Latest in Bureaucriticism
Filed in 2024 / Coming up in 2025
Dear Bureaucritics,
There’s unsubtle irony in attempting to systematically catalog a year's worth of research about bureaucracy – an act that requires its own kind of administrative rigor. Doing so as international headlines report on the dismantling, the incapacitation, or the repurposing of certain all-too-real institutions, as well as on surprising initiatives destined for greater “government efficiency” strikes us as even more ironic.
As we compile and document scholarship and artworks engaging with administration that caught our eye in 2024 (some of it coming out in 2025), this issue of our newsletter offers a glimpse into how fellow bureaucritics have explored the topic in a year that marked the centenary of Franz Kafka’s death and 40 years since the passing of Michel Foucault. The concept of “administrative grotesque”, coined by the latter and presciently illustrated by the former, also celebrates half a century of existence.
From groundbreaking monographs to provocative exhibitions, from conference proceedings to experimental artworks, we've gathered the year's most significant contributions we could find. Please don’t hesitate to let us know what we missed - we’re always happy to hear from you at bureaucritics@gmail.com.
Books and Dissertations
Jonathan Foster, Writing the State: Administrative Fiction in Long-Nineteenth-Century Britain, PhD Thesis, Stockholm University, 2025.
The dissertation explores the treatment of state bureaucracy in the work of Harriet Martineau, Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells. Investigating the ways in which these authors portrayed public administration, the study identifies recurring narrative techniques and tropes that were used during this period to characterise and critique the nascent administrative state. The study highlights the influence of the bureaucratic paradigm on Victorian and modernist literary aesthetics whilst also describing the role that narrative fiction played in the evolution of the modern British state imaginary.
Daniel Jenkin-Smith, The Rise of Office Literature: Bureaucratization and Aesthetics in Britain and France, 1810-1900, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025.
The book examines how 19th-century bureaucratization in Britain and France shaped a literary genre centered on office life. Jenkin-Smith demonstrates how portrayals of emerging labor practices and bureaucratic technologies both challenged narrative conventions and spurred aesthetic innovation, offering valuable insights into the interconnections of aesthetic, intellectual, economic, and social history.
Jens van de Maele, Architectures of Bureaucracy: The Politics of Government Office Buildings in Interwar Belgium, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2025.
A political-architectural experiment in interwar Belgium: how modernist government buildings were designed to shape a new technocratic governance model and create “perfect” civil servants loyal to science rather than politics. The book reveals how administrative elites, influenced by both European neighbors and Belgian avant-garde ideas, promoted large-scale office construction in the late 1930s to strengthen executive power and diminish parliamentary influence—contributing to our understanding of political culture in the “age of extremes.”
Karl O’Hanlon, Official Voices: Poets and the Irish State, Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2025.
How do poets apprehend, consciously or unconsciously, “the recalcitrant workings of power”? The book addresses the question of poetic form reflecting tensions between creative expression and state governance by looking at the poet-politicians and bureaucrats who shaped the twenty-six-county Irish state throughout the 20th century. The examined figures include W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Desmond FitzGerald, Denis Devlin, Joseph Campbell, Valentin Iremonger, Eithne Strong, Máire Mhac an tSaoi and Thomas Kinsella. Drawing on new archival work and situating Irish state and poetry transnationally, it tackles a perennial question: what did poetry make happen (and not happen) in the twenty-six counties?
Anja Schürmann and Kathrin Yacavone, Die Fotografie und ihre Institutionen. Von der Lehrsammlung zum Bundesinstitut, Berlin: Reimer Mann Verlag, 2024.
This groundbreaking volume explores the bureaucratic infrastructure behind German photography since 1945, tracing how institutions (museums, collections, archives, galleries) in Essen, Munich, and beyond have classified, collected, exhibited, archived, and marketed photographic images. Particularly timely amid discussions about establishing a Federal Institute for Photography, the book combines scholarly essays, interviews, and artistic perspectives with a comprehensive timeline to document how institutional frameworks have fundamentally shaped photographic practice in Germany—offering readers the first systematic historical and theoretical overview of photography's institutionalization in post-war Germany.
Journal Issue
“Die Rigidität des Unverbindlichen: Informalität und Interaktion in Organisationen” [The rigidity of the non-binding: Informality and interaction in organizations], Soziale Systeme, vol 29, issues 1-2, De Gruyter, 2024.
With contributions from prominent scholars studying bureaucracy in historical, cultural and literary contexts in the German-speaking world, this special issue focuses on the distinction between informality and formality in organizational theory, examining how this dichotomy functions across various institutional contexts. The articles span administrative history, organizational sociology, and management theory, united by a societal-theoretical perspective on the problem of informality. The contributors investigate how different contexts produce distinct forms of informality in response to formal structures. The editors note that while government agencies typically reject informality in favor of formal bureaucratic processes, organizations often invert this relationship, embracing informality as a complementary or even primary operational mode.
Editors: Maren Lehmann and Peter Plener
Contributing authors: Benno Wagner, Burkhardt Wolf, Dennis Firkus, Marcel Schütz, Victoria v. Groddeck, Armin Nassehi, Irmhild Saake, Bjarne von Gaessler, Peter Becker, Achim Brosziewski, Martin Feißt, Judith Muster, Jaime Ubilla.
Articles and Chapters
Felipe Becerra, “Communities, Bureaucracy, and Office Technologies in Ulises Carrión's Publishing Projects” in Ulises Carrión: Bookworks and Beyond, ed. Sal Hamerman and Javier Rivero Ramos, Princeton University Press, 2024, pp. 38-70.
In his chapter, Felipe Becerra examines Ulises Carrión's complex and ambivalent relationship with libraries, archives, and bureaucratic systems. Carrión, a Mexican artist, writer, and cultural theorist active in the 1970s and 1980s, underwent a shift in perspective when he established his own artistic institutions and assumed directorial roles. Becerra argues that Carrión's view of bureaucracy transformed from being merely a subject of ironic reference to becoming an integral part of his artistic work—while simultaneously functioning as a force that continually delayed it. The chapter analyzes how Carrión's engagement with bureaucratic, clerical and institutional systems served to constantly redefine the boundaries between inclusion and exclusion in the artworld.
Cornelius Beckers, “'I too in couplets would attempt to paint / Our varied woes, and versify complaint': Poetic Form and Knowledge in Early Nineteenth-Century Satirical Poetry by East India Company Employees,” in Global Nineteenth-Century Studies 3.1, 2024, pp. 51–64.
This article examines how East India Company employees in the early 19th century used satirical poetry to challenge orientalist knowledge shaping British India’s governance. By adapting neoclassical poetic forms, these satires subverted previously accepted values central to training company officials. The study also considers whether similar uses of metropolitan poetic conventions occurred in other European colonial contexts, such as Portuguese India.
E. J. Dickson, “A Tale of Two Marcels: Tracing a Bureaucratic Aesthetics in Duchamp, Broodthaers” in Duchamp Accelerated. Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Julian Jason Haladyn. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024, pp. 115-128.
Marcel Duchamp and Marcel Broodthaers share well-established art historical connections through their interests in irony, humor, institutional critique, and the everyday. While their museological connections have been thoroughly explored, this study examines a previously unanalyzed commonality: their shared critical orientation toward bureaucracy. Through analysis of Duchamp's Box of 1914 and Broodthaers's Musée, Dickson argues that both artists developed a "bureaucratic aesthetics"—a critical artistic interface with bureaucratic logics, structures, processes and forms.
Daniel Jenkin-Smith, “Between ‘Engrossing’ and ‘Penning’: Charles Lamb and the Romantic Aesthetics of Emergent Bureaucracy” in European Romantic Review 35.4, 2024, pp. 615–632.
This article examines the complex relationship between Charles Lamb’s career as an East India Company clerk and his work as an essayist. Rather than seeing these roles as strictly opposed or complementary, it argues that Lamb’s reflections on “engrossing” and “penning” for a living reveal deeper tensions that shaped his writing. Through analysis of his essays and correspondence within the context of early bureaucracy—drawing on Jacques Lacan and Bruno Latour—the article explores how Lamb’s engagement with office life informs key aesthetic and philosophical concerns of Romanticism.
O.J.A.I. and Pia Louwerens, “Double Minutes #13” in Umbigo, issue 89, Portugal, July 2024.
Sharing a fascination with institutionalization in relation to the artworld through varying empirical and conceptual lenses, Pia Louwerens collaborated with the Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence on a site-specific project. The work appears in Umbigo, a bilingual Portuguese/English contemporary art magazine based in Portugal (the issue is available for purchase at the publication’s website).
Michaela Telfer, “Bureaucratic Modernity: Huysmans as ‘rond-de-cuir’” in Nineteenth-Century French Studies 51 (3), University of Nebraska Press, 2023, pp. 169-184.
This article examines how Joris-Karl Huysmans’s À vau-l’eau, “La Retraite de Monsieur Bougran” (1888), and his personal writing depict bureaucratic labor as generating ennui and disgust, shaping both his work and contemporary views on modernity. It argues that the repetitive, seemingly meaningless nature of bureaucratic writing affects the bureaucrat’s body and daily life, reinforcing cultural anxieties about bureaucracy’s role in modern society. These concerns manifest in late 19th-century anti-fonctionnarisme and a broader affective crisis marked by pessimism.
Pieter Vermeulen, “Do Bureaucrats Dream of Excel Sheets? On Imagination and Administration” in The Sleep of Reason. Critical Perspectives in Contemporary Art, MER. Books/Owl Press, 2024.
The chapter expands on the “infinite conversation to be held between the artist and the bureaucrat” in contemporary contexts, starting from ideas originally sketched in a curatorial report accompanying the author’s exhibition The Seduction of the Bureaucrat (2023). As you may remember, we were thrilled to introduce and present them both greater detail in our previous issue dedicated to administration and the arts.
Events
(colloquium) “Redes de poder y dominación en oficinas, burocracias y empresas” [“Networks of power and domination in offices, bureaucracies and companies”], Kassel, June 26-27, 2024. The book of abstracts (in Spanish) is available here.
(seminar series) Le Spectacle des arcanes. Organized and moderated by Jérémie Ferrer-Bartomeu throughout 2024, the series of ten online seminars explored the self-reflexive work of administration in early-modern Europe. Hosted by UCLouvain, the series will continue in 2025, culminating with an international colloquium in Bruxelles later this year.
(conference presentation) Alexandra Irimia, “Bureaucracies of Memory. Institutionalized History in Four Contemporary European Novels” at European Centres and Peripheries in the Political Novel, workshop organized by CAPONEU, ZfL Berlin, Germany, June 6-7, 2024.
(conference presentation) Alexandra Irimia, “Vers une esthétique de la bureaucratie : le ‘grotesque administratif’ de Michel Foucault et ses avatars contemporains” at Rencontres doctorales Centre Michel Foucault, IMEC-Abbaye d’Ardenne, Caen, France, October 2-4, 2024.
(workshop) Dismantling the Chair Pile: Uncovering the Aesthetics of Bureaucracy by Comitê Estética da Burocracia & Public Sector Office, Creative Bureaucracy Festival, Berlin, March 13, 2025. This online workshop cultivates a critical understanding of bureaucracy by examining workspaces as sites for challenging assumptions about public service, using visual collections from Brazilian and American offices. Designed by Ana Carolina Fiocchi Perez, Brenda Machado Fonseca, Caio Werneck, Casey Peterson, Isabela Brandalise, and Lucas Vaqueiro.
(exhibition) Lea Sonderegger’s Norm, on display at the Fotohof Gallery in Salzburg from October 8 to November 29, 2024, showcased interiors of Viennese administrative facilities including, among others, offices, entrance halls, waiting areas, and canteens. In her photographic work, the artist documents “a built environment that determines the everyday lives of a large proportion of people”, aiming to capture “a specific type of administrative space”. We thank Anja Schürmann for signalling to us this exhibition, as well as some of the photobooks.
Photobooks
Lars Tunbjörk, Office / LA Office (2024)
This luxurious two-volume, slipcased edition republishes Lars Tunbjörk's seminal 2001 photobook Office / Kontor /オフィス alongside the previously unreleased LA Office series, completed before his death. The Swedish photographer's work renders visible the sterile melancholy of corporate environments across Stockholm, New York, and Tokyo, having documented these secretive yet commonplace spaces already in the 2001 edition. Even though office culture has changed looks since, Tunbjörk's images remain relevant for rendering contemporary workplace disillusionment.
Interestingly, in a recent interview, cinematographer Jessica Gagné cites it along Lewis Baltz’s photobook 89-91 Sites of Technology and Lynne Cohen’s photography as the main inspiration for the iconic set design of Severance.
Dayanita Singh, Forget Me Knot, Steidl Verlag, coming up in 2025
Dayanita Singh’s photographs of India's vast private and public archives feature shelves lined with enigmatic bundles of cloth containing official documents. The presence of the archivists is hinted at by the familiar spaces they typically occupy—chairs, desks, doorways, and halls—though they are themselves notably absent from the photographs, which instead foreground the shapes and knots of the archival bundles.
Dayanita Singh’s File Room, 2nd edition, Steidl Verlag, coming up in 2025
This new edition of Dayanita Singh’s debut photography book File Room (2013) brings forth Indian archives and their custodians. It is a visual exploration of a paradox: although archives appear impersonal in their organization, each one reflects the meticulous work and systematizing logic of individual archivists. Much like her 2022 Sea of Files, the re-edition challenges readers to view archives not just as scholarly resources but as monuments of knowledge with their own aesthetic of organized disorder.
Ongoing Research Projects
The international research project focuses on the German-speaking administrations of the Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, examining the administrative practices of the 'post-bureaucratic' state.
This multidisciplinary project looks at the architecture and interiors of EU office buildings over the period 1950-2000, exploring how everyday material and bureaucratic practices affected European integration.
Kleine Souveränität (“Small Sovereignty”, University of Kassel)
This project partly concerns itself with “office stories” in Latin American literature, establishing and analyzing a literary corpus that doubles as an archive of social experience. The research logbook on the project website glosses several works of office fiction that are being collated and studied as a part of the project.
B-Files: Bureaucratic Fiction (University of Bonn, 2024-2026)
Interested in narratives, images, and affects of administration in contemporary world literature and film, the project discusses fictional works engaging with bureaucratic themes and forms. It contends that administrative practices significantly shape modern aesthetic forms, while being themselves determined by fictional constructs (such as social imaginaries and historical narratives) through aesthetic production and reception.
Social Media Curatorship
It’s difficult to talk about bureaucratic aesthetics (especially in contemporary contexts) without addressing its strong visual component. We’ve found 4 compelling Instagram accounts that are busy documenting the visual culture of bureaucracy, gathering imagery of administrative systems, and zooming in on institutional aesthetics in various contexts. Each of them offers a unique perspective on the often overlooked artistry embedded within official structures and public service environments:
→ Public Sector Office compiles images of artifacts “from the wild and weary world of serving the public interest”. They accept submissions.
→ Estética da burocracia describes itself as “an aesthetic record of the office world, mindful of the need to publicize bureaucratic creativity”.
→ The Office for Joint Intelligence. Active since 2015, O.J.A.I. explores administrative systems through an artistic lens, examining the principles behind institutional structures and turning their processes into performance art.
→ Imaginart is interested in “artists and cultural workers reimagining public institutions”.
Inspired by these digital media curators, we have decided to carve out our own space on the Gram. It’s easy to find: we’ve called it Bureaucritics. The account brings not only newsletter updates, but also related content from our personal, often serendipitous encounters with officialdom and the strangely compelling world of its research.
If that’s something you’d enjoy, follow us!
As we wrap up this exploration of bureaucritical perspectives from 2024, we continue to welcome your contributions—whether it's research we've missed, administrative curiosities you've encountered, or your own reflections—at bureaucritics@gmail.com.
If you find value in our newsletter, please consider sharing it with colleagues and friends who might appreciate this lens on institutional life. Finally, if you haven’t already, you’re invited to subscribe to ensure you don't miss our next dispatch.
Until then, may your forms be filed correctly and your waiting times mercifully brief!
Bureaucritically,
Alexandra and Jonathan