my research made it to German radio today — thanks, Julia Westlake and the NDR Kultur @ndr.de team! www.ndr.de/kultur/von-k...

Von kafkaesk bis leidenschaftlich: Die Ästhetik der Bürokratie

Alexandra Irimia erforscht, wie Bürokratie in der Literatur dargestellt wird. Sie erzählt, was Texte über Monotonie, Vorgänge und Formulare so interessant macht.

ndr.de

long overdue and still in the making, but now there's a website alexandrairimia.net

Issue no. 7 of Bureaucritics is now out! This time, we open the file on "papereality," David Dery's name for the world where the written record creates the reality it describes. Read and subscribe here: bureaucritics.substack.com/p/paperealit...

Paperealities

Dear Bureaucritics,

bureaucritics.substack.com

🌟 Calling early-career researchers in the humanities! The KWI is inviting applications for 6-month International Fellowships starting in April 2027! Join a lively interdisciplinary community in Essen. 📅 Deadline: Aug 17

Stadtarchiv Nürnberg, photographed by Marcel Odenbach — from "Beweis zu nichts [Proof of Nothing]", Sternberg Press, 2017, pp. 10-11.

The Effects of Bad Government in the City (detail) — part of the larger series of fresco panels "The Allegory of Good and Bad Government" (Allegoria ed effetti del Buono e del Cattivo Governo) by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1338-1339, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.

The colleagues from the #Bürographien research project are convening in Vienna for 3 days of discussions on the archaeology of #administration. Find out more details about the concept and the conference programme on their website!

some poems and treatises of aesthetics were written on the back of insurance forms, and I argued it's important to understand why.

on the Death Master File at the US Social Security Services (yes, that's a thing), and how DOGE tried to mess with it www.thisamericanlife.org/888/not-toda...

Cerberus - This American Life

In Greek mythology, there's Hades, where everyone goes when they die.

thisamericanlife.org

My project on bureaucratic fiction is slowly coming to an end, but the conferences are not: next week, in Paris, I'm presenting on Benjamin Fondane's practice of writing drafts on the back of insurance forms. First talk at the Sorbonne! Full program here: univ-droit.fr/recherche/ac...

Listen der Verwaltung (27.–29.5.; Wien) cenex.net/listen-der-v...

Listen der Verwaltung; ein Programm

27.–29. Mai 2026 — Rennweg 97–99, 1030 Wien — Verwaltungsakademie des Bundes (›T-Center‹), Raum Lissabon (7. OG) [Sachverhaltsdarstellung] [Programm {.pdf}] [Abstracts] Mittwoch 27.05. 14.00–15.30 …

cenex.net

Thrilled to present work done in collaboration with Jonathan Foster on the literary history of algorithmic governance at the upcoming conference of the CST (Center for Science and Thought) @unibonn.bsky.social Program and details here: www.desirableai.com/events/irrat...

Irrationality and the Age of AI — Desirable AI

Conference hosted by the Center for Science and Thought (CST), University of Bonn, in collaboration with the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (LCFI), University of Cambridge. Funded by...

desirableai.com

The Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence (O.J.A.I.) streamed the latest installment of their ongoing investigation into music produced from within and around bureaucratic systems. I am somewhere in it, along with fellow bureaucritic Jonathan Foster and poet laureate Alexandria Peary.

Detail from Alexander Kluge's installation "Ontime/Offtime" (2024), currently on display at Lenbachhaus in Munich.

The EU now has its own publishing platform, Open Research Europe, that functions like a journal free to both authors and readers for all EU-funded research, across all disciplines. Open peer review (!) No author fees No paywalls Fast publication process Indexation open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu

What a nice surprise: my review of @dcjenkin-smith.bsky.social's "The Rise of Office Literature" made it into the print version of Critical Inquiry -- and it's in great company! @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social Have a look at the Spring 2026 issue:

Critical Inquiry@criticalinquiry.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Spring issue has arrived! Read new work by Loren Glass, Mercedes Bunz, Alexandre Gefen, Lawrence Venuti, Maxwell Gontarek, Emily McAvan, James I. Porter, and Boris Maslov. criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/past_issues/...

today and tomorrow in Munich, curious where this takes us

In Figures of Radical Absence I argue that empty signifiers are frequently used as tools of political contestation, which is why you see them so often in acts of protest and institutional critique. All that to say: always cool to see empty books making the news www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Thousands of authors publish ‘empty’ book in protest over AI using their work

About 10,000 writers including Kazuo Ishiguro, Philippa Gregory and Richard Osman join copyright campaign

theguardian.com

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...

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...

imec-archives.com

⏳ 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

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

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...

romania-insider.com

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.

zeit.de

🗞️ 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-...

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.

zeit.de

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...

on the visual representations of parliamentarism in Europe (in French & German) kgparl.de/tagung-visue...

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…

kgparl.de

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...