Elspeth Van Veeren

From the CWS ARCHIVE. 4th June 2024.

Exclusive | Hegseth Asked Top Admiral to Resign After Months of Discord The relationship between the Pentagon chief and Adm. Alvin Holsey had been rocky since Trump’s inauguration.

Wow, Adm. Holsey didn't leave of his own accord, Hegseth pushed him out. What looked like the SOCOM head resigning rather than do war crimes now looks like SecDef canning him to facilitate war crimes.

Congress should have him testify, and would've already if war-crime-sympathetic GOP didn't run it.

Investors expect AI use to soar. That’s not happening Recent surveys point to flatlining business adoption

“we estimate employment-weighted share of Americans using AI at work has fallen by a percentage point & now sits at 11%. Adoption has fallen sharply at the largest businesses, those employing +250 people. 3 yrs into the genAI wave, demand looks surprisingly flimsy” www.economist.com/finance-and-...

I’m going to put this down for posterity. Kelly is considering, if not actively, and unofficially, running for President and will be amongst the Democratic hopefuls. And he might have a chance with his profile and the other contenders. Will be watching to see if he speaks at a possible DNC in 2026.

The nation’s top diplomat

Going Cultural: Star Trek, State Action, and Popular Culture - Jutta Weldes, 1999

Ultimately, I owe this approach (amongst many things and insights) to Prof. Jutta Weldes and journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Different stories and popular cultural texts but used in similar way to amplify and make commonsensical different extreme political positions by policymakers and/or conspiracy theories.

Interrogating 24: Making Sense of US Counter-terrorism in the Global War on Terrorism As an increasing number of scholars have argued, the fiction of popular culture and the reality of politics are inseparable. Fact and fiction, rather than remaining distinct, are mutually constitut...

And building on my first look at inter-textuality in work published (what feels like) a very long time ago on torture and the (then) very popular TV show, 24. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Taking the Red Pill: Conspiracy Theories, Gender, and the ‘elusive epistemologies’ of the Manosphere In this article we analyse the gender politics of the anti-feminist "red pill" or Matrix conspiracy theory. Extending the work of Jaron Harambam and Stef Aupers on how conspiracy theorists l...

The talk will in part be based on an article recently coauthored with fantastic PhD researcher Elisabeth Moerking and a former US politics student Harvey Dryer: www.academia.edu/128807572/Ta...

Excited to join Forman Christian College students in Lahore next Monday, the 8th Dec, for my final talk of 2025 (online only sadly). On intertextuality, conspiracy theories, and security narratives - based on some past and future work. Very much looking forward to the discussion that will follow!

SPIN Photography Commission: ‘Sub Rosa (Under the rose)’, Ashutosh Shaktan - SPIN SPIN, in collaboration with The Martin Parr Foundation, is pleased to share a photographic essay by Ashutosh Shaktan.    ...

✨ SPIN Spotlight ✨

Earlier this year, in collaboration with the Martin Parr Foundation, we showcased Ashutosh Shaktan's exploration of the duality of secrecy through lens and light 🌹📷
If you missed it, now’s your chance to discover Ashutosh's work!

🔗 bit.ly/4omTykL

#Secrecy #SPIN #Photography

The unifying aim of all Trump pronouncements and actions is to trash the constitution and impose a white supremacist militarized autocracy by EO and truth social decree - the latest attack on naturalization and birthright citizenship is an ugly new escalation of that barbaric aim.

Effectively there is no *one* person performing the duties of President of the United States right now. We are in an interregnum with an occupied throne.

Is Pluribus a critique of AI??!! I don’t know how I feel about this show and its politics yet.

Jeffrey Epstein's newly-publicized emails implicate the entire elite class that he operated in.

"These circles that he moved in, if they have any superpower, it is the ability to hear the cries of people without power and close their ears."

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Dave watched this government Education Committee meeting so you didn’t have to. But you do have to read his summary (if you have any interest in the future of HE)

Elon Musk’s new pay package could amount to $100B per year.

That's the same as 3.2 million cashiers’ paychecks combined.

It’s more than 1.4 million elementary school teachers’ paychecks.

It’s more than 2 million janitors’ paychecks.

Billionaire greed is out of control.

Join us tomorrow for @jeffwhyte.bsky.social talk on psychological warfare, propaganda and military violence. See details below to sign up!

Come to my book talk this Wed (Nov 19) at 3pm GMT! I'll be talking about my research on the political history of 'psychological war,' how we came to think about 'wars of ideas,' and how psywar has often justified rather than replaced traditional forms of military violence.

Details in link!

Erased How a field built on the intellectual labor and expertise of women erased them

Of course it reminded me of Erased by @whitproject.bsky.social who joined us for a book talk @researchspin.bsky.social last month. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco... Both volumes speak to how women’s contributions to our intellectual life have been systematically and deliberately hidden.

Wifedom Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self, she tries to remember her own, and when she uncovers his forgotten wife, it's a revelation. Eile...

Link to the book: See Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life. www.penguin.co.uk/books/319722...

305. Orwell: Dark Secrets, The CIA, & His Forgotten Failures (Part 4) Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

The @empirepoduk.bsky.social team and Anna Funder delighted and enraged me with their recent episode on Orwell and the erasure of Eileen’s contribution to his greatest works, Animal Farm and 1984. Link to listen: YouTube share.google/qZivUxyHVPFw...

YouTube video by Secrecy, Power and Ignorance research Network SPIN Talk: Vera Zurbrügg

🪙 Missed Dr Vera Zurbrügg’s talk on her Articulated Absences Archive project on the history, myths and ongoing secrecy practices surrounding gold, WWII and Switzerland? You can watch it now on YouTube. Chaired by Dr Elspeth Van Veeren.
Watch here youtu.be/nhosgQdqjvE

#SPINevents #CounterArchives

Next Wednesday, join us for a talk by @jeffwhyte.bsky.social on his latest book - The Birth of Psychological Warfare (OUP). Of interest to those researching and studying US military conflict and history, propaganda, intelligence operations and post-truth politics. Join us! See link for details.

Book Celebration: The Birth of Psychological War by Dr Jeffrey Whyte - SPIN Wednesday November 19th, Time 3pm (UK Time) Dr Jeffrey Whyte  Chair: Professor Brian Rappert   SPIN is pleased to host...

How did psychological warfare reshape the 20th century? Dr Jeff Whyte’s latest book explores propaganda and military violence from WWII to Vietnam. Join us next Wednesday!

🔗 buff.ly/h7tsjcJ.
📖 19 Nov | 15:00 (GMT) | Online
Chair: Prof Brian Rappert

#SPINevents #PsychologicalWarfare

Rudy press conference at 4 seasons total landscaping

HAPPY FOUR SEASONS TOTAL LANDSCAPING DAY TO ALL WHO CELEBRATE

Even I thought this was one of mine!

Mamdani Win Could Be The First Step Towards Seizing The Means of Knowledge Production (Let CUNY Socialize EdTech for All of Us) by Matt Seybold This essay originally appeared on Matt Seybold’s The American Vandal Substack. We are grateful for his generous permission to republish it here. An understandable response to …

"Once these platforms are in place on CUNY campuses, they can license them at cost to SUNY, to NYC Public Schools, potentially to any educational institution who chooses them over the always overpriced, often enshittified, ever-extractive for-profit EdTech platforms."