Clare Birchall | King's College London (original) (raw)

Books by Clare Birchall

When total data surveillance delimits agency and revelations of political wrongdoing fail to have... more When total data surveillance delimits agency and revelations of political wrongdoing fail to have consequences, is transparency the social panacea liberal democracies purport it to be? This book sets forth the provocative argument that progressive social goals would be better served by a radical form of secrecy, at least while state and corporate forces hold an asymmetrical advantage over the less powerful in data control. Clare Birchall asks: How might transparency actually serve agendas that are far from transparent? Can we imagine a secrecy that could act in the service of, rather than against, a progressive politics?
To move beyond atomizing calls for privacy and to interrupt the perennial tension between state security and the public’s right to know, Birchall adapts Édouard Glissant’s thinking to propose a digital “right to opacity.” As a crucial element of radical secrecy, she argues, this would eventually give rise to a “postsecret” society, offering an understanding and experience of the political that is free from the false choice between secrecy and transparency. She grounds her arresting story in case studies including the varied presidential styles of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump; the Snowden revelations; conspiracy theories espoused or endorsed by Trump; WikiLeaks and guerrilla transparency; and the opening of the state through data portals.
Postsecrecy is the necessary condition for imagining, finally, an alternative vision of “the good,” of equality, as neither shaped by neoliberal incarnations of transparency nor undermined by secret state surveillance. Not least, postsecrecy reimagines collective resistance in the era of digital data.

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In an era of open data and ubiquitous dataveillance, what does it mean to “share”? This book argu... more In an era of open data and ubiquitous dataveillance, what does it mean to “share”? This book argues that we are all “shareveillant” subjects, called upon to be transparent and render data open at the same time as the security state invests in practices to keep data closed. Drawing on Jacques Rancière’s “distribution of the sensible,” Clare Birchall reimagines sharing in terms of a collective political relationality beyond the veillant expectations of the state. Read online open access at https://manifold.umn.edu/project/687b3b07-3497-480e-94c2-6d787cc3ab49

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Knowledge Goes Pop examines the popular knowledges that saturate our everyday experience such as ... more Knowledge Goes Pop examines the popular knowledges that saturate our everyday experience such as conspiracy theories and gossip.

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New Cultural Studies is both a reference work and an original study which explores new directions... more New Cultural Studies is both a reference work and an original study which explores new directions and territories for cultural studies.

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Open Humanities Press publishes twenty-one open access Living Books About Life LIVING BOOKS AB... more Open Humanities Press publishes twenty-one open access Living Books About Life

LIVING BOOKS ABOUT LIFE
http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org

The pioneering open access humanities publishing initiative, Open Humanities Press (OHP) (http://openhumanitiespress.org), is pleased to announce the release of 21 open access books in its series Living Books About Life (http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org).

Funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), and edited by Gary Hall, Joanna Zylinska and Clare Birchall, Living Books About Life is a series of curated, open access books about life -- with life understood both philosophically and biologically -- which provide a bridge between the humanities and the sciences. Produced by a globally-distributed network of writers and editors, the books in the series repackage existing open access science research by clustering it around selected topics whose unifying theme is life: e.g., air, agriculture, bioethics, cosmetic surgery, electronic waste, energy, neurology and pharmacology.

Peter Suber, Open Access Project Director, Public Knowledge, said: ‘This book series would not be possible without open access. On the author side, it takes splendid advantage of the freedom to reuse and repurpose open-access research articles. On the other side, it passes on that freedom to readers. In between, the editors made intelligent selections and wrote original introductions, enhancing each article by placing it in the new context of an ambitious, integrated understanding of life, drawing equally from the sciences and humanities’.

By creating twenty one ‘living books about life’ in just seven months, the series represents an exciting new model for publishing, in a sustainable, low-cost, low-tech manner, many more such books in the future. These books can be freely shared with other academic and non-academic institutions and individuals.

Nicholas Mirzoeff, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University, commented: ‘This remarkable series transforms the humble Reader into a living form, while breaking down the conceptual barrier between the humanities and the sciences in a time when scholars and activists of all kinds have taken the understanding of life to be
central. Brilliant in its simplicity and concept, this series is a leap towards an exciting new future’.

One of the most important aspects of the Living Books About Life series is the impact it has had on the attitudes of the researchers taking part, changing their views on open access and raising awareness of issues around publishers’ licensing and copyright agreements. Many have become open access advocates themselves, keen to disseminate this model among their own scholarly and student communities. As Professor Erica Fudge of the University of Strathclyde and co-editor of the living book on Veterinary Science, put it, ‘I am now evangelical about making work publicly available, and am really encouraging colleagues to put things out there’.

These ‘books about life’ are themselves ‘living’, in the sense they are open to ongoing collaborative processes of writing, editing, updating, remixing and commenting by readers. As well as repackaging open access science research -- together with interactive maps and audio-visual material -- into a series of books, Living Books About Life is thus involved in rethinking ‘the book’ itself as a living, collaborative endeavour in the age of open science, open education, open data, iPad apps and e-book readers such as Kindle.

Tara McPherson, editor of VECTORS, Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular, said: ‘It is no hyperbole to say that this series will help us reimagine everything we think we know about academic publishing. It points to a future that is interdisciplinary, open access, and expansive.’

Funded by JISC, Living Books About Life is a collaboration between Open Humanities Press and three academic institutions, Coventry University, Goldsmiths, University of London, and the University of Kent.

Books:

* Astrobiology and the Search for Life on Mars, edited by Sarah Kember (Goldsmiths, University of London)
* Bioethics™: Life, Politics, Economics, edited by Joanna Zylinska
(Goldsmiths, University of London)
* Biosemiotics: Nature, Culture, Science, Semiosis, edited by Wendy Wheeler (London Metropolitan University)
* Cognition and Decision in Non-Human Biological Organisms, edited by Steven Shaviro (Wayne State University)
* Cosmetic Surgery: Medicine, Culture, Beauty, edited by Bernadette Wegenstein (Johns Hopkins University)
* Creative Evolution: Natural Selection and the Urge to Remix, edited by Mark Amerika (University of Colorado at Boulder)
* Digitize Me, Visualize Me, Search Me: Open Science and its
Discontents, edited by Gary Hall (Coventry University)
* Energy Connections: Living Forces in Creative Inter/Intra-Action,
edited by Manuela Rossini (td-net for Transdisciplinary Research,
Switzerland)
* Human Genomics: From Hypothetical Genes to Biodigital
Materialisations, edited by Kate O’Riordan (Sussex University)
* Medianatures: The Materiality of Information Technology and Electronic Waste, edited by Jussi Parikka (Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton)
* Nerves of Perception: Motor and Sensory Experience in Neuroscience, edited by Anna Munster (University of New South Wales)
* Neurofutures, edited by Timothy Lenoir (Duke University)
* Partial Life, edited by Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr (SymbioticA,
University of Western Australia)
* Pharmacology, edited by Dave Boothroyd (University of Kent)
* Symbiosis, edited by Janneke Adema and Pete Woodbridge (Coventry University)
* Another Technoscience is Possible: Agricultural Lessons for the
Posthumanities, edited by Gabriela Mendez Cota (Goldsmiths, University of London)
* The In/visible, edited by Clare Birchall (University of Kent)
* The Life of Air: Dwelling, Communicating, Manipulating, edited by
Monika Bakke (University of Poznan)
* The Mediations of Consciousness, edited by Alberto López Cuenca (Universidad de las Américas, Puebla)
* Ubiquitous Surveillance, edited by David Parry (University of Texas at Dallas)
* Veterinary Science: Animals, Humans and Health, edited by Erica Fudge (Strathclyde University) and Clare Palmer (Texas A&M University)

Contact the Living Books about Life series editors:
Gary Hall, Joanna Zylinska and Clare Birchall
E: gary.hall@coventry.ac.uk
E: j.zylinska@gold.ac.uk
E: c.s.birchall@kent.ac.uk
W: http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org

Open Humanities Press is a non-profit, international Open Access publishing collective specializing in critical and cultural theory. OHP was formed by academics to overcome the current crisis in scholarly publishing that threatens intellectual freedom and academic rigor worldwide. OHP journals are academically certified by OHP’s independent board of international scholars. All OHP publications are peer-reviewed, published under open access licenses, and freely and immediately available online at http://openhumanitiespress.org.

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Papers by Clare Birchall

European Journal of Social Theory, 2015

Given that the Obama administration still relies on many strategies we would think of as sitting ... more Given that the Obama administration still relies on many strategies we would think of as sitting on the side of secrecy, it seems that the only lasting transparency legacy of the Obama administration will be data-driven or e-transparency as exemplified by the web interface ‘ data.gov ’. As the data-driven transparency model is exported and assumes an ascendant position around the globe, it is imperative that we ask what kind of publics, subjects, and indeed, politics it will produce. Open government data is not just a matter concerning accountability but is seen as a necessary component of the new ‘data economy’. To participate and benefit from this info-capitalist-democracy, the data subject is called upon to be both auditor and entrepreneur. This article explores the implications of responsibilization, outsourcing, and commodification on the contract of representational democracy and asks if there are other forms of transparency that might better resist neoliberal formations and r...

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This article attempts to question modes of sharing and watching to rethink political subjectivity... more This article attempts to question modes of sharing and watching to rethink political subjectivity beyond that which is enabled and enforced by the current data regime. It identifies and examines a ‘shareveillant’ subjectivity: a form configured by the sharing and watching that subjects have to withstand and enact in the contemporary data assemblage. Looking at government open and closed data as case studies, this article demonstrates how ‘shareveillance’ produces an anti-political role for the public. In describing shareveillance as, after Jacques Rancière, a distribution of the (digital) sensible, this article posits a politico-ethical injunction to cut into the share and flow of data in order to arrange a more enabling assemblage of data and its affects. In order to interrupt shareveillance, this article borrows a concept from Édouard Glissant and his concern with raced otherness to imagine what a ‘right to opacity’ might mean in the digital context. To assert this right is not to endorse the individual subject in her sovereignty and solitude, but rather to imagine a collective political subjectivity and relationality according to the important question of what it means to ‘share well’ beyond the veillant expectations of the state.

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New Formations, Jan 1, 2015

In re-igniting a familiar debate about the balance between state security and individual privacy,... more In re-igniting a familiar debate about the balance between state security and individual privacy, the revelations of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden have stalled on matters of regulation and reform, which treat secrecy, securitisation and surveillance largely in procedural terms. This article seeks to interrupt the containment strategies of communicative capitalism/democracy evident in these debates by configuring secrets as subject to and the subject of radical politics rather than regulation. Its premise is that we might be better able to form a radical political response to the ‘Snowden event’ by situating the secret within a distributive regime and imagining what collectivities and subjectivities the secret makes available. Through a consideration of artworks by Trevor Paglen and Jill Magid - which help us to stay with the secret as secret, rather than foregrounding the more individualistic notion of privacy or moving too quickly towards revelation and reform - the article turns from a hermeneutics of the secret towards an aesthetics of the secret. Considered as a Rancièrean ‘distribution of the sensible’, a delimitation of space, time, the visible, the sayable, the audible, and political experience, this aesthetics can help us to imagine a politics of the secret not bound to policy and legalities.

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As many anthropologists and sociologists have long argued, understanding the meaning and place of... more As many anthropologists and sociologists have long argued, understanding the meaning and place of secrets is central to an adequate representation of society. This article extends previous accounts of secrecy in social, governmental, and organizational settings to configure secrecy as one form of visibility management among others. Doing so helps to remove the secret from a post-Enlightenment value system that deems secrets bad and openness good. Once secrecy itself is seen as a neutral phenomenon, we can focus on the politicality or ethics of any particular distribution of the visible, sayable, and knowable. Alongside understanding the work secrecy performs in contemporary society, this article argues that we can also seek inspiration from the secret as a methodological tool and political tactic. Moving beyond the claim to privacy, a claim that has lost bite in this era of state and consumer dataveillance, a “right to opacity”—the right to not be transparent, legible, seen—might open up an experience of subjectivity and responsibility beyond the circumscribed demands of the current politico-technological management of visibilities.

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European Journal of Social Theory

Given that the Obama administration still relies on many strategies we would think of as sitting ... more Given that the Obama administration still relies on many strategies we would think of as sitting on the side of secrecy, it seems that the only lasting transparency legacy of the Obama administration will be data-driven or e-transparency as exemplified by the web interface ‘data.gov’. As the data-driven transparency model is exported and assumes an ascendant position around the globe, it is imperative that we ask what kind of publics, subjects, and indeed, politics it will produce. Open government data is not just a matter concerning accountability but is seen as a necessary component of the new ‘data economy’. To participate and benefit from this info-capitalist-democracy, the data subject is called upon to be both auditor and entrepreneur. This article explores the implications of responsibilization, outsourcing, and commodification on the contract of representational democracy and asks if there are other forms of transparency that might better resist neoliberal formations and re-politicize the public sphere.

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This article considers the cultural positioning of transparency as a superior form of disclosure ... more This article considers the cultural positioning of transparency as a superior form of disclosure through a comparative analysis with other forms. One, as yet under-examined appeal of transparency lies in its promise to circumvent the need for, and usurp the role of, narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure such as scandal, gossip, and conspiracy theories. This growing preference for transparency as a more enlightening, honorable mode of disclosure is not just a result of the positive qualities that are seen to be intrinsic to transparency (particularly e-transparency) itself, but a response to the perceived negative characteristics of other forms of disclosure. It is also an ideological predilection: transparency reinforces neoliberal tenets as much as democratic ideals. WikiLeaks is invoked in this article as a case which draws on both e-transparency and narrative-interpretive forms of disclosure. This hybrid form helps us to explore the possibility and implications of non-ascendant, radical forms of transparency or, in other words, disclosure without political foreclosure.

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An essay on transparency to accompany the exhibition, 'Future Light', Vienna Biennale, Kunsthalle... more An essay on transparency to accompany the exhibition, 'Future Light', Vienna Biennale, Kunsthalle Wien, 2015, curated by Maria Lind.

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This article opens a special section on the politics of opacity and openness. The rise of transpa... more This article opens a special section on the politics of opacity and openness. The rise of transparency as a political and cultural ideal has left secrecy to accumulate negative connotations. But the moral discourse that condemns secrecy and rewards transparency may cause us to misread the symbiotic relationship between these terms. After providing a historical account of transparency in public and political life, this article therefore makes the case for working with the tension between these terms rather than responding to the dyad as a choice. We need to find different ways of staying with the aporia of transparency-as-secrecy and secrecy-as- transparency. Despite common demands to support either transparency or secrecy in political and moral terms, we live with the tension between these terms and its inherent contradictions daily. The theoretical questions posed by this material reality need to be asked and responded to. This article and the special section as a whole begin such an enterprise.

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Though far from new, the rhetoric of transparency is on the ascent in public and political life. ... more Though far from new, the rhetoric of transparency is on the ascent in public and political life. It is cited as the answer to a vast array of social, political, financial and corporate problems. With the backing of a ‘movement’, transparency has assumed the position of an unassailable ‘good’. This article asks whether the value ascribed to transparency limits political thinking, particularly for the radical and socialist Left. What forms of politics, ethics, of being-in-common, might it be possible to think if we pay attention to secrecy rather
than transparency?

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While the choice between secrecy and transparency has political and cultural salience, this paper... more While the choice between secrecy and transparency has political and cultural salience, this paper questions the logic of such an opposition. Through a consideration of the different attitudes towards secrecy embedded in the Bush and Obama administrations, this paper argues that both positions fail to understand their own relation to not only secrecy itself, but also each other. They are caught, that is, within the same commonsensical idea of the secret: one that assumes the secret is secreted away, waiting to be exposed. By introducing a third term – Jacques Derrida’s ‘unconditional secret’, a structuring secrecy beyond the logic of revelation – this paper questions transparency’s link with democracy and its cultural place today as a force of good. Through Derrida’s work we must face the proposition that although the choice between secrecy and transparency is presented as one between lesser and greater democracy, both are in fact beholden to democracy’s enemy: totalitarianism. This paper ends by asking what a post-secret politics might look like.

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Our special issue on transparency has been published by European Journal of Social Theory - see m... more Our special issue on transparency has been published by European Journal of Social Theory - see more here: http://est.sagepub.com/content/current

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New cultural studies: adventures in theory, Jan 1, 2006

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The Renewal of Cultural Studies, ed Paul Smith

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Liquid Theory TV is a collaboration between Clare Birchall, Gary Hall and Peter Woodbridge design... more Liquid Theory TV is a collaboration between Clare Birchall, Gary Hall and Peter Woodbridge designed to develop a series of IPTV programmes. (IPTV, in its broadest sense, refers to all those technologies which use computer networks to deliver audio-visual programming.) The idea behind the Liquid Theory TV project is to experiment with IPTV’s potential for providing new ways of communicating ‘intellectual’ ideas, easily and cheaply, both inside and outside of the university. This episode considers Deleuze's ideas on societies of control.

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Cultural Studies, Jan 1, 2007

The current climate of secrecy, this essay contends, demands scrutiny. In order to do this, howev... more The current climate of secrecy, this essay contends, demands scrutiny. In order to do this, however, I suggest that cultural studies must think through its own secrets. I try to follow through one such secret here: namely the secret of cultural studies’ possible ‘illegitimacy’ as a discipline, a possibility that haunts us at every turn. While this might sound contentious, I argue that the possibility of illegitimacy is the condition of all knowledge. Rather than the universality of this condition absolving cultural studies of the responsibility of owning up to it, however, I argue that cultural studies is well-placed to think through questions of illegitimacy and accountability. If we can address these problems, we will be better equipped to approach the culture of secrecy currently characterising US and British foreign policy.

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Open Humanities Press publishes twenty-one open access Living Books About Life LIVING BOOKS AB... more Open Humanities Press publishes twenty-one open access Living Books About Life

LIVING BOOKS ABOUT LIFE
http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org

Books:

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European Journal of Social Theory, 2015

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New Formations, Jan 1, 2015

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European Journal of Social Theory

Given that the Obama administration still relies on many strategies we would think of as sitting ... more Given that the Obama administration still relies on many strategies we would think of as sitting on the side of secrecy, it seems that the only lasting transparency legacy of the Obama administration will be data-driven or e-transparency as exemplified by the web interface ‘data.gov’. As the data-driven transparency model is exported and assumes an ascendant position around the globe, it is imperative that we ask what kind of publics, subjects, and indeed, politics it will produce. Open government data is not just a matter concerning accountability but is seen as a necessary component of the new ‘data economy’. To participate and benefit from this info-capitalist-democracy, the data subject is called upon to be both auditor and entrepreneur. This article explores the implications of responsibilization, outsourcing, and commodification on the contract of representational democracy and asks if there are other forms of transparency that might better resist neoliberal formations and re-politicize the public sphere.

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New cultural studies: adventures in theory, Jan 1, 2006

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The Renewal of Cultural Studies, ed Paul Smith

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Cultural Studies, Jan 1, 2007

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Culture Machine, Jan 1, 2004

I take a closer look at the relationship between conspiracy theory and cultural studies, not just... more I take a closer look at the relationship between conspiracy theory and cultural studies, not just to learn what cultural studies has to teach us about conspiracy theory, but also to consider what conspiracy theory might have to teach us about cultural studies – a field which can itself be seen to be subject to, and structured by, the possibility of a number of (internal and external) conspiratorial narratives.

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Teen TV: Genre, Consumption and Identity, Jan 1, 2004

This chapter examines the appeal of the American teen television drama, Dawson's Creek, for the y... more This chapter examines the appeal of the American teen television drama, Dawson's Creek, for the young adult viewer; in particular, it explores the commercial and political implications of the show's 'nostalgic strategies'.

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Considers the conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Princess Diana.

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Illuminating Eco. On the boundaries of interpretation. …, Jan 1, 2004

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This chapter considers the commodification of conspiracy theories through the popular television ... more This chapter considers the commodification of conspiracy theories through the popular television show, The X-Files.

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Do we live in what the philosopher Gilles Deleuze calls a control society? Is the networked natur... more Do we live in what the philosopher Gilles Deleuze calls a control society? Is the networked nature of the contemporary media a characteristic feature of societies of control? Or does the current loss of faith in capitalist neo-liberalism signal the societies of control are now in fact in crisis?

Video Transcript from the episode of Liquid Theory TV

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Series editors: Clare Birchall (University of Kent), Gary Hall (Coventry University), Joanna Zyli... more Series editors: Clare Birchall (University of Kent), Gary Hall (Coventry University), Joanna Zylinska (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), and published by Open Humanities Press (OHP) (http://openhumanitiespress.org), Living Books About Life is a series of curated, open access books about life -- with life understood both philosophically and biologically -- which provide a bridge between the humanities and the sciences. Produced by a globally-distributed network of writers and editors, the books in the series repackage existing open access science research by clustering it around selected topics whose unifying theme is life: e.g., air, agriculture, bioethics, cosmetic surgery, electronic waste, energy, neurology and pharmacology.

By creating twenty one ‘living books about life’ in just seven months, the series represents an exciting new model for publishing, in a sustainable, low-cost manner, many more such books in the future. These books can be freely shared with other academic and non-academic institutions and individuals. Taken together, they constitute an engaging interdisciplinary resource for researching and teaching relevant science issues across the humanities, a resource that is capable of enhancing the intellectual and pedagogic experience of working with open access materials.

All the books in the series are themselves ‘living’, in the sense that they are open to ongoing collaborative processes of writing, editing, updating, remixing and commenting by readers. As well as repackaging open access science research -- along with interactive maps, visualisations, podcasts and audio-visual material -- into a series of books, Living Books About Life is thus engaged in rethinking ‘the book’ itself as a living, collaborative endeavour in the age of open science, open education, open data and e-book readers such as Kindle and the iPad.

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Culture Machine Liquid Books is a series of experimental digital ‘books’ published under the (gra... more Culture Machine Liquid Books is a series of experimental digital ‘books’ published under the (gratis/libre) conditions of both open editing and free content. As such, you are free to compose, rewrite, edit, annotate, translate, tag, add to, remix, reformat, reinvent and reuse any of the books in the series, or produce parallel versions of them - and what's more you are expressly invited and encouraged to do so.

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This workshop will explore the technological possibilities of interrupting “shareveillance” – a d... more This workshop will explore the technological possibilities of interrupting “shareveillance” – a distribution of digital data that entails calls upon citizens to give up, share, view, and act upon different forms of data. While dataveillance reduces the political potential of citizens to a flat data set, the kind of open data transparency on offer from many corporations and states reinforces the neoliberal tendency to responsibilize individuals without offering real power. Both open and closed data, then, work on the assumption that technological fixes can be offered in lieu of ethical commitments or social justice. Under this neoliberal and securitized regime of visibility and sharing, there is little room for much beyond highly circumscribed experiences with data.

The task that participants of this workshop will grapple with is to experiment with ways of interrupting the imperatives and protocols at the heart of shareveillance. Interruptions of shareveillance can take different digital forms – distributed clouds or servers; encrypted or anonymous communication; counter-optimization browser extensions or plug-ins; non-commercial social media platforms; radically transparent blockchain technologies (see Brunton and Nissenbaum, 2015); and target different scales of infrastructure – software, platforms, networks, servers. Theoretically, an interruption of shareveillance can move in two different directions.

First, shareveillance can be interrupted by implementing radical transparency: a transparency that does not fall into the trap of reading social problems as information problems, or makes inherently inequitable systems more efficient. “Radical” here means not producing more of the same kind of data under the same old regime of shareveillance, but of changing the kind of information that is made visible and the conditions of visibility in general. “Radical transparency” might then be envisaged as a mechanism able to challenge the circumscribed role that data transparency has been given. Radical transparency would allow data subjects to position themselves in relation to data (rather than be positioned by it).

Second, shareveillance can be interrupted by secrecy. We must look to secrecy to do this interruptive work rather than privacy for good reason. Even when people coalesce around privacy concerns, step into the light of the demos, they do so to insist on their right to step back into the apolitical shadows of individualism, away from the possibility of collective creativity or identity-in-common. Privacy is a concept closely tied with the liberal individual and the bourgeois public sphere and as such is ill equipped to challenge the subjectification of shareveillant data subjects. Any tools that want to interrupt shareveillance must take into consideration an apparent oxymoron: collective and communitarian forms of secrecy.

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King’s College London 14-15 May, 2015 In the wake of the Snowden revelations about the surveill... more King’s College London
14-15 May, 2015

In the wake of the Snowden revelations about the surveillance capabilities of intelligence agencies, this interdisciplinary symposium gathers experts to discuss the place and implications of secrecy in contemporary culture and politics.

Thursday 14th May
6.30-8.30
Opening Talk: Jamie Bartlett, Demos, Author of The Dark Net
Respondent, Zach Blas on the ‘Contra-Internet’
Edmond J. Safra Lecture Theatre, The Strand Campus, King’s College London
Free Registation at: https://secretsofdarknet.eventbrite.co.uk/

15 May: Symposium
Free registration at: https://politicsofsecrecy.eventbrite.co.uk/

9-9.15
Introduction: Secrecy’s Frame
Clare Birchall (King’s College London) & Matt Potolsky (University of Utah)

9.15-10.45
Roundtable 1: Between Opacity and Openness

Mark Fenster (College of Law, University of Florida)
(Secrecy and the Hypothetical State Archive)

Zach Blas (Artist, University of Buffalo)
(Informatic Opacity)

Mikkel Flyvverbom (Intercultural Communication and Management, Copenhagen Business School)
(Transparency and the Management of Visibilities)

Vian Bakir (Creative Studies and Media, Bangor University)
(Deceptive Organised Persuasive Communication: (a) Misdirection and (b) Secretly Altering Reality to Fit the Lie you want to Tell)

11.15-12.30
Roundtable 2: Aesthetics of the Secret

John Beck (Institute of Modern & Contemporary Culture, University of Westminster)
(Photography’s Open Secret)

Neal White (Artist, Bournemouth University)
(Secrecy and Art in Practice)

Clare Birchall (American Studies, King’s College London)
(Art “After” Snowden)

12.30-1.30
Lunch

1.30-3.00
Roundtable 3: Open Secrets

Jack Bratich (Communication and Information, Rutgers University)
(Spectacular Secrecy and the Public Secret Sphere: Rumsfeld, Anonymous, and Snowden)

Deme Kasimis (Political Science, Yale University)
(Passing as Open Secrecy: Migrants and the Performance of Citizenship in Classical Greek Thought)

Adam Piette (English, Sheffield University)
(The Open Secret of Nuclear Waste)

Matt Potolsky (English, University of Utah)
(Beyond Fiction: The NSA and Representation)

3.30-4.45
Roundtable 4: Covert Spheres

Timothy Melley (English, Miami University)
(The Democratic Security State: Operating Between Secrecy and Publicity)

Øyvind Vågnes (Visual Culture, University of Copenhagen)
(Drone Warfare and the Language of Precision)

Hugh Urban (Comparative Studies, Ohio State)
(The Silent Brotherhood: Secrecy, Violence, and Surveillance from the Brüder Schweigen to the War on Terror)

5.00-5.30
Summary: Secrecy’s Future

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Culture Machine, Jan 1, 2010

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Culture Machine, Jan 1, 2009

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#secrecymachine http://immersivestorylab.com/secret/ In contemporary liberal democracies there i... more #secrecymachine http://immersivestorylab.com/secret/

In contemporary liberal democracies there is a polarisation between ideals of transparency – borne out in open government legislation, freedom of information, and confessionary culture – and what we might call a secret sphere, an institutionalised commitment to covert security operations that exist beyond the public view.

In the wake of the Snowden revelations about the surveillance capabilities of intelligence agencies around the globe, an interdisciplinary symposium at King’s College London in 2015 gathered experts to discuss the place and implications of secrecy for contemporary cultural politics. Speakers addressed what was politically, ethically, socially and ontologically at stake in cultures of secrecy at the individual, national and international level.

Recordings from the event have been hidden across some of the darkest corners of the world wide web and will be revealed through a series of leaks and revelations.

If you would like to participate in this experiment in opacity and secretion, visit http://immersivestorylab.com/secret/ and follow the instructions.

Please share this secret with anyone you trust …

#secrecymachine is a project by Clare Birchall & Pete Woodbridge.
'The Politics and Practices of Secrecy' was a symposium organised by Clare Birchall & Matt Potolsky and funded by the Institute of North American Studies, King's College London.

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This video, Deleuze's "Postscript on the Societies of Control"' (made together with Clare Birchal... more This video, Deleuze's "Postscript on the Societies of Control"' (made together with Clare Birchall and Pete Woodbridge), is the second episode of Liquid Theory TV, a series of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) programmes experimenting with new ways of acting as a ‘public intellectual’ in the current media environment.

'Deleuze's "Postscript on the Societies of Control"' first appeared in Culture Machine 11, 2010. It is accompanied by an introductory essay:
http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/view/384/407

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What should or could cultural studies look like in the 21st Century? New Cultural Studies is both... more What should or could cultural studies look like in the 21st Century? New Cultural Studies is both an introductory reference work and an original study which explores some of the most exciting new directions currently being opened up in cultural studies.

A new generation has begun to emerge from the shadow of the Birmingham School: a generation who have turned to theory as a means to think through some of the crucial problems and issues in contemporary culture. New Cultural Studies: Adventures in Theory collects for the first time the ideas of this generation and explains just why theory continues to be crucial for cultural studies.

The book explores theory's past, present and most especially future role in cultural studies. It does so by providing an authoritative and accessible guide, for students and researchers alike, to:
* some of the most interesting members of this 'post-Birmingham school' generation
* the thinkers and theories currently influencing new work in cultural studies: Agamben, Badiou, Deleuze, Derrida, Hardt and Negri, Kittler, Laclau, Levinas, Zizek
* the new territories being mapped out across the intersections of cultural studies and cultural theory: anti-capitalism, ethics, the posthumanities, post-Marxism, new media technologies, the transnational.

CONTENTS
1. Introduction: New Cultural Studies (Clare Birchall and Gary Hall)

Part 1: New Adventures in Theory
2. Cultural Studies and Deconstruction (Gary Hall)
3. Cultural Studies and Post-Marxism (Jeremy Valentine)
4. Cultural Studies and Ethics (Joanna Zylinska)
5. Cultural Studies and German Media Theory (Geoffrey Winthrop-Young)

Part 2: New Theorists
6. Cultural Studies and Gilles Deleuze (Gregory J. Seigworth)
7. Cultural Studies and Giorgio Agamben (Brett Neilson)
8. Cultural Studies and Alain Badiou (Julian Murphet)
9. Cultural Studies and Slavoj Zizek (Paul Bowman)

Part 3: New Transformations
10. Cultural Studies and Anti-Capitalism (Jeremy Gilbert)
11. Cultural Studies and the Transnational (Imre Szeman)
12. Cultural Studies and New Media (Caroline Bassett)

Part 4: New Adventures in Cultural Studies
13. Cultural Studies and Rem Koolhaas' Project on the City (J. McGregor Wise)
14. Cultural Studies and the Post-Human(ities) (Neil Badmington)
15. Cultural Studies and the Extreme (Dave Boothroyd)
16. Cultural Studies and the Secret (Clare Birchall)

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In this follow-up interview to her keynote lecture at the MeCCSA-PGN 2015 Conference in Coventry,... more In this follow-up interview to her keynote lecture at the MeCCSA-PGN 2015 Conference in Coventry, Clare Birchall discusses the “sharing economy”, “shareveillance” and the depoliticised subjectivity shaped by both open and opaque data. In order to re-imagine subjectivity in the face of shareveillance, Birchall calls on Édouard Glissant’s “right to opacity”. Ultimately, she explains how the concept of “sharing” can be politicised as a Commons, while the appropriation of opacity can become a political act. Her reassessment of the politics and values associated with openness and secrecy has implications for media scholars, particularly in terms of the need to think more critically about what kinds of publishing, networks and communications we want to develop.

http://ojs.meccsa.org.uk/index.php/netknow/article/view/419

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Multitudes, 2018

L’idéal de transparence semble s’imposer à tous les esprits comme une évidence. Toute opacité est... more L’idéal de transparence semble s’imposer à tous les esprits comme une évidence. Toute opacité est suspecte de cacher des pratiques douteuses (népotisme, corruption, détournement, abus) en faisant obstacle à une indispensable soif de vérité. Prenant à contre-pied cette aspiration commune à tout rendre transparent, on s’efforce ici de souligner certains des coûts, des écueils et des victimes collatérales de l’impératif de transparence agité aujourd’hui de façon irréfléchie dans nos discours publics.

Alloa Emmanuel et Yves Citton: « Tyrannies de la transparence »
Emmanuel Alloa: « La transparence est notre censure »
Byung-Chul Han: « L’hypercapitalisme de la transparence »
Ippolita: « Onze thèses sur la transparence »
Claire Birchall: « Interrompre la distriveillance »
Thomas Berns et Salomé Frémineur: « Le reste de la transparence »
Loup Cellard et Anthony Masure: « Le design de la transparence »
Ezio Puglia: « Logistique de la "dématérialisation" »
Nathaniel Tkacz: « L’Index des clés performatives. Prendre la mesure de la mesure »
Monique Selim: « Des intimités transparentes ? »

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