Thinking Through Infrastructure

Thinking Through Infrastructure
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Thinking about the world through its infrastructure – from roads, railways, water, and waste, to transport, energy, housing, and healthcare – with creative practitioners, visual and sound artists, social scientists, and humanities scholars. Follow on Instagram @TTinfraNetwork.

  1. 21h ago

    Thinking Through Infrastructure, with Reed Puc and Dom Davies

    In this special episode, co-hosts Dom and Reed sat down for a conversation to mark the first birthday and twentieth episode of the Thinking Through Infrastructure podcast. They reflect on different definitions of infrastructure and the material shifts in society that precipitated the “infrastructural turn” in the social sciences and humanities. They share stories of when they first remember becoming conscious of infrastructure and how this informed their politics and research. They also talk through some examples of the way humanities scholars have applied infrastructure in their work and why this has proved such a rewarding way of both reading texts and interpreting the world. Finally, they discuss the history of the Thinking Through Infrastructure Network, from which the podcast derives, and look forward to some of the episodes that are forthcoming in 2026/27. Follow @TTinfraNetwork on Instagram for updates on new episodes and events. Please subscribe, review, and share the podcast to help us reach more listeners.

    Thinking Through Infrastructure, with Reed Puc and Dom Davies

  2. Sep 8

    Ocean Liners and Modern Literature, with Faye Hammill

    How does the ocean liner of the late 19th and early 20th centuries differ from the modern cruise ship? What does it mean to thinking about the ocean liner as a form of ‘passenger shipping’ rather than ‘cruising’ and how does this call attention to the ways human movement becomes absorbed into regimes of capital and nationhood? And how might ocean liner literature help us to examine the role of nostalgia in narratives of infrastructure tragedies? In this episode of the Thinking Through Infrastructure podcast, Reed Puc sat down with Faye Hammill, Professor of English Literature and Canadian Studies at the University of Glasgow. They discussed Faye’s newest book, Ocean Liners and Modern Literature, which is available through Liverpool University Press and is Open Access thanks to funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The conversation explored a broad range ‘ocean liner literatures’, probed the differences between an ocean liner novel and the railway novel and the road novel previously discussed on the podcast, and considered the sometimes prophetic nature of ocean liner literatures and our relationship with infrastructural disasters. Accompanying visuals are available on the @TTinfraNetwork Instagram page. Please like, subscribe, and review the podcast to help us reach more listeners.

    Ocean Liners and Modern Literature, with Faye Hammill

  3. Aug 11

    Spider-Sensibilities: Policing, Race, and Urban Spatial Imaginaries in Spider-Man Narratives, with Reed Puc

    What can Spider-Man teach us about infrastructure? How do superhero narratives open up urgent questions around crime, justice, and the city in the context of racial capitalism? What do we gain from an abolitionist reading of popular culture? And what does an abolitionist perspective bring to our understanding of infrastructure? In this episode, Dom sat down with Reed Puc, a researcher and curator at the British Library and a member of the steering group for the Thinking Through Infrastructure Network. They discussed Reed’s recently completed PhD thesis, Spider-Sensibilities: Policing, Race, and Urban Spatial Imaginaries in Spider-Man Narratives, which is available to download from the library at City St George’s, University of London. The conversation covered the cultural politics of infrastructure in superhero comics, the contest between white and black spatial imaginaries in cities like New York, and the importance of thinking through retributive justice as an infrastructure that must be abolished. Pictures from Reed’s research are available on the @TTinfraNetwork Instagram page. Please like, subscribe, and review the podcast to help us reach more listeners.

    Spider-Sensibilities: Policing, Race, and Urban Spatial Imaginaries in Spider-Man Narratives, with Reed Puc

  4. Jul 20

    Privatising Humanity: How Our Essential Human Needs Became Financial Assets, with Kate Bayliss

    Who owns the UK’s most essential infrastructure? How are our water and energy bills connected to offshore finance and private equity? What are the social consequences of privatised infrastructure ownership? And how can we build the political will to implement meaningful alternatives? In this episode, Dom spoke with with Kate Bayliss, a Research Fellow at the Centre for Development Policy and Research at SOAS, University of London, about her powerful new book, Privatising Humanity: How Our Essential Human Needs Became Financial Assets, which was published in 2026 by Manchester University Press. The conversation covered the origins and extent of infrastructure privatisation in the UK, the differences between asset manager capitalism and the asset manager society, the catastrophe of Macquarie’s ownership of Thames Water, and why Universal Basic Infrastructure might be a more enduring solution to inequality than Universal Basic Income. Please like, subscribe, and review the podcast to help us reach more listeners.

    Privatising Humanity: How Our Essential Human Needs Became Financial Assets, with Kate Bayliss

  5. Jun 16

    Less is Not Enough: Minimalist Desires and Postgrowth Politics, with Miriam Meissner, Dom Davies, and Postgrowth Planning at UCL Bartlett

    From decluttering bedroom drawers to detoxing from social media, minimalism has taken the global affluent class by storm. But what are the cultural politics of minimalist practices? Are they just an online trend or do they foster deeper desires that might be mobilised in the pursuit of a just world after capitalist growthism? And is It possible to speak of Marie Kondo as an organic intellectual of the globally affluent? This episode presents an event hosted by the UCL Bartlett’s Postgrowth Planning Group to celebrate the publication of Miriam Meissner’s new book, Less is Not Enough: Minimalist Desires and Postgrowth Politics. Trends like decluttering and mindfulness depoliticise middle-class frustrations with capitalist exploitation. Through a critical analysis of self-help books, TV shows, and online communities, Less Is Not Enough argues that while minimalism is often a distraction from the root causes of the very problems it seeks to alleviate, it also contains the seeds of a more radical cultural politics that might build popular consent for postgrowth planning strategies. The event was organised and introduced by Dan Durrant, Associate Professor in Infrastructure Planning at the Bartlett School of Planning. Miriam Meissner is Assistant Professor of Culture and Political Ecology at Maastricht University and currently Visiting Professor at the School of Arts and Humanities at the Royal College of Art, London. She was in discussion with Dom Davies, Reader in English at City St George’s, University of London, and convener of the Thinking Through Infrastructure Network. Please take a moment to like, subscribe, and review the podcast to help us reach more listeners.

    Less is Not Enough: Minimalist Desires and Postgrowth Politics, with Miriam Meissner, Dom Davies, and Postgrowth Planning at UCL Bartlett

  6. Jun 2

    Missiles on the Machair: Military Infrastructures in the Scottish Hebrides, with Zsuzsanna Ihar

    Where is Britain’s military infrastructure? Who builds it and how does it reshape rural landscapes? What happens to the communities who must learn to live in its vicinity? How are they persuaded to accept it? How do they resist? Whose labour makes military infrastructure work and how is it connected to conflicts around the world? In this episode, Dom spoke with Zsuzsanna Ihar, an anti-disciplinary historian and anthropologist, about her research into the roll out of military infrastructure in the Uist, a group of six islands in the outer Hebridean archipelago. The conversation covered the rise of critical military studies, the continuities between the Highland clearances and the later establishment of military infrastructures, the dubious promise of dual use technologies and the recruitment of disadvantaged communities into the military industrial complex, and the ongoing construction of a new space port at Britain’s northernmost edges. The episode features Murchadh MacPhàrlain sung by Margaret Bennett. Pictures from Zsuzsanna’s research are available on the @TTinfraNetwork Instagram page. Please take a moment to like, subscribe, and review the podcast to help us reach more listeners.

    Missiles on the Machair: Military Infrastructures in the Scottish Hebrides, with Zsuzsanna Ihar

  7. May 5

    Gentrification and African Presence in Peckham Walking Tour, with Charmaine Brown

    This episode presents an audio recording of the Gentrification and African Presence in Peckham or GAPP walking tour, led by Dr Charmaine Brown. The tour highlights key spaces in Peckham occupied by the Caribbean community from the 1950s through to the 1990s and early 2000s. It also explores how Peckham has been reshaped by waves of gentrification in the years since. Photographs from along the route of the tour, including its different stops, are available on the Thinking Through Infrastructure Instagram page, which you can find @TTinfraNetwork. We recommend making use of these visual aids as you listen. Dr Brown is a London-based educator from Kingston, Jamaica. For more information about her work, or if you would like to contact her about leading another tour, please head to www.drcharmainebrown.com. Please like, subscribe, and review the podcast to help us reach more listeners.

    Gentrification and African Presence in Peckham Walking Tour, with Charmaine Brown

  8. Apr 7

    Electric Wind: An Energy History of Modern Britain, with Marianna Dudley

    What is wind? How do we transform wind into electricity? And how does a view of Britain from the vantage of wind energy change our narrative of its national history and its national geography as well? This episode of the TTiN podcasts presents a recording from a live event hosted in collaboration with SPARC, or Sound Practice and Research at City St George’s, as well as City’s Modern History Cluster. The event featured an exhibition of visual artworks made in collaboration with community energy practitioners as well as an audio experience by SPARC co-director Claudia Molitor and writer Jessica J. Lee, titled “1000 words for weather.” Excerpts from this work feature at throughout this episode. The recording also features a conversation between TTiN convenor Dom Davies and Marianna Dudley, Senior Lecturer in the Environmental Humanities at the University of Bristol, about her recent book Electric Wind: An Energy History of Modern Britain (MUP 2025), which takes readers to Britain's wildest and windiest places to think deeply about the role of nature in politics, culture, science, and technology. This discussion explored the connections between wind energy and the welfare state, what wind has to do with Thatcherite ideology, the cultural politics of NIMBY resistance to wind turbines, and the limits of GB Energy. Pictures from the event are available on the @TTinfraNetwork Instagram page. Please like, subscribe, and review the podcast to help us reach more listeners.

    Electric Wind: An Energy History of Modern Britain, with Marianna Dudley
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About

Thinking about the world through its infrastructure – from roads, railways, water, and waste, to transport, energy, housing, and healthcare – with creative practitioners, visual and sound artists, social scientists, and humanities scholars. Follow on Instagram @TTinfraNetwork.

Information

  • Creator
    Thinking Through Infrastructure
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    21
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    Thinking Through Infrastructure