons and Podcasts, on March 7th at 1pm, Dr. Brett Edwards will talk through his work on poisons and pestilence as weapons, as well as his experiences recording a podcast – a burgeoning practice in research communication. Sign up to the event via Eventbrite.

SPIN is still happy to receive expressions of interest in joining a special 2-hour workshop on teaching secrecy (date to be agreed by participants). To register your interest, please contact Evelyn, the SPIN administrator.

More exciting SPIN-SWDTP events throughout 2022; for more information or to suggest an event that is secrecy and/or ignorance related, please email us.

Introducing Visiting Researcher SPIN-ster Dr. Sabrina Villenave, University of Manchester. Sabrina is a lecturer whose research examines disappearances as a phenomenon that have been highly politicised from Latin America’s experience on dictatorships during the 1970s.

SPIN is pleased to have worked with Isha Vibhakar, third year of my Theatre and Film degree at University of Bristol as our SPIN 2021 Intern.

SPIN is pleased to share Clare Stevens’ new book review on the ⁦‪Security Dialogue blog in which she argues that the author Clare Birchall ‘goes against the conventions of routine discourse to make a valuable intervention’ in her book Radical Secrecy: The Ends of Transparency in Datafied America. Link to read the full book review.

If you have any publications or events that you’d like SPIN to share via our channels, please get in touch with SPIN via our Contact Page.