by PM | 1 May 2012 |
Yes. Your students have less observable brain activity duringlecture than when they're asleep.Updated for the humorless. See postscript below.A new paper in IEEE Transactions in Biomedical Engineering suggests so:Long-term assessment of EDA [a measure of nervous system activity] revealed interesting trends in the participant’s sympathetic modulation over a week-long period. Intervals of elevated EDA frequently corresponded to times when the...
by Charli Carpenter | 29 Apr 2012 | Featured
In lieu of friday nerd blogging last week (which I saw Vikash had covered) Rob Farley and I blogged heads about gender in Foreign Policy, gender and race in Game of Thrones, and popular culture in foreign affairs. [Warning: There are some mild and at least one not-so-mild TV and book spoilers in our GoT discussion. However we do let you know when these are coming.]On the subject of FP's Swimsuit Issue, Rob asked me a great question: "What did...
by Robert Kelly | 29 Apr 2012 | Featured
For awhile I was collecting links and such to make an argument about Korea and Japan working together on big issues like China and NK, or finally clinching the much-discussed but little worked-on FTA. Both the realist and the liberal in me wanted to see two liberal democracies working together in a tough environment with similar structural threats. Initially I had written: “This may be the biggest news of the year if it actualizes: Japan is...
by Rodger Payne | 28 Apr 2012 |
Charli, Dan and Patrick at ISA 2013? The academics/educators who write this blog often locate their research and teaching interests in texts from popular culture. Dan has co-edited a book on Harry Potter and IR. Patrick teaches a course on science fiction and social science. Dan offers a course on science fiction and politics. Charli blogs frequently about science fiction and has a working paper on "Security or Human Security? Civil-Military...
by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 28 Apr 2012 | Featured
This post started off as a reply to a comment under Robert Kelly's post on historical institutionalism, but it got so long I thought it deserved its own post.There is a great deal of ambiguity in how we use the term "decision" in contemporary IR, an ambiguity that also infects the closely related concept of "choice." Briefly, we use these terms to refer both to objects of explanation and to means of explanation -- and the ambiguity of our usage...
by Dan Nexon | 27 Apr 2012 |
The assassination of Osama bin Laden by US special forces certainly has created a political problem for the Republican party. They spent years demagoguing the war on terror, but now the symbol of that struggle is dead. The man who green-lighted the operation wasn't George W. Bush or John McCain, but Barack Obama. And you can bet that the Democrats are going to beat that drum from now until November. For example (via): My own view is kind of...
by Megan MacKenzie | 27 Apr 2012 |
After reading the FP special 'sex' issue this week I had the strangest feeling. It was like I woke up and it was 1991 and I was 13 again reading teen magazines. After reading Charli's excellent post on the issue I couldn't help but chime in. You see, I know that one of the obvious retorts to some of the criticism that has been waged about the issue will be 'Hey, it was meant to raise a few issues and have some fun while we're at it. We're...
by Vikash Yadav | 27 Apr 2012 | Featured
Drogo as angry brown man.Source: dothraki.orgGraddakh! We the brown people of Vaes Dothrak collectively curse the producers of HBO and the slanderous "creator" of our world, which you call the Game of Thrones. We know that your people have a long standing tradition of questionable and objectionable racial imaginings in your "fantasy fiction" genre. So we are not surprised by your ifaki ignorance of our civilization. Anyway, we have also come...
by Charli Carpenter | 26 Apr 2012 |
Photo courtesy of Conflict CupcakeTo be fair, despite all the criticism, Foreign Policy's "Sex Issue" got a few things right. For an all-too rare moment, it put gender - er, sex - er, sexuality* - on the foreign policy agenda. Somehow (could it be the nude photo on the cover?!) the editors managed to get people excited - gripped even - by "women's issues." (What were the chances?)But enough snark. FP did well by including commentators from the...
by Robert Kelly | 25 Apr 2012 | Featured
NOTE: The following was actually written before Dan Nexon posted a good piece on exactly the same essay. I’m not sure if that coincidence means anything, but here’s my take: ----------------------------------------- So I just read Orfeo Fioretos’ “Historical Institutionalism in International Relations” (IO 65/2, 2011). It’s very good - erudite and sophisticated, the kind of dense, abstract writing that makes me wonder if I can keep up in our...
by Alana Tiemessen | 25 Apr 2012 |
CBC - CP file photoThe Canadian International Council recently organized an interesting public event with Louise Arbour on her role in speaking "truth to power." The talk is available on line at Open Canada.org. (starts around 22min mark, after the introductions) and is constructed as a dialogue with Stephen Toope, President of the University of British Columbia and notable international law scholar.Madam Arbour is known for being outspoken on...
by Steve Saideman | 25 Apr 2012 |
I have never really paid attention to shoes, my own or those of the opposite sex. But the past year has taught me that one form of footwear seems to be most important: boots. Boots on the ground vs no boots on the ground. Politicians making promises about no boots on the ground were all the rage last year at this time--that the US, Canada, and the rest of NATO would meet the language of non-occupation in the UN resolution governing the...