From Roger Scruton cafes to paying Matt Goodwin $10k a month, Viktor Orban has built a network of populist right think tanks, journalists and activists Today Democracy for Sale delves into Orban’s allies on the British right Well worth a read democracyforsale.substack.com/p/orbans-brits

Programme and registration is now live! Trust, Mistrust and Community St Mary’s University 12th-13th June Keynote: Yasmin Gunaratnam Conference programme: www.conftool.net/aps-2026/ind... Registration and further information: www.psychosocial-studies-association.org/conference-2...

The University of Essex plans to close their Southend campus and cut up to 400 jobs — around one in five staff! But the staff and students are fighting back. Sign their petition to stop the cuts, save Southend, and protect education www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/sa...

I don’t know who needs to hear Jesse Jackson leading the kids on Sesame Street in this beautiful call-and-response reminding them that every child is somebody, but here it is

Freud’s insights into trauma, repression and the unconscious are finding new relevance and millions of followers.

Bad Bunny understood the assignment…

Moriarty: "A police officer of color who was off duty was boxed in by ICE - she's a citizen - they demanded to know who she was & see her papers. She was going to try to record it & they ripped the phone out of her hand. That happened to a cop. That's what's happening here on the streets of MN."

www.theguardian.com/politics/202... John Crace on brilliant form here

Join us on Thursday 12 June at the beautiful garden of the Freud Museum in London for a very special theatrical workshop (rehearsal and live analysis + Q&A) on Shakespeare's Pericles: Prince of Tyre - a manual of reconciliation in a fractured world. www.freud.org.uk/event/uncann...

Congratulations to the editors of this exciting new collection, which interrogates psychosocial studies as a scholarly praxis of “creative disruption”. Including a playful piece of my own about Brexit, drawing on @profcand.bsky.social work on political culture: link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

Mrs Dalloway open.substack.com/pub/jeanette...

This sums the whole situation up quite nicely.

A reminder for the next @assocpsychosocial.bsky.social reading group - 6pm tonight! Please join us to discuss the allure of fascism in liberal societies, with Alasdair Cannon and @profcand.bsky.social

If you know, you know

Delighted to be taking part in this international theatre workshop in the beautiful garden at The Freud Museum London, 12 June. Come and join us! www.freud.org.uk/event/uncann...

Please join us for our next reading group! Writer and podcaster Alasdair Cannon will be presenting a psychosocial perspective on fascism, based on his timely new book. Thursday 1 May, 6pm. @profcand.bsky.social @tjfielder.bsky.social @heidis-ann.bsky.social www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-allure...?

With reference to the film Adolescence, Debbie Ging’s excellent article on the gender scripts of patriarchal masculinity and the contradictions between the exp of male fragility and the performance of toughness- leading to violence www.thejournal.ie/readme/adole...

Exciting things are happening for APS 2025 @assocpsychosocial.bsky.social More details coming soon!

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” he said at the time. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains … We want to put them in trauma.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Dreams under fascism, and paralysis:

Do join us for the next @assocpsychosocial.bsky.social reading group on 19 Feb! Prof Fintan Walsh will be presenting his latest research on theatre, performance and post-pandemic grief @noreengiffney.bsky.social @profcand.bsky.social @jacobjohanssen.bsky.social www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/performing...

My god, if you'd told me 15 years ago that the British press and establishment would be mesmerised by the antics of a needy overgrown man-child ... What foolishness. We were supposed to have had our great debate about sovereignty - tell him to piss off & get on with the real business of politics.

Trolling the UK: the issues enraging Elon Musk, world’s richest ‘pub bore’.

On the history side it would be 19th/early 20th century politics/economic history On pol sci it would be comparative govt/sociology

Another piece that highlights the contemporary relevance of Richard Hofstadter’s essay ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’ -characterised by “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy”’

McCarthyism stalked my family. Its paranoia contains a lesson for Trump’s second term

Looking forward to continuing the research links between BU and UWE through our project ‘Voices from a Tide Isle’ using social dreaming and audio media to create an affective soundscape to explore the experience of women volunteers supporting refugees in Portland.

Excited to be appointed a Visiting Prof at UWE in the School of Social Sciences! Check out my UWE colleague Lita Crocoani-Windland’s fascinating work on the psychosocial meanings of buildings - putting the Communist Headquarters building in France on the couch. tinyurl.com/yc65xjn8

‘In the decade since Donald Trump began to define American politics, critics have struggled to understand his massive appeal. They have perhaps sensed by now that Trump’s support comes from someplace underneath conscious and rational political analyses.’

Call for Editor and Associate Editors of the Journal of Psychosocial Studies Application deadline: Friday 31st January 2025 Suitable for PhD students / ECRs and more senior scholars respectively. Please pass on! bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journal...

Call for research proposals for a fully-funded PhD in #Psychoanalysis & Culture @ Ulster University, Belfast 3-year research projects with an emphasis on the object relations tradition of psychoanalysis. I will supervise the project. Further details: www.ulster.ac.uk/doctoralcoll...

Never timelier #BBCFreeThinking on How Do We Think About Evil. @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social @jacksymes.bsky.social @lyndseystonebri.bsky.social @ruthwarewriter.bsky.social @oliverscottcurry.bsky.social & @zrinka.bsky.social on banality, best lines & the #Stanford buzz. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Daniel Willingham, a psychologist at UVA, told me. “Being bored has become unnatural.” Reading books, even for pleasure, can’t compete with TikTok, Instagram, YouTube” and maybe Bluesky too? www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

A discussion of the affective gendered leadership stereotypes in the US election, where depressingly, retro-masculine fantasies of the ‘strong male protector’ won out.

Two years ago today we were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for protecting The US Capitol on January 6th 2021. Almost 4 years later the efforts to downplay, whitewash and minimize what happened appear to be succeeding. I won't ever stop standing up to them.

Christa Van Raalte and Richard Wallace draw on their research on exploitative TV work practices to comment on the Greg Wallace case: ‘ the underlying structures and cultures of the TV industry make such behaviour almost inevitable’: theconversation.com/gregg-wallac...

@zoesqwilliams.bsky.social absolutely brilliant here. Her final line is gold. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

My ten-minute talk on #Arendt for @britishacademy.bsky.social www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/hannah-...

Psychoanalysis & the Psychosocial Starter Pack go.bsky.app/UJV7CvG

‘From a psychoanalytic perspective, I see how political disputes follow dynamics similar to disputes between couples, albeit amplified’

I don't know this song but maybe some of you hip young folks do. Either way, bardcore is always fun, so enjoy: youtu.be/V7jOobdrdGo?...

Congratulations Lynnfroggett.Bsky.social ! Ulster University are fortunate to have you join them!

Today the British Psychoanalytic Council gave me an award at their annual PPNow conference for ‘Dedication to Psychoanalytic Scholarship’. Thanks to all who nominated me!

Festive larks at the Freud Museum! youtu.be/7n6PawcIGbs