Robert Kelly used to blog here before he made the big-time on the BBC, so here's a salute via Friday nerd-blogging. BEAUTIFUL pic.twitter.com/EQo7JJJ8gW — Lindsey B (@lindseybieda) March 17, 2017
Dear Readers, In this post, I would like to focus on the few ways in which the blogosphere and social media more generally help junior scholars. I will use myself as an example. It is not easy for...
The events of the last week within the International Studies Association indicate that there is much ignorance about social media and its role in 21st century IR scholarship and teaching. On the...
May the bard be with you. See also "The Empire Striketh Back."
In a week filled with the death of intellectuals and political activists, we now have the death of Kim Jung Il. Other than the fact that this destabilizes an already crazy country (and I mean 'crazy' in that professional IR kind of way), I can't think much of us will miss him. Except maybe the creators of South Park.But who knew Juche could be so funky?
I never, ever, ever thought I would write a blog post about Newt Gingrich's chances as Republican nominee for President, except perhaps to laugh at him. Yet here I am.The Republican establishment is lining up against Gingrich, claiming that he is not conservative enough. This is laughable and a red herring. As opposed to Mitt Romney? Instead we should listen to those who were swept into office and/or positions of power with him in the revolution of 1994, like Joe Scarborough. They know him well. Gingrich's problem is hardly being conservative enough. Rather the real objections center on two...
Christopher Hitchens has died. The world has lost one of its most luminous minds.He will be acclaimed for his literary criticism, his political stances, and his raw physical courage as a writer-journalist, entering dangerous battlespaces from Belgrade to Baghdad. Not to mention his wit, occasional rudeness, his filthy limericks, and his dignified and reflective meditations on his coming death. His greatest work, I think, was Why Orwell Matters – a penetrating study of another brave and ferociously sharp Englishman.I was lucky enough to meet him a few times, and interview him. He drank a...
The news that President Obama plans to sign the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) permitting indefinite detention for Americans accused of supporting terrorism is a sad day for those who believe in basic civil and human rights. Equally, this move calls into question optimistic views about international norms and the power of human rights. Glenn Greenwald and others cover the threat to basic freedoms in posts that are well worth reading. By comparison, the import for scholars of norms may seem minor but is nonetheless worth pondering. Norms against indefinite detention have long been...
I think I did a reasonable job restraining myself while suffering through Breaking Dawn this past weekend with my daughter and her friend. I didn't vomit once!And fortunately I didn't have to. The pathetically destructive and sexist representations of romantic love, family, marriage and motherhood in the Twilight series were all the girls talked about on the way home. And they didn't even need the HP/SW allegories to notice it. The same night we saw the film my daughter sat me down unprompted to hear her guffaw loudly at this series of satirical YouTube videos making fun of all things...
Kathleen R. McNamara lays out the reasons to be skeptical that the euro can survive in anything like it's current form. McNamara's brand of political economics begins from the right presumption: that in political economy, politics comes first. Models that fail to account for the role of institutions, of beliefs, or of power will fail to capture any of features that matter most when systems begin to fail. Politics is an autonomous part of social life. It has its own logic and its own explanations. Although political science is a discipline of magpies forever borrowing from other fields'...
I have been sitting on the search committee for a couple of positions in my department, the School of International Relations at USC, and I thought I would share some observations that come from that vantage point. Anyone who happens to have been an applicant should not take this an indicating anything about their own individual case. Rather these are general trends I am noticing. I don't know if they surprise anyone, but I will offer them nonetheless.I haven't done this at the junior level for quite a while, and what was obvious is that epistemology now largely dominates ontology. Granted...
Pop Culture and World Politics v5.09-11 November 2012Hobart and William Smith CollegesGeneva, NY 14456 USAWhat do zombies have to do with world politics? How might the Twilight sagas inform and illuminate our way of understanding world politics and changes in the global political economy? In what ways do videogames, the sales of which now exceed those of music CDs and DVDS combined, shape the identities and political understandings of frequent players? Is visual media destined to replace print as the primary source of news and entertainment in advanced industrial societies and how might this...