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The Aesthetics of Secrecy in Contemporary America

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Bibliographic Details
Title: The Aesthetics of Secrecy in Contemporary America
Authors: Birchall, Clare, Potolsky, Matthew
Source: Birchall, C & Potolsky, M 2025, 'The Aesthetics of Secrecy in Contemporary America', New American Studies Journal, vol. 77. https://doi.org/10.18422/77-2548
Publisher Information: 2025.
Publication Year: 2025
Subject Terms: secrecy, sublime, Data, aesthetics, surveillance, art
Description: This “conversation” explores questions which first appeared during the Snowden era, a time when the stakes surrounding — and the theoretical resources f or — thinking about secrecy had more clarity than they se em to now. Returning to earlier work, Potolsky and Birchall consider ways to update their accounts of the aesthetics of secrecy for a world shaped by the explosion of online conspiracism and by renewed urgency surrounding questions of race, gender, and identity. There has since be en a dramatic shift in the ways that we conceive secrecy, the form that it takes, and how we think about the dichotomy of public and private. The “conversation” is built out of four questions posed by the authors to each other, with revised answers forming the basis for this discussion.
Document Type: Article
File Description: application/pdf
Language: English
DOI: 10.18422/77-2548
Access URL: https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/ws/files/353893230/The_Aesthetics_of_Secrecy_BIRCHALL_Publishedonline15October2025_GOLD_VoR_CC_BY_.pdf
Accession Number: edsair.od......2761..704b4bde0b67d4fb7658bd8a8567a571
Database: OpenAIRE
Description
Abstract:This “conversation” explores questions which first appeared during the Snowden era, a time when the stakes surrounding — and the theoretical resources f or — thinking about secrecy had more clarity than they se em to now. Returning to earlier work, Potolsky and Birchall consider ways to update their accounts of the aesthetics of secrecy for a world shaped by the explosion of online conspiracism and by renewed urgency surrounding questions of race, gender, and identity. There has since be en a dramatic shift in the ways that we conceive secrecy, the form that it takes, and how we think about the dichotomy of public and private. The “conversation” is built out of four questions posed by the authors to each other, with revised answers forming the basis for this discussion.
DOI:10.18422/77-2548