this from my piece on charlie kirk is probably the most important takeaway if you want to know why bad faith, right-wing voices in media are treated as just another set of peers

Delighted to have my chapter on the security politics of mazes included in this forthcoming volume, shepherded with a lot of patience by Faye and Tillman. Links to prepublication version below.

Faye Donnelly and Tilman Schwarze eds. Security and Space: In Pursuit of Interconnections - @brisunipress.bsky.social, May 2026 bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/security-and...

Yesterday's piece from @jamellebouie.net is the only high-profile piece I've seen that specifically discusses the watchlist, its effect on academics, and its effect on public attitudes toward academia as a whole. (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/13/o...

More dates for your diaries! Our line-up of talks this term include: 1 Oct, 3pm (UK time) – Erased - Patricia Owens 22 Oct, 3pm – Articulated Absences Archive - Vera Zurbrügg 19 Nov, 3pm – The Birth of Psychological War - Jeff Whyte For news, follow us on BlueSky, LInkedIn or secrecyresearch.com

Very pleased to appear in this stellar lineup!

Save the date! First event of the academic year. Book Talk: Prof Patricia Owens (Oxford) discussing her latest book: Erased: A History of International Thought Without Men, chair @zaranosaur.bsky.social 1 Oct 3pm (UK Time), Zoom All welcome! wp.me/pb19Tu-1ap #SPINEvents #InternationalRelations

On hold with a UK energy supplier to rearrange (overcharging) direct debits. The hold music is the serenade for strings used in Squid Game. It feels like they are trolling me. 🤣

"The academic career is framed as a privileged but high-risk venture that ppl knowingly choose to embark on so they must endure the consequences or find a way to cope, thus obscuring deliberate adoption of biz models that [deprioritize] investment in staff + render large sections of the workforce 🗑️"

Slightly diminish a book Becky (With apologies to any Becky. 🤣)

Roland Barthes has some comforting words for anyone preparing for the start of a new academic year:

What fresh hell is this? Our uni systems are not equipped to keep up with the pace of change of GenAI. As a result we’re failing our students who will emerge without the one skill UKHE has prided itself on: reading for a degree.

14 signatures away from 400 - thank you all so much. ELCE is one of the best things about Bristol and it would be a travesty to lose it

disgraceful decision to suspend the flagship widening participation initiative in the humanities at Bristol please sign and share this letter to oppose this docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Despite the stereotypes, Bristol Uni is not just for the well-off. The English Dept does great outreach work and, this part-time, evening class, whole-ass degree, should be treated as the jewel in their crown (to upend a metaphorical hierarchy!) Please sign the letter.

I'm going to publish the entirety of an exchange I just had with the press office of the DOJ. I want you to see how they are talking about truth.

Israel is not the only government in history to cut off access to food and water as a tool of war. The United States and Canada have also used starvation to conquer Indigenous peoples and acquire their land.

"Trump’s interference in the sciences is something new. It shares features with the science-damaging policies of Stalin and Hitler, says David Wootton, a historian of science. But in the English-speaking world, it has no precedent, he told me: “This is an unparalleled destruction from within.”

ALWAYS give to Sameer Project. They're in Gaza, they're Palestinian, and they provide with dignity and respect. Gazans often say that it's generally best to donate to individual fundraisers, that prominent orgs are nowhere to be seen in Gaza!--Except the Sameer Project which is consistently active.

This is an executive order that lays the groundwork for sending homeless people and people with mental illness to concentration camps to be "civilly committed." It was never going to stop with immigrants. This is horrifying beyond words. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

The rain didn’t stop us. UCU joined tens of thousands in London today, marching in solidarity with Palestine and calling for an immediate ceasefire. The message is clear: end the occupation. Free Palestine. #FreePalestine #CeasefireNow

"The Nazis... imagined their targets would self-deport. Once the myth of self-deportation collapsed, they turned to more punitive measures. On Tuesday, Noem similarly noted the Everglades camp was meant to frighten immigrants into self-deporting. 'If you don’t,' she said, 'you may end up here.'"

This 83-year-old priest has just been arrested for holding a sign which read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” According to Starmer’s new law, this puts her in the same category as an ISIS or Al-Qaeda terrorist, with a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

This @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social video is absolutely INCREDIBLE. The numbers he cites, the strategy and results they produced — it’s the future. When have you heard *any* campaign talk about this, ever? (Video split in 2 to fit in Bluesky’s limits)

📺 Missed our recent FOIA research methods workshop? You can now stream the full recording, including contributions from Aiden Clarkson, Kevin Walby & Hannah Richards. Stream here: buff.ly/aX3VI3r #SPINEvents #FOIA #OpenAccess

Expert historian of the Constitution: “Once a constitutional crisis becomes an endemic condition, the term no longer usefully describes our collapsing system….we live in an era of constitutional failure when the relevant institutions cannot fulfill their responsibilities.” Fr @jrakove.bsky.social

This administration wants to eliminate gender studies departments while simultaneously constantly reminding us of the need for them

For young people starting at a new job, making friends can feel anxiety-inducing. One way to make it easier? Joining or forming a union. Five young people working across industries and across the country share how organizing helped them find community and changed their relationship with work. ⤵️

🕵️‍♀️ F is for Five Eyes – the latest post in our A–Z of Secrecy series by Dr Lydia Morgan (University of Birmingham). Learn about the historically important intelligence cooperation alliance of the UK, US, AUS, CAN & NZ. Read here: buff.ly/fBLEGOK #SPINBlog #FiveEyes #Secrecy

One of our earliest civil rights statutes was designed to protect us against masked gangs who violate our constitutional rights. This particular history makes the masked ICE gangs uniquely repugnant. open.substack.com/pub/sherrily...

so it seems the take away is that if you have a Spotify sub, you’re paying for military technology development?

Trump's reason for withdrawing from the Iran deal...

He was humiliated last weekend. This weekend he bombed someone. My guess is there is a relationship between those two events.

✊🥂Huge congratulations to the whole @newcastleucu.bsky.social membership and team. Compulsory redundancies withdrawn. Sends a message to university management everywhere. Just shows what you can do with organisation, solidarity, and right on your side.

Harriet Tubman #quilt by my Mom, Vera P. Hall, who makes quilts celebrating Black people who fought for their own freedom. This seems to be the crowd favorite of the “We Didn’t Wait for Freedom” series. Happy #Juneteenth #quilting

📝 SPIN is delighted to share an essay by Politics & IR student Shae Miles: The Age of Innocence and Ignorance: Exploring the ‘silencing of the past’ in US foreign policy. This was written as part of Shae's excellent work on the University of Bristol's US Foreign Policy unit. Read: buff.ly/lXhvUsp

Stimulating and interesting essay, esp. how secrecy informs the narrative reconstitution and replenishment of American exceptionalism across time; a 20C redux of manifest destiny is (re)produced via secrecy. Well worth reading!

This is a vital message: one of the larger reasons BlueSky is refreshingly free of alt-right shitlords is because in the early days we made a gentleperson’s agreement to starve these fuckos out and it worked. No likes, no quotes, no engagement. They got bored and left. Please keep the Old Ways.

Do not let JD Vance on Bluesky! BLOCK NOW @jd-vance-1.bsky.social

Wait, they played CCR's Fortunate Son? Oh, the irony. An anti-war song about being sent off to war while the rich kids got to stay home.... for a military parade of an entitled jack ass who dodged going to war. Amazing.

Oh goody. Some poorly designed research conducted by a private agency for Ofcom that suggests ‘the manosphere isn’t that bad really.’ 😒 🤦🏻‍♀️ 😡 www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Update: We've removed the paywall for all ye who enter.

Padilla: If this is how DHS responds to a senator with a question you can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California.

It’s here. No more is it fascism yet? It’s here

This was the plan the entire time and it was always going to be targeted towards Democratic run cities. It’s not about law and order. It’s about controlling by force the areas where Trump does not control by ideology.

A huge thanks to the brilliant Maya Goodfellow who recently interviewed me for @theguardian.com about my book, and the entangled histories of extinction and empire more broadly. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

⏳ Just one week to go until SPIN is at BISA 2025 in Belfast! Please join us for our panel exploring the interconnections of secrecy and international politics. See details of SPIN's panel: buff.ly/bvqdFhE #SPINatBISA #SecrecyResearch #BISA2025