Ben Anderson
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benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson
@benandersongeog.bsky.social
570 followers 380 following 94 posts

Theories of affect, and this conjunctural crisis. New book co-written with Anna Secor: The Politics of Feeling: Populism, Progressivism, Liberalism.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9781915983299/the-politics-of-feeling/

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Political science 29%
Sociology 28%
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benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 16h
Very interesting on variants of post-liberalism and their articulation with Trumpism (tracing the emerging influence on Reform, via Orr, is important)
lrb.co.uk London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 1d
‘Posner and Vermeule argued that “public opinion” would act as the ultimate constraint on a wayward president. That seemed a tad naïve.’

@jwmueller-pu.bsky.social on post-liberal political theory.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Jan-Werner Müller · Caesar wept: Trolling the Libs
All post-liberals have at one point or another declared themselves anti-libertarian. Why is it, then, that once in power...
www.lrb.co.uk

Reposted by Gregory P. Marchildon, Fabián Muniesa, Massimo Faggioli , and 1 more

lrb.co.uk
London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 1d
‘Posner and Vermeule argued that “public opinion” would act as the ultimate constraint on a wayward president. That seemed a tad naïve.’

@jwmueller-pu.bsky.social on post-liberal political theory.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Jan-Werner Müller · Caesar wept: Trolling the Libs
All post-liberals have at one point or another declared themselves anti-libertarian. Why is it, then, that once in power...
www.lrb.co.uk

Reposted by Ben Anderson

amoorelouise.bsky.social
Louise Amoore @amoorelouise.bsky.social · 3d
To read more about our vision for the Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life - and to explore & apply for our 7 research fellow positions, see leverhulmecal.webspace.durham.ac.uk/call-for-fel... and get in touch if you have questions #MachineLearning #Algorithms #Interdisciplinary #postdoctoral
Call for fellows - Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life
leverhulmecal.webspace.durham.ac.uk

benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 3d
Thanks, we’re very excited about it. Just a sketch of an idea sent through to us. We decided this sort of initial discussion and screening would be a way of saving everyone time - so do send through an idea, the blurb on the website sets out what we hope an intervention will do : )

Reposted by Ben Anderson

kmilb.bsky.social
Keir Milburn @kmilb.bsky.social · 6d
Get our Radical Abundance book for just £8!!!

www.plutobooks.com/product/radi...

benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 7d
Interesting. U.K. higher education is incredibly vulnerable to Reform policy shocks that are, frankly, easy to enact and would be popular or the public wouldn’t notice or care (50% cut in fees, end dual system of funding, end research grant funding for arts and humanities and social sciences etc)
lukemcgee.bsky.social Luke McGee @lukemcgee.bsky.social · 7d
This is the most alarming story I’ve read today. Giving up the fight before it’s started

Reposted by Steven Heydemann, Richard S.J. Tol, Stephan Lewandowsky , and 21 more

lukemcgee.bsky.social
Luke McGee @lukemcgee.bsky.social · 7d
This is the most alarming story I’ve read today. Giving up the fight before it’s started

benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 7d
A brilliant if profoundly depressing piece about Blyth, that gets at so many of the contradictions of the present, and the grounds for Reform support

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
James Meek · Ten-Foot Chopsticks: The North-East Transition
The ghost of the industrial revolution haunts Britain. The language of today’s politicians, of unlocking and...
www.lrb.co.uk

benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 9d
That’s great - congrats!

benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 9d
A scene from our The Politics of Feeling book launch in London - great discussion on fascist optimisms and nihilism, left structures of feelings, AI and Stranger Things with @ajsecor.bsky.social @jemgilbert.bsky.social @will-davies.bsky.social @geogdurham.bsky.social

benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 9d
The Politics of Feeling: Populism, Progressivism, Liberalism - a book of propositions about how politics in the post 2008 impasse works affectively

www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-p...

Reposted by Nick Clarke, Ben Anderson

thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social
Thomas Dekeyser @thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social · 10d
It's only out in March 2026, but I heard pre-orders are now possible 😏 it's a theoretical history of technological refusal that starts in ancient Greece with the earliest machine breakers, and ends in 1980s France with anarchists bombing computer companies.

www.upress.umn.edu/978151791773...

Reposted by Ben Anderson

casesofyou.bsky.social
Mark Griffiths @casesofyou.bsky.social · 10d
for anyone interested, here's a new article (open-access) on geopower and Palestine:

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | RGS Journal | Wiley Online Library
While the majority of geographical work on colonialism in Palestine centres on territory and land, this article foregrounds geopower and geos in the making of spatial relations. It shows how geopower....
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 13d
A great example of our 5000 word revamped Intervention format!
thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social Thomas Dekeyser @thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social · 13d
💥 New publication out on the alignment of AI & authoritarianism 💥

We argue that AI is not simply extending, but actively modulating, key dynamics of authoritarianism, and present a flexible analytical framework to account for these changes.

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Reposted by Louise Amoore, Nick Clarke, Ben Anderson

thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social
Thomas Dekeyser @thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social · 13d
💥 New publication out on the alignment of AI & authoritarianism 💥

We argue that AI is not simply extending, but actively modulating, key dynamics of authoritarianism, and present a flexible analytical framework to account for these changes.

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 13d
This is outstanding by @nesrinemalik.bsky.social - partly on the use of identity and the politics of absolution for racism

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Shabana Mahmood is an avatar of open Britain – that’s what makes her fable about immigration so seductive | Nesrine Malik
‘She is the daughter of immigrants,’ supporters of her cruel asylum policies say. ‘How can she be wrong?’ Let me put them straight, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Ben Anderson

jonnydarling.bsky.social
Jonny Darling @jonnydarling.bsky.social · 17d
Commentary on govt proposals to further restrict refugee protection, expand removals, and limit support. Talking tough will not fix govt failures on asylum, but it will hinder integration, cause harm, and further drive resentment towards those seeking protection theconversation.com/uk-to-overha...
UK to overhaul asylum policy – will the new measures work?
People who have been recognised as needing humanitarian protection will be under constant review.
theconversation.com

Reposted by Katherine Brickell, Ben Anderson

tibg.bsky.social
TIBG @tibg.bsky.social · 17d
New in TIBG:

'Asylum as artifice: Race, law and capital as regimes of abstractions in the United Kingdom's asylum accommodation system' by Anna Pearce

This paper charts the history of the category of 'asylum seeker' from 1993 to 2023.

doi.org/10.1111/tran...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Anna Pearce (2025) entitled: 'Asylum as Artifice: Race, Law and Capital as Regimes of Abstraction in the United Kingdom's Asylum Accommodation System' with a red banner at the top. Taking as its case study the category of the ‘asylum seeker’ in UK law, this paper develops on latent concerns in legal geographies with processes of abstraction. Following Bhandar and Toscano, race, law and capital are here understood as different, co-articulating modalities of abstraction, through which the ‘asylum seeker’ is constituted and reconstituted by spatial practice and law over time. The case study charts the history of the category in UK law with the corresponding developments in the material and spatial infrastructures of asylum accommodation, from the point at which the ‘asylum seeker’ was first codified in UK law in 1993 to the delegitimisation of asylum itself in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023. As well as providing the application of Bhandar and Toscano's innovative methodology to a new empirical area, I further make the case that, as well as functioning as organisational nodes for race and capital, legal objects may also serve as conduits. In this way, these differing regimes of abstraction are put into mutually influential relationships with one another, with particularly concerning implications for the independence of law from capital. Though the case study and its legislative context are necessarily narrow in order to properly trace the contours of this particular legal object, the potential application of the theoretical arguments developed from this tight focus is broad, contributing to studies of immigration law, asylum reception and processing, as well as legal geographies more widely.

Reposted by Katherine Brickell

benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · 17d
Book launch for The Politics of Feeling with @ajsecor.bsky.social and @jemgilbert.bsky.social @will-davies.bsky.social on 25.11 at 15.00 in London. Details here, last time I checked there were a couple of tickets left

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-politi...
www.eventbrite.co.uk

Reposted by Ben Anderson

kbrickell.bsky.social
Prof Katherine Brickell @kbrickell.bsky.social · 17d
'We need to get on with this' – Alison McGovern, Minister of State for Local Government and Homelessness.

In advance of the Homeless Strategy, it was an honour to be invited by the Minister to a Summit on its direction: "prevention", "harm reduction" & "recovery".

🧵 What did I say? Read on...

Reposted by Ben Anderson

geogdurham.bsky.social
Geography at Durham @geogdurham.bsky.social · 24d
Our colleague Gavin Bridge has recently co-created a short animation called the ‘Future of UK Oil and Gas’. The film draws on insights from the Fraying Ties project on Networks, Territory and Transformation in the UK oil sector, and was produced by Seed Creativity: youtu.be/8MPHZAhzzLY
The future of UK oil and gas
YouTube video by DurhamUniversity
youtu.be

Reposted by Sarah Marie Hall, Ben Anderson

scgrg.bsky.social
Social & Cultural Geography @scgrg.bsky.social · 27d
Upcoming Event: Social and Cultural Geography beyond the Academy – Opportunities in Policy and Practice
Friday 28 November, 11.00-12.30, ONLINE (UK)

This event joins academic and non-academic geographers to discuss their transition from the academy into the world beyond

Further info: scgrg.co.uk

benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · Nov 7
Really important petition here against the terrible situation Leicester human geographers (and others) are facing. Sign, write emails to senior people, protest etc!

www.change.org/p/save-geogr...
Sign the Petition
Save Geography at the University of Leicester
www.change.org

benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · Nov 6
Absolutely shocking news, awful for everyone affected.
mutablematter.bsky.social Angela Last @mutablematter.bsky.social · Nov 6
Human Geography at Leicester is facing closure. Staff contracts are to end in June 2026; students are to be relocated to other universities, or taught out by a maximum of two (!) teaching-only staff. Other departments and subjects are facing closure, too. Please join the demo!

Reposted by Loretta Lees, Éric Verdeil, Rebecca Williams , and 10 more

mutablematter.bsky.social
Angela Last @mutablematter.bsky.social · Nov 6
Human Geography at Leicester is facing closure. Staff contracts are to end in June 2026; students are to be relocated to other universities, or taught out by a maximum of two (!) teaching-only staff. Other departments and subjects are facing closure, too. Please join the demo!

Reposted by Ben Anderson

colinmcfarlane.bsky.social
Colin McFarlane @colinmcfarlane.bsky.social · Nov 5
A special issue here of the journal Agoriad entitled 'Thinking with fragments: The allure of the broken, discarded, and disjointed in urban space'.

Exploring what the 'fragment' might offer as a way of thinking about and writing the urban.

agoriad.cardiffuniversitypress.org
Agoriad: A Journal of Spatial Theory
agoriad.cardiffuniversitypress.org

Reposted by Ben Anderson

felicitycallard.bsky.social
Felicity Callard @felicitycallard.bsky.social · Oct 30
Ooh! Current issue of History of the Present has a forum (currently freely accessible) on

Klaus Theweleit’s Male Fantasies - in his time and ours read.dukeupress.edu/history-of-t...
Volume 15 Issue 2 | History of the Present | Duke University Press
read.dukeupress.edu

Reposted by David Schlosberg, Felicity Callard, Silvia Secchi , and 6 more

ctemenos.bsky.social
Cristina Temenos @ctemenos.bsky.social · Oct 29
As an alumni of Syracuse University, it's appalling that they are capitulating against a right-wing campaign against Professor Farhana Sultana for exercising her first amendment rights. Do consider signing this letter calling on Syracuse University to reinstate her docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Letter of Support for Professor Farhana Sultana
As scholars within and beyond academia, we write in solidarity with academic freedom of expression with our colleague, Dr. Farhana Sultana, an internationally recognized scholar and tenured Full Profe...
docs.google.com

benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · Oct 22
Fantastic book launch in Frankfurt for The Politics of Feeling last night! Great responses/questions - periodisation and how to tell a story of change, relation between affect and ideology, importance of disintermediation, spatial thinking in the book, sexual fantasies in right wing populism, etc

benandersongeog.bsky.social
Ben Anderson @benandersongeog.bsky.social · Oct 16
That’s really fantastic (and unexpected) to hear!