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Robert Chapman

@drrobertchapman.bsky.social
7.5K followers 860 following 1.2K posts

Author of Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism and founding member of Books From Below They/them.

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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 3h
Its been so nice co-running a radical bookshop with @benbowsher.bsky.social and @emilywebz.bsky.social the last few days since opening. Lots of interest, support, gratitude and solidarity. Will write more about it at some point but for now am just extremely busy and not very online.
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Liam Renouf @liamrenouf.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Please read and share
liamrenouf.substack.com
Decolonisation Is Not a Metaphor: A Call to Action over the University of Sheffield’s Complicity in the Ongoing Genocide in Palestine.
On filing ethics forms, the corporate university's lip service to anti-racism, and why academics must name Sheffield’s collusion at every opportunity.
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Aidan McGlynn @aidanmcglynn.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Your students don't properly respect you
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
This is literally how I speak to my cat
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
My new book Pure Fantasies: The Rise of Health Fascism, is ready to preorder! www.plutobooks.com/product/pure...
plutobooks.com
Pure Fantasies - Pluto Press
From Mussolini to the manosphere, fascism has always been a health movement
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Gene Hunt 🇨🇦🇵🇸 @avin-oops.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Middle England today
Kombucha girl meme. Positive face: concentration camps. Negative face: concentration camps near my village
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Comrades what are you favourite contemporary zines (available in the UK)? We are discussing what to stock in our radical bookshop!
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Lovely to see Ed Sheeran's support acts quitting. I think often liberals dislike solidarity as it shines a light on the utter hollowness of their politics. They do everything they can to shut it down, discredit, or silence it. But always remember that they do this because they recognise its power.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
If you told 2013 me I would be a macklemore stan in 2026 I would not believe you but here we are.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
A pattern i've noticed since working on opening a radical bookshop: Troskyites get in touch to donate books while Stalinists get in touch to sell you books.
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Warda Farah @wardasworld.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
You can listen to me chat to @drrobertchapman.bsky.social & @mboveda.bsky.social on Language and (DIS)Ability tensions - languagetensionspodcast.buzzsprout.com/2617863/epis...
languagetensionspodcast.buzzsprout.com
Language and (Dis)Ability Tensions - Language Tensions Podcast
This episode of Language Tensions explores disability, neurodiversity, and identity through an intersectional lens, connecting personal experiences with broader educational and societal systems.
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LiLBaz @lilbazza.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
'I promised my mum I wouldn't speak about banging my cousin at the fash convention' is just so on the nose what can you even say anymore
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
People still on twitter are saying there is a big reactionary fuss over @reallandsend.bsky.social's timely critique of eugenic ideology on the left. Good time to note her and @avierkant.bsky.social's book is still one of my favourite books on health politics. www.versobooks.com/en-gb/produc...
versobooks.com
Health Communism
In this fiery, theoretical tour de force, Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant offer an overview of life and death under capitalism and argue for a new global left politics aimed at severing the t...
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Me, Marxistly: I strongly belive in the power of a good bauhaus style rug to synthesise the apparent contradictions of a room
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Really enjoyed Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise by Emily Callaci. A skillful synthesis of theory, biography and history. www.penguin.co.uk/books/442807...
penguin.co.uk
Wages for Housework
'The women of the world are serving notice. We want wages for every dirty toilet, every indecent assault, every painful childbirth, every cup of coffee and every smile. And if we don’t get what we wan...
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Soviet health propoganda poster "weight is normal - (good) for the health"
Poster of a lots of kinds of food on scales and theee people eating together around a table.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Its been extremely stressful leaving academia due to rising transphobia but I am also relieved in some ways, given the terrible state of the industry in the uk. It feels like its gone through neoliberalism into something more like feudalism, which is hardly compatible with free thought.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Radical bookshops are places full of often suppressed and potentially lifechanging knowledge that AI doesn't know about.
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Isabelle Finn-Kelcey @isabellefk.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
What a great time to read #EmpireOfNormality: Neurodiversity & Capitalism, by @drrobertchapman.bsky.social 🦋 www.plutobooks.com/product/empi...
plutobooks.com
Empire of Normality - Pluto Press
This is the rise of the anti-capitalist neurodiversity movement
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Went to stroke my cat who was loafing next me on the sofa earlier. I must have pressed the wrong button, as she very suddely sprang into the air, flew across the room, and fell behind the other sofa, all in one single motion. She then acted like this was totally normal, of course.
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
If people wanna read the paper it's open access here: journals.publishing.umich.edu/ergo/article...
journals.publishing.umich.edu
On the Stability of Racial Capitalism
What is the connection between capitalism and racial hierarchy? In line with the tradition known as ‘the theory of racial capitalism’ we show that the latter can functionally support the former. As a ...
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
It won't let me sign without a university role but would have signed this.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I don't know loads about Dolly Parton but our baby daughter gets one book a month from Dolly Parton's Imaginarion Library and will do until she is five. I think setting up a charity to provide free books and inspire reading in children was a really incredible thing to do. imaginationlibrary.com/uk/
imaginationlibrary.com
United Kingdom - Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library launched in the United Kingdom in 2007 and today serves England, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
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Stu Hatton @stuhatton.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
An insightful review by @parkerian.bsky.social of @drrobertchapman.bsky.social's Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism. Strongly recommend you read the review, the book, and other works by both Chapman and Parker.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Saw all the big name philosophy and psychology professors listed as referees on eugenicist Nathan Cofnas's CV and feel a bit sick seeing how well networked he is. (And of course he has refereed for the Journal of Controversial Ideas eleven times.)
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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Me, a US-based academic: I don’t care what any scholar believes, we all need to stand up publicly whenever someone’s academic freedom is threatened Me, continuing: also, the first time this has happened, motivating me to sign my first ever open letter, is in late 2026, to a race scientist, in Ghent
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Misspelt "manosphere" as "nanosphere" and am now wondering whether there is a nanosphere.
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Richard Amm ♿ (Disability & Research) @richamm.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Abolish the DWP - Seeking volunteer writers for why the Department for Work and Pensions (UK) is deadly, unreformable and must be abolished. Email - richardamm(at)gmail.com
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TC Parker (she/her) @tcparker.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Hearing "neuroqueer" for the first time in @drrobertchapman.bsky.social's Empire of Normality - referencing Neuroqueer Heresies - was a genuinely revelatory moment for me Everyone - certainly every autistic person - should read them both
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Tom Hartley @tomhartley.me.uk · 18/08/2026
This is right IMO. The reason why we see increased diagnosis is because society (capitalism) is increasingly reliant on conformity, narrowing the range of what counts as "normal" - if you are sufficiently different, you are disabled. @drrobertchapman.bsky.social has written a book about it.
Cover of Empire of Normality
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
leilacancode.github.io/everythinggo...
leilacancode.github.io
Everything Good About Jason Arday
First-hand accounts from people who knew him. Collected by his students.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Donation page for Jason Arday's family. www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-...
gofundme.com
Donate to In Memory of Professor Jason Atta Kwei Arday, organized by Sir Patrick Vernon OBE
Help us support the family of Professor Jason Arday with funeral a… Sir Patrick Vernon OBE needs your support for In Memory of Professor Jason Atta Kwei Arday
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Ive been thinking (even without wanting to) about what the Arday story reveals about how dangerous the myth of the supercrip can be for disabled people in prominent positions, especially for Black and other poc disabled people. You must hyper-"perform" and we will hold you up as an "ideal".../
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Fergus Murray @oolong.co.uk · 16/08/2026
Seems worth repeating this recommendation in the wake of Arday's death.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Don't want to focus on any individual but i'm devastated by how few neurodiversity scholars with academic jobs spoke out for Arday when he needed it. He was one of us. He co-authrored one of the best books on neurodiversity politics. He was clearly tageted partly due to being neurodivergent.
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Happy Hour at Hippel's @sanktmaxtci.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
As I said in a previous book: "The Imperial press, liberal and conservative, are a mafia of bourgeois stochastic terrorists, drunk with spite and genocidal fervour, and they fucking hate you."
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
I know that people who are both Black and neurodivergent will be especially struggling right now, including aspiring academics who will rightly be concerned about being targeted by both the press and fellow academics. Sending my solidarity and love, and urging those in power to step up.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Don't fall for it again
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Still think this 100%
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Heard Jason Arday has died and want to send my love to all his friends and family and again to stress the importance of solidarity.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Been very busy but briefly coming on here to say to those who have supported our radical bookshop and community space, Books From Below: we have an update!
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Despite really enjoying Here Where We Live is Our Country, my one critique is that is just inexplicably sympathetic to the mencheviks, to the point where if mencheviks murder a teenager its framed as an understandable necessity, whereas anything good the bolsheviks did is treated with suspicion.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
The US probably has the worst welfare system of any technologically advanced economy so it makes perfect sense that lots of mutual aid would be necessary there but in academic theory this then gets packaged and imposed as a standard in places where that doesn't always fit well.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
I always try to follow a rule of punching up, not down in my writing. This got more tricky as my work got better known, i have to be more careful about, say, whose work I name, even if i critique a tendency. Sometimes i even ignore stuff i detest, as i'm uncertain about the ethics of engagment.
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Robert Suits @robertsuits.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
If you are in the UK, you can get my book, The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants, TOMORROW! This one snuck up on me during a busy summer, but very excited to potentially bump into it in the wild. Order it to your local bookstore or library! press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
press.princeton.edu
The Hobo
A panoramic history of America’s first climate migrants
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Really enjoyed Anton Jager's Hyperpolitics. Have some minor disagreements as ever, but as a political essay, fusing theory, history, political economy and culture its a whole different calibre to most stuff out there at the moment.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Dreamt I was at a party and had a conversation about economics with a guy who kept saying really weird things that made no sense in relation to the conversation. I then saw him again later, when was drunk, and he confessed he had no idea what economics is and had just been too embarrassed to say.
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Read about Oldspeak Bookshop, billed as Britain's right wing and "pro West" bookshop. Looked them up and they only seem to stock one book on mental health: Robert Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic lol. oldspeakbookshop.co.uk/products
oldspeakbookshop.co.uk
Oldspeak Bookshop Online Shop
Welcome to Oldspeak's online bookshop, where we celebrate the timeless classics that embody the essence of British heritage and conservative values. Our carefully curated selection features works from...
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Robert Chapman @drrobertchapman.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
"There is a blatant contradiction between what fascism promised and what it delivered to the masses....The "nation" revealed itself to be the bourgeoisie; the ideal fascist state revealed itself to be the vulgar, unscrupulous bourgeois class state." Clara Zetkin, 1923
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