SPIN Summer Newsletter 2023

Just before we head into the summer months, and hopefully some well-deserved extended leave, here is a roundup of all the goings-on in terms of new members, new publications, a call for submissions, and events!

New Members

A very warm welcome to new member:

• Clare Birchall: Professor of Contemporary Culture at King’s College London (KCL).
  • Research: Clare’s research is concerned with contested knowledges, the politics of visibilities, surveillance, and digital culture. Clare is a leading thinker in secrecy studies so we are delighted to welcome her.
  • Profile: Professor Clare Birchall – KCL

New Publications and Press

• Chloe Peacock (Sheffield) recently published an article on the structural racism of criminal justice professionals’ accounts of the 2011 English ‘riots’.
  • Peacock, C. (2023) ‘Amnesia and the erasure of structural racism in criminal justice professionals’ accounts of the 2011 English disturbances’, in The Sociological Review.
• Lisa Stampnitsky (Sheffield) published an article earlier this year on the widespread perception that expertise is in crisis and why this ‘crisis’ is difficult for sociology to explain.
  • Stampnitsky, L. (2023) ‘Rethinking the “crisis of expertise”: a relational approach’, in Theory and Society.
• Thomas Leahy (Cardiff) recently gave an interview about his new book The Intelligence War Against the IRA(2020) with Faculti website – The Intelligence War against the IRA | Faculti
  • This is a website that may be of interest to others wishing to talk about their work – find out more here

Call for Submissions: The A-Z of Secrecy and Ignorance

We’re moving forward on our long-standing plans to produce a new resource for secrecy studies and ignorance studies, an edited volume and online resource, The A-Z of Secrecy and Ignorance. Built around core concepts and ideas associated with these areas of research, each entry will begin as a short 300 to 700-word summary of the concept (or idea) with links to additional resources (see Global Social Theory or I-PEEL.org as examples) and potentially building towards a more extensive resource in the longer-term, including a book version to be published with illustrations and images, including from our SPIN-MPF Commission programme.

You can see a sample entry for Gaslighting, created by Erin Jenkins, here: https://wp.me/pb19Tu-FM

If your research revolves around a central concept (or set of concepts) and/or you are interested in exploring something that might suit the A-Z, please consider contributing something. It can be any concept from Backstage, Bullshit, or Curiosityto Transparency, Trust, or Wilful Ignorance and everything in between and beyond.  And each entry will be blogged, tweeted and linked to the author’s research. And, if you would like more ideas, we have an existing list of potential topics. We’ll also be reaching out to different people beyond the existing SPIN network.

Do consider penning an entry for us!

For more info, please email Elspeth e.vanveeren@bris.ac.uk

Upcoming Events (please save the dates!)

• Friday 7^th July – Christine Brooke-Rose Centenary Symposium
  • 2023 marks the centenary of the writer, Bletchley Park cryptanalyst, and critic, Cristine Brooke-Rose (1923-2012). In celebration, this day-long symposium explores new contacts, connections, and contexts for Brooke-Rose and her work. Further information, including a full programme: https://cbr100symposium.wordpress.com/ Register for the day here
• Wed 27^thSeptember – SPIN Research in Progress
• October 18^th/25^th (date tbc) – Chloe Peacock Working Paper session, ‘Justifying (In)Justice: Racism, ignorance and the cultural politics of punishment.’ Details to follow separately.
• November (date tbc) – Methods for studying secrecy and/ignorance roundtable/AMA
• Wed 29^thNovember – SPIN Research in Progress
• February (date tbc) – Working Paper session, speaker tbc (please contact Elspeth if you are interested).
• Wed 28^th February – SPIN Research in Progress
• Wed 24^th April– SPIN Research in Progress
• Wed 26^thJune – SPIN Research in Progress

You can find details on past events and even recordings on the SPIN website, www.secrecyresearch.comincluding most recently Oliver Kearns’ Book Launch for The Covert Colour Line. Oliver was joined by Dr Claudia Hillebrand and Dr Shuk Ying Chan in a fascinating discussion on intelligence and racial inequalities.

As always, if you have a new publication, working paper or event relevant to SPIN, please do not hesitate to get in touch secrecyresearch@gmail.com.