In this latest newsletter, we’re pleased to welcome new SPIN members, announce new opportunities and celebrate new publications.

Announcements

• Dr. Clare Stevens has been appointed as Lecturer in International Relations at Cardiff University and Dr. Oliver Kearns has been appointed as a Lecturer in Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Leicester. Congratulations to both Clare and Oliver on their new jobs.
• We’re pleased to introducing SPIN Labs—a SPIN ‘spin-off’ developed to be the new ‘home’ for our public-facing and creative outputs. We’re currently working with our first cohort of SPIN Lab fellows to develop new creative outputs and project ideas. If you’d like to work with SPIN Labs as an academic, creative producer or artist, do get in touch.

New Members

• Welcome to SPIN Sam Forsythe. We are excited to support Sam’s research project that rethinks deception, international security, and democracy, including in relation to disinformation and digital propaganda.
• Welcome to the SPIN community, Spencer Izen. We are delighted to have Spencer on board, and to support his project on the socio-technical and socio-legal aspects of Freedom of Information practices in British Columbia, Canada.

New Publications and Press

• Dr. Thomas Leahy and Dr. Eleanor Leah Williams have a new article in Intelligence and National Security, an exploration of how actors tackle alleged and self-confessed informing. More info: https://wp.me/pb19Tu-Lz
• SPIN member Dr. Natalie Jester and Dr. Emma Dolan dissect Boeing’s social media response to the Ethiopian Airlines crash in their latest article for Critical Studies on Security. They look at the discourse around aviation deaths versus the hushed narrative of casualties from the arms trade. Read more: https://wp.me/pb19Tu-Ka
• Read the latest essay “O is for Official Record” from the A-Z of Secrecy and Ignorance by Dr. Peter Finn and Dr. Robert Ledger. Available here: https://wp.me/pb19Tu-Kw
• SPIN-ster Dr. Luca Trenta, with co-authors, also has a new article in Intelligence and National Security, exploring the strategic use of covertness in international relations and the pacifying role of secrecy domestically. Read more: https://wp.me/pb19Tu-LM
• Congratulations to Clare Birchall on her recent publication of two new book chapters in Toward Radical Transparency (2023) and Has Conspiracy Theory Run Out of Steam? (2023)
• SPIN-ster Own Thomas’ latest collaborative paper is out: ‘Public inquiries into conflict and security: Scandals, archives, and the politics of epistemology’ with Margot Tudor and Catriona Pennell. Direct link to the article is here. 
• SPIN-ster Oliver Kearns’ has been interviewed in the U.S. online magazine The Progressive on the role of racism and ‘rationality’ in Israel’s intelligence failure and the genocide in Gaza. Read 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 sample entries for Gaslighting and for Curiosity, created by Erin Jenkins.

If you research a secrecy and/or ignorance 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 Conspiracy Theory to 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 more info, please email Elspeth e.vanveeren@bris.ac.uk

You can find details on past publications, members, events and even recordings across the SPIN website.

If you have an event relevant to SPIN, please do get in touch secrecyresearch@gmail.com.