alvard Leira is Research Professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (aka 'NUPI') in Oslo. Professor Leira and Brent have been friends for some time. He chats with Brent about growing up in Norway in a family of academics, his 'devouring' of history, his graduate work at LSE and the University of Oslo, his joining NUPI and meeting the cohort of elite NUPI scholars he's become good friends with since. He tells the stories behind his publications, how he and a few others were able to get a Historical IR section of the ISA going, how he approaches writing,...

r. Ayse Zarakol of the University of Cambridge joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Dr Zarakol chats with Brent about growing up in Turkey, her decisions to attend college in the US, become a political science and classics double-major, and pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin (and her dissatisfaction before it with work as a paralegal). She talks about graduate school, developing her dissertation and choosing her dissertation chair, her success on the job market before the financial crisis in 2008 eliminated a lot of options, publishing her first book, and her...