Alexandra Irimia

Appel à communication | 11e rencontres doctorales du Centre Michel Foucault Appel à communications/ Pour le centenaire de Michel Foucault, l’Imec accueille les rencontres doctorales de l’Association pour le Centre Michel Foucault. Ces journées en immersion à l’abbaye d’Ardenn...

this year marks Foucault's centenary -- a good occasion to share this call with French-speaking doctoral students interested in his work.

imec-archives.com/qui-sommes-n...

Increasingly normalized by current strands of populist rhetoric, the phenomenon has a long tradition, I argue, that can be traced back at least to Georges Courteline's 1893 "Messieurs les ronds-de-cuir."

2/2

⏳ Thrilled to co-host this two-day panel with Karolin Schäffer at the ACLA annual in Montreal!

Eight contributions will unpack a wide range of literary case-studies which illustrate the objectification of office workers.

www.acla.org/conference/s...

1/2

Had a great time yesterday in Brussels at this workshop on faces and figures of administration (mis)handling all sorts of European political crises, 16th to 21st century -- thanks, @ferrerbartomeu.bsky.social, for the impeccable organisation!

Issue #6 of Bureaucritics is out now!

Catch up with the latest in art, fiction, and scholarship about bureaucracy.

bureaucritics.substack.com/p/cultural-b...

#newsletter #bureaucracy #administration #officeliterature #bureaucraticfiction #parliaments

Romania to be guest of honor at Frankfurt Book Fair 2028 Romania will be the guest of honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2028 and will manage a pavilion of approximately 1,500–2,000 sqm, according to a memorandum approved by the Romanian government on Thur...

so thrilled about this!
www.romania-insider.com/romania-gues...

Bürokratie: In die Bürokratie hineingerutscht wie andere in ihre Midlife-Crisis Andere kaufen sich ein Rennrad, Alexandra Irimia erforscht die Bürokratie. Mal sieht sie darin eine verwunschene Schönheit, mal tödliche Gefahr.

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: Die Zeit published a long-form piece featuring my research.

Many thanks to Katharina Meyer zu Eppendorf and to everyone who, directly and indirectly, made this possible.

www.zeit.de/campus/2026-...

Bürokratie: In die Bürokratie hineingerutscht wie andere in ihre Midlife-Crisis Andere kaufen sich ein Rennrad, Alexandra Irimia erforscht die Bürokratie. Mal sieht sie darin eine verwunschene Schönheit, mal tödliche Gefahr.

🗞️ Lesenswertes @zeitonline.bsky.social-Porträt der Literaturwissenschaftlerin @alexandrairim.bsky.social (ehem. KWI Int Fellow), die äußerst erfolgreich Bürokratie beforscht.

Artikel (Paywall): www.zeit.de/campus/2026-...

Group picture of the recent cohort of KWI International Fellows

13 is your lucky number? Become part of KWI’s 13th International Fellowship cohort and apply by 28 Feb 2026! We invite #Postdoc scholars in the #humanities, #socialsciences, or #culturalstudies to join us at KWI from 1 Oct 26 until 31 Mar 27.
📢 Call: www.kulturwissenschaften.de/wp-content/u...

Tagung »Visuelle Repräsentationen des Parlamentarismus seit 1789. Ein europäisches Panorama« | kgparl Ohne Bilder kann der moderne Parlamentarismus nicht existieren. Als repräsentative Herrschaftsform, die auf tendenziell freien Wahlen und dem freien Mandat beruht, ist er auf schriftliche…

on the visual representations of parliamentarism in Europe (in French & German)

kgparl.de/tagung-visue...

In German: www.uni-bonn.de/de/neues/im-...

I answered some questions about my #research for @unibonn.bsky.social, so now this short #interview exists:
www.uni-bonn.de/en/news/in-t...
(German version below)

Thanks, as always, to the @humboldt-foundation.de for the support!

#postdoc #complit #bureaucraticfiction #sciencecommunication

soon in Heidelberg, on the last talk for the project this conference season! 🍂

#Conference
ARCHITECTURE AND BUREAUCRACY
As part of the FWF project ‘Invisible Agents’, the conference is convened by the IHB and the Institute of Art History at CAS and will take place on 6 and 7 November 2025 at the PSK-Building, 1010 Vienna.
See more ⬇️
www.oeaw.ac.at/ihb/detail/e...

Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen (KWI) Das Kulturwissenschaftliche Institut Essen (KWI) ist ein interdisziplinäres Forschungskolleg für Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften in der Tradition internationaler Institutes for Advanced Study. Als i...

#KWIonTour: @schalkewins.bsky.social & @awierzock.bsky.social are giving presentations at the workshop “Temporary Intensities. Ephemeral Media, Practices, and Archives” @unituebingen.bsky.social. Also participating: our ex-fellows @alexandrairim.bsky.social & Ádám Havas. ✨
🔗 tinyurl.com/4kavv67d

next week in Tübingen, looking at ephemeral media, practices, and archives with @schalkewins.bsky.social, @awierzock.bsky.social, @takapp.bsky.social & her emerging research network on ephemeral epistemologies and encounters

www.ephemeralnetwork.com

Thanks, Daniel, I'm really happy you could join us—you classify bureaucratic paradoxes like no other!😉

For more details, see filesformsfictions.com

the fun begins tomorrow
— grateful to everyone involved, I couldn't have made it happen without you!

I guess now's as good a time as there will ever be to unearth an article I wrote about Krazsnahorkai's and Tarr's Sátántangó before it was cool.

Then again, it's always been cool.

#Nobel #Krasznahorkai #Satantango

www.ekphrasisjournal.ro/docs/R1/20E1...

How the German government is going all in on AI – DW – 10/05/2025 Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s cabinet agreed on a "modernization agenda" this week, which includes the use of AI. Critics have questioned how much of this is in the public interest.

"Among the plans for integrating AI into everyday use is an online platform for export-based businesses to bundle information on export regulations and credit options, and expediting visa processing by using AI to review an applicant's documents."

Source: www.dw.com/en/german-go...

How the German government is going all in on AI – DW – 10/05/2025 Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s cabinet agreed on a "modernization agenda" this week, which includes the use of AI. Critics have questioned how much of this is in the public interest.

"Reducing bureaucracy costs by 25% by 2029, offering more public services online and using artificial intelligence in government and in courts are some of the projects Chancellor Friedrich Merz's cabinet agreed to this past week."

we might have caught the wrong Jonathan in the loop, though -- the co-author of the article is not yet on BlueSky from what I know, unlike other scholars with his name 😅

thanks, Anja, and not just for the enthusiastic reception: I remember you encouraged me to write something about it earlier this year, and I'm glad we eventually did!😊

Jonathan and I wrote about the fantasy of total efficiency, algorithmic governance, and the bureaucratic horror story as a recurring fictional trope — thank you, KWI Blog team, for hosting the piece!

next week at the University of Cologne we're looking at how literature engages with Niklas Luhmann's concept of organizational "boundary roles"

Back in Office We’re back!

Bureaucritics #5 is now online!

It brings along a busy stretch of new publications, from the just-printed to the just-planned, plus fresh calls for papers and events.

The international #symposium Files, Forms, Fictions is turning into a real thing!

Browse through the full program and learn more about the event at filesformsfictions.com.

Thank you, @humboldt-foundation.de & @unibonn.bsky.social, for all your support!
#bureaucraticfiction #comparativeliterature

www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3-0... you can find it for free

"Jenkin-Smith brings to his readers’ attention authors and periodicals that literary histories have meanwhile discarded or longtime ignored."

Alexandra Irimia on Daniel Jenkin-Smith's The Rise of Office Literature, from @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/alexandra_ir...