SPIN Summer Newsletter

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

Announcements

• The recording of the talk by Dr. Louise Pears and Dr. Anna Miller, ‘Aliens Exist: secrecy and revelations through UFOs/UAPs’ is now available on YouTube.

• The SPIN Routledge Handbook of Gender and Secrecy and the SPIN Routledge Handbook of Secrecy Studies continue to move forward apace. Authors are currently working on the second draft of chapters for the GaS volume and we are now expecting our first round of chapters for the Secrecy Studies volume. Very exciting. There is still an opportunity to contribute a chapter to either volume. Do please get in touch if interested. e.vanveeren@bris.ac.uk.

• We are starting to plan a potential third SPIN Colloquium for December 2026 or April 2027. If you are a SPIN-ster, please check your email and help us choose a possible date.

New Members

Please join us in welcoming the following new SPIN-sters to the community:

• Aidah Aljuran (Ohio State) – Aidah is a linguistic anthropologist working at the intersection of language, religion, and gender, including using ethnographic methods to study how Ismaʿili women in Saudi Arabia creatively cultivate practices of concealment and dissimulation. The working title of her book project is Covert Meanings: Concealment and Dissimulation among Ismaʿili Women.

• Stephanie Codsi (Bristol) – Stephanie is an English literature scholar who works on radical literature of the 1790s, specifically on surveillance and the spy figure.

• Ziyun Fan (York) – Ziyun is an Associate Professor of Responsible Management who has worked on the nexus of transparency and secrecy and responsible leadership, including in relation to climate change response innovation.

• Ellie Fox (Bristol) – Ellie is a Research Fellow based on Geography who works on how extractivism and climate change impact peatlands, glaciers and water in the Andes of Chile and Peru. This includes work on corporate strategic ignorance and the manufacture of uncertainty with respect to corporate responsibilities for environmental pollution.

• Daisy Moynagh (Manchester/Melbourne) – Daisy is a PhD researcher exploring secrecy and intimate life across generations.

• You can see a list and links for all our SPINsters on our People

Events

Please save the dates for the following (Tentative early schedule).

If you would like to share your research through a working paper session or public talk, please do get in touch.

New Publications and Press

• Tim Aistrope has a new article co-authored with Ugo Gaudino in Review of International Studies, ‘Conspiracy theory as counter-securitization: Contestation and resistance during the COVID-19 pandemic’

• Lydia Morgan has a new paper in the Journal of Law and Society ‘Cloistered justice: The opposing trends of barricade and respective secrecy’

• Stephanie Codsi has a new book due out in September with Edinburgh University Press, The Spy Figure in British Radical Literature, 1790–1804: Sincerity and Coded Language. Stephanie will be presenting the book with a SPIN Book Talk scheduled in September.

• Hannah West has a new article in Intelligence and National Security, ‘Invisible bodies of war: British servicewomen on covert operations in Northern Ireland’

• Natalie Ferris is co-editing a new book series with Edinburgh University Press, ‘Secrecy in Literature and Culture’. For more information, you can visit the EUP website or email Natalie directly.

As always, do let us know of any news we can share by emailing us at secrecyresearch@gmail.com