Uygar Baspehlivan

Check out my dear and awesome friend Charlie's new piece on the silly/serious politics of digital reaction! 👇👇

I saw him live as an opener to a Steven Wilson gig at Royal Albert Hall years ago. He does beautiful folk music.

Purple certificate card with the BISA 50 year logo, the words WINNER and Best Article in the Review of International Studies Prize Uygar Baspehlivan - Theorizing the memescape: the spatial politics of internet memes “Receiving this award as an early career scholar is both a true honour and an incredible opportunity! I am so humbled to be recognised by a panel of such excellent critical scholars. I hope this award will inspire other ECRs and PhD students to experiment more with their objects of theorisation and widen interest in the everyday politics of moving digital media."

🎉 Best Article in the @risjnl.bsky.social winner this year was @ubaspehlivan.bsky.social

for: 'Theorising the memescape: The spatial politics of Internet memes' with judges finding the 'theoretical approach original & highly relevant' 🌟

Summary - buff.ly/Rvd09Wk
DOI -

Have you read the 2024 winner of the RIS Best Article Prize? Uygar Baspehlivan's article "Theorising the memescape: The spatial politics of Internet memes" is #OpenAccess, and a must read for anyone interested in visual IR!

👉 buff.ly/fZmc0Ch

🚨 Launch of the first MA in International Political Sociology at @qmpoliticsir.bsky.social, starting September 2025. Applications are now open for 2025-26. The programme adopts a problem-driven approach, bridging disciplines to address complex challenges in World Politics. More information here:

Anne-Marie Houde and Ugyar Baspehhlivan collecting their award from the EPIR convenors.

Our 11th joint winners were Anne-Marie Houde and Ugyar Baspehhlivan of the Emotions Working Group Prize – best PhD thesis in Emotions and Politics and IR 🎉
#BISA2025

Purple BISA prize certificate card with the BISA 50 logo and the words: WINNER Best Article in the Review of International Studies Prize Uygar Baspehlivan - Theorizing the memescape: the spatial politics of internet memes “Receiving this award as an early career scholar is both a true honour and an incredible opportunity! I am so humbled to be recognised by a panel of such excellent critical scholars. I hope this award will inspire other ECRs and PhD students to experiment more with their objects of theorisation and widen interest in the everyday politics of moving digital media."

Uygar collecting his award given to him by editor of the RIS. In the background there is a BISA powerpoint slide with details of the prize.

Our fourth winner was Uygar Baspehlivan🎉

Uygar Baspehlivan won the Review of International Studies: Best Article Prize for his article 'Theorizing the memescape: the spatial politics of internet memes' 📝

#BISA2025

If you're interested in the article, you can find it below :).

If you're interested in the thesis, wait for a book, hopefully sooner than later! 🙏
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

@mybisa.bsky.social @risjnl.bsky.social

🏆🏆Absolute pleasure to be awarded the:
-RIS Best Article Prize for "Theorising the Memescape: The Spatial Politics of Internet Memes
-Honourable Mention for BISA Michael Nicholson Best Thesis Prize @MYBISA
-BISA Emotions in Politics and IR Working Group Best Thesis Prize

Ambient Extremism in Reactionary Digital Politics In this second talk of ACES’s “Diagonalism” series, Robert Topinka engages with the idea of “ambient extremism.” This type of contemporary digital reactionary politics entails a dissolution of distinc...

I enjoyed this talk by @robtoes.bsky.social on the rhetoric of reactionary digital politics. I liked the idea of 'ambient extremism.' I think it's very useful to understand how reactionary rhetoric leaks into our daily conversations by blurring boundaries. I also liked+
www.spui25.nl/programma/am...

Summer School - Reactionary Politics Research Network

📣Applications for the second Reactionary Politics Summer School are open📣

The summer school provides a space to develop key skills for the research of reactionary politics. It will be hosted hybrid and attendance is free. Bursaries are also available. Sign up below!

reacpol.net/summer-schoo...

My review of The Technological Republic by Palantir CEO Alex Karp and exec Nicholas Zamiska is out. They call for Silicon Valley to re-align with the Pentagon, where democracy is obsolete, engineers shift from apps to weapons, and code becomes law. Tech is no longer just for profit. It’s for war.

Incredibly honoured to have received BISA Emotions in Politics Working Group's Best Thesis Prize! And to share it with the lovely @annemhoude.bsky.social! Double the honour 😊😊

❤️❤️

A whole new issue!

Check out Volume 51, Issue 2 on our website now! All articles are free to read until the end of the month 🥳

Following the outcome of the recent regional elections and in response to the rising tide of fascism in the region (and beyond), we've sent a letter to the VC asking Durham University to publicly commit to the safety and wellbeing of its international/migrant staff and students. Excerpts below:

We're hiring! I'll be co-supervising a PhD at Utrecht University on the global governance of socially disruptive technologies. Political philosophy/ethics project focused on legitimacy & good governance.

More info: edu.nl/9admd
Deadline: June 3, 2025 (apologies for the short notice!)

Are you a graduate student who presented at the 2025 ISA in Chicago?

If you were part of a panel sponsored or co-sponsored by the IPS section, consider applying to the 2026 IPS Graduate Student Paper Award! Self-nominations are encouraged!

The Consummative Mood of Authoritarianism: The Affective and Material Politics of Megaprojects in Turkey This essay builds on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to outline a consummative mood of authoritarian politics in Turkey. It defines the consummative mood as the fetishization of effic...

My article is finally out w/ Rethinking Marxism! Thankful to all my colleagues who provided feedback at different stages including @kaibosworth.bsky.social & Uygar Baspehlivan. Super grateful to the editors too, they’ve been very generous and encouraging.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A brightly coloured poster which says invites diabetic people in the UK to take part in a focus group online or in person to talk about their experience of diabetic carbohydrate tracking and what might make it better. There is a QR code to the link below to express interest. Participants will be paid with a £20 love to shop gift card, and the study has been granted ethical approval by the University of Sheffield. Expression of interest form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf7cFTJl9AI7NfJf-O9Y3Mziy6w0akanKmCVYKPblVswmscHg/viewform?usp=dialog

*seeking diabetic people based in the UK*

Great opportunity to help researchers who are seeking to design better diabetic food tracking technology! Please share.

Expression of interest here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

One, Two, Many Spinozist-Marxisms: A Postscript to The Double Shift

Working on my presentation for the Spinoza/Marx conference this Friday and coming back to my central point that all attempts to derive a theory of ideology from ultimately become about the relation between minds and bodies, and how one reads EIIP7

www.unemployednegativity.com/2024/04/one-...

my hard pivot to environmental (still digital) politics going strong. really enjoyed Ted DeLay's Future of Denial, this one's going super well too 😇

Interesting piece on memes and international politics here

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

A great discussion and fantastic questions! These @mybisa.bsky.social working groups aren't just good fun, they're great spaces to share and develop ideas in a friendly academic space. 10/10 would recommend. Thank you for organising @epir-bisa.bsky.social and @annemhoude.bsky.social !

A zoom meeting in which one speaker is gesturing with their hands.

📢We had a fascinating concluding event for the year today with @epir-bisa.bsky.social !

👉📚Topic 'Emotions and the right – navigating feeling in the study of populism and reactionary politics' w/ @theoaiolfi.bsky.social
@charlieprice.bsky.social @ubaspehlivan.bsky.social and Elisabeth Mörking

Don't forget to join us tomorrow!

Queer, Trans, and Intersex Liberation History Join us for a discussion of 'Hermaphrodite Logic' and 'Eros and Empire' with authors Juliana Gleeson and Alexander Stoffel.

Juliana Gleeson and I will be speaking about our books on sexual liberation histories later this month.

The event will be live-streamed on YouTube, 27 May, 5pm BST.

Registration link here: www.eventbrite.com/e/1342159758...

Labour cabinet meetings be like

George W. Bush was the worst President of the last few generations and it's really not close. what we in the US are (rightly!) up in arms about is that Trump is the worst President for us, specifically - which is a different thing