Amid the annual deluge of end-of-year lists, I started to think about what readings generated the best classroom discussions I have overseen in the past calendar year. That list of readings is below, but I first need to provide some context. I teach seven courses per...
As one of the new Ducks, I'm linking to bits and pieces catching my eye/getting me thinking for the first time this morning. Enjoy! Academia Handy guidance on 'how to get rid of your fake academic...
It's the eternal quandary of thinking about the intersection of international politics and global health: where does Elton John fit in? We now have an answer. It's where we try to understand issues...
I plan to post relevant items for the World Politics in a Time of Populist Nationalism (WPTPN) group somewhat regularly, so please send links to me via Twitter (@whinecough or the #WPTPN hashtag) or...
From 1997 to 1999, I served in the Peace Corps in the Andean country of Ecuador. Ecuador is rich with contrasts. With the Galapagos, the Andes, and parts of the Amazon, the country possesses stunning natural beauty. The people have an incredible generosity of spirit, yet the country is riven by racial and regional differences. Until recently, high oil prices papered over some of these differences, but the president, Rafael Correa, is a left wing populist in the tradition of Hugo Chavez. He has taken to castigating his domestic on-line critics through television naming and shaming efforts...
Welcome to sunny and warm New Orleans (or at least sunnier and warmer than wherever most of us have come from!). If you are stepping away from conferencing for a bit, here are a few good reads on the security front. I'll likely come back in the new few days with one on energy/environment and health. Here I link to work from Alan Kuperman, Jay Ulfelder, Phil Hazlewood, Paul Staniland, and Graeme Wood, covering Libya, body counts, insurgencies, and ISIS. Enjoy. LIBYA In the wake of ISIS's emergence in Libya, my colleague Alan Kuperman weighs in on the debacle that is Libya in Foreign Affairs:...
After a hiatus, we will be back with some regular Morning Linkage. Look for the icon and the application of the new topic. I'm going to be brief here with some links. And it's not even morning! Blogging Andrew Sullivan ends his blogging on the Dish Professor loses tenure after blogging gone wrong Ukraine Steve Walt weighs in on Ukraine, suggests spiral model more appropriate than deterrence model and therefore arming risks escalation Mearsheimer (he of one name now) makes a similar case and calls for Ukraine to become a buffer state like Austria to which Dan Drezner and Steve Saideman note...
This post would be much more interesting if it concerned the nexus of its three subjects. Sadly, it does not. I'm working on a forum piece with Vincent Pouliot on Actor-Network Theory (ANT) -- one written from the explicit perspective of outsiders. We've been puzzled by the apparent lack of theorization of "the body" in Latour. For example, if social relations must be 'fixed' by physical objects, why isn't the human body one such object? If any of our readers are able to weigh in, I'd appreciate it. I've been considering discontinuing the m4a versions of the Duck of Minerva podcast. They...