Subject:
Minor institutions obituary bulletin ‑ ‑
Dear friends,
I’ve been working on this project since July, and it’s now ready to share. It has reached the practical step now, the middle where the real work is.
The seed-idea of this project is an obituary column for institutions. Closures are coming fast. Obiits.org will keep its running bulletin up to date to locate events that concern (ideally) distant groups and different languages on the same timeline.
To clarify, Obiits does not have museums and universities in mind. Other institutions, on other scales, interest us - - as sites of collective thought and power. Call them “minor institutions” if you want! Or, as for the Jacobin Saint-Just, “republican.” I’ve articulated the stakes of the project here: obiits.org/i.e./ - - and a few examples at obiits.org/e.g./ (growing list, please contribute!)
Later, seasonal essays will complement this closures bulletin. These essays will articulate a singular institution’s collective know-how and what it learned in practice. Its “experience,” often has something to teach us. But right now, the next step is just to get the bulletin going.
I’d like to invite your assistance in a few ways ways.
⚘ When you hear bad news about an institution, please write to us. Either at our email address, bulletin ɐ obiits ◊ org, or to the signal bot, @bobiits.71. Please alert the team even if you don’t have the details, and we can fill in the gaps.
⚘ I’d like your help thinking of ways of keeping this going and keep it a habit. Journalism is perpetual work. Do you have a trick that might also help us find it ourselves? Or a proposal for the least possible way of reminding people that there is a place for their news?
⚘ Let’s also catch up on the past few years. If you have fifteen minutes, please think back over the institutions whose closure diminished our collective capacities or for some other reason mattered. The longer the list, the better.
⚘ This bulletin wants to be as global as possible. Each of our networks are themselves far from homogenous. They have openings. But my own still tilts toward a western context and specifically that of researchers and cultural workers. Please help me brainstorm ways to expand the field from which we can draw our news of minor institutions and their vicissitudes, and push it beyond these borders. Making contact with outfits and organizations which are engaged with the problem elsewhere could be especially valuable - - are there introductions you could make? But I think you may have other ideas entirely.
Thank you!
A —
P.S. Don’t hesitate to share the url or this email with others who could be helpful or interested. - - If you want to be involved more closely, you ABSOLUTELY CAN. - - I would be very happy to discuss the project, the writing, and your corrections or propositions to go beyond it.
Sent on January 31, 2026
In the workshop / Lend a hand
Ways to contribute (+ surprises welcome)
Obiits is in its early months. There’s a lot of room for proposals and mutations. If you want to join the workshop mailing list either for such questions or for handling bulletin updates (especially additions sent to bulletin ɐ obiits), or to get otherwise involved, please write to crew ɐ obiits ◊ org.
Timeline
As of early February 2026
What’s now ready: presentation of the concept, examples, bibliography and a second bibliography from Miguel Abensour’s article on Saint-Just. We have a Signal bot, boobits.71, which will forward bulletin contributions to an editorial group.
Our next immediate task will be the right column, the institution closures bulletin. The bulletin’s vocation is to report in real time on the cancellation and undoing of institutions of collectivity. It intends (though this is, at first, only an idea) to bring the collectivities of the West and of the rest of the world - - and the unstringing of both - - into the same frame. The networks of those of us already on the team will be a good starting point; and why not start new correspondences?
This bulletin will be largely contributed by readers. To grow and establish bulletin this habit isn’t the simplest thing. Please write to @bobiits.71 or bulletin ɐ obiits ◊ org with bulletin additions for any date in the last five, ten, twenty years (seriously!).
In the meantime, those of us more intensely involved with the project will ourselves try to track institution closures beyond our ken, though this will leave out many of the most interesting. Please tell others, especially when you hear bad news about institutions in which they are involved. And if you are interested in joining the editorial atelier which receives and incorporates these contributions into the bulletin (time-sensitive as they are), please write.
We are now brainstorming a list of institutions past and present for feature essays that attempt to communicate the experience gained in that institution, what the institution collectively knew how to do, what it learned and what it taught. Please write to us with essays you’d like to propose and institutions you’d like to read about. profile ɐ obiits ◊ org. (Regarding these profiles, consult the last section of the project presentation on “experience” and the necessity of the essay form.)
The bibliography too can always grow. Write to library ɐ obiits ◊ org.
We truly wish for this team to grow, as it is a project better made by two or three handfuls than one. Please write to crew ɐ obiits ◊ org if you are interested. Any level or kind of engagement is welcome, from ephemeral to committed.
Winter-Spring 2026
1) Helping the bulletin find momentum.
2) Growing the core team and getting creative.
3) Finding writers of featured essays, and 4) Finding funding to compensate them.
By Late 2026
Presenting a profile of an institution quarterly. The bulletin continues too; a seminar on the social theory involved and what our objects can teach will begin. Three threads now, keep going; voilà Obiits.
