Scholars and Spies examines the intertwined histories of scholarship, research, and academia with statecraft, empire, and the infrastructures and functions of intelligence services and espionage. This seminar explores how knowledge—its production, circulation, and authority—has been implicated in, and mobilized by, covert and overt forms of state and imperial power.

Participants to be announced.

Matter of Intelligence Seminar Series
Through modes of shared study, rehearsal, and iterative dialogue with invited artists, thinkers, and the public, the VLC Seminar Series develops and presents artistic and scholarly research centered on the Vera List Center’s 2025–2027 Focus Theme, Matter of Intelligence. Comprising twelve sessions convened from September 2025 through May 2027, the Seminar Series is conceived as an open curriculum and a site for collective inquiry. Each seminar is paired with a curated reader on the Matter of Intelligence Are.na channel, grounding the dialogue and opening new paths for exploration.