[Air-L] [EXT] ANU School of Sociology seminar series: "The Sovereign Individual reloaded: surfacing Thiel’s alt-canon", Prof Roger Burrows (Bristol University)

[Laura Niebling]

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Am 16.02.2026 um 03:20 schrieb Thao Phan via Air-L <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>:

> Dear all,
> 
> Please join us for the first ANU School of Sociology seminar series talk
> for 2026!
> 
> *The Sovereign Individual reloaded: surfacing Thiel’s alt-canon*
> Speaker: Prof Roger Burrows (Centre for Urban and Public Policy Research,
> Bristol University)
> 
> Date: Tuesday 17 February, 2026
> Time: 12 – 1pm
> Location: RSSS Room 2.56, and Zoom
> Registration:
> https://events.humanitix.com/anu-school-of-sociology-seminar-series-prof-roger-burrows
> 
> 
> 
> *Title*
> 
> *The Sovereign Individual* reloaded: surfacing Thiel’s alt-canon
> 
> *Abstract*
> 
> Peter Thiel’s ideological commitments, financial networks and political
> interventions reveal a deliberate effort to dismantle democratic governance
> in favour of elite-controlled sovereignties. Drawing on Girard, Spengler,
> Strauss and especially The Sovereign Individual (Davidson and Rees-Mogg),
> Thiel envisions a world where wealth insulates elites from public
> accountability, taxation and state oversight. His investments in
> seasteading, Urbit, Palantir – whose CEO studied under Habermas – and
> political figures such as J.D. Vance illustrate how these ideas shape
> emerging governance structures.
> 
> Thiel’s alignment with neoreactionary (NRx) ideology, particularly Yarvin’s
> patchwork GovCorp model and Land’s Dark Enlightenment, promotes corporate
> autocracy, accelerationism and architectures of exit. This vision is
> materialising in privatised jurisdictions, from financial corridors that
> circumvent national regulation to autonomous city-states governed by market
> logic. These developments signal a shift beyond neoliberalism, where
> economic power is increasingly detached from state oversight.
> 
> By embedding these ideas in Silicon Valley, state institutions and
> financial infrastructures, Thiel advances a model in which citizenship is
> reduced to consumer choice, governance operates beyond democratic control
> and sovereignty is reconfigured through technological means. This paper
> situates Thiel’s project within broader sociological concerns about elite
> withdrawal, so-called digital feudalism and the restructuring of governance
> through technological and financial infrastructures.
> 
> *About the speaker*
> 
> Roger Burrows has worked in UK higher education since 1985, holding
> positions at Surrey, Teesside, York, Goldsmiths, Newcastle and currently
> Bristol, where he is Head of the Centre for Urban and Public Policy
> Research (CUPPR). At Goldsmiths, he was Pro-Warden for Interdisciplinary
> Development. He is also an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University
> of Melbourne’s Centre for Cities and an Adjunct Professor at the Australian
> Centre for Housing Research, University of Adelaide.
> 
> His research spans housing, urban studies, digital cultures and social
> inequalities. He has published over 170 works, with half focusing on
> housing and urban studies and the rest covering theory, methods, digital
> culture, health, global inequalities and higher education.
> 
> He was co-editor of Housing Studies (2002–2005) and led the UK ESRC
> E-Society Programme (2005–2007). He has served as a UK REF assessor and
> sits on the editorial boards of Body & Society and Theory, Culture &
> Society. His recent work examines algorithmic risk profiling in housing,
> the social geography of the super-rich, fintech use among young people and
> the ideological foundations of neoreactionary (NRx) thought.
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