A discussion with Nina Kollars and Mark Raymond about the SolarWinds hack, recorded in March, 2021
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Bridging the Other Gap: Approaches for Blending STEM and Social Science Education
The COVID-19 pandemic makes it clear – our students need a blend of science and policy literacy. Transnational challenges with technical dimensions are increasingly common. Pandemic disease, climate change, artificial intelligence, biotechnologies, and other issues touching our politics and society demand fluencies that no single academic department houses. So, how might educators prepare students for this complex world? Scholars in the...
Is bullying baked into academia?
Recently, David Edelstein and Jim Goldgeier circulated an open letter for signature to address bullying in the profession. The open letter can be found here. So far, there are nearly 100 signatures, including mine. As a sophomore in high school, I was 5’2”, weighed 215 pounds, was in a bunch of advanced classes with much older students, and played role-playing games in my spare time. I know a little bit about being bullied. And I know a...
What If Academia Had a ‘Scout Mindset’?
Academia would benefit from “the motivation to see things as they are and not as” one wishes “they were.”
How do you kill a zombie argument? Middle East studies edition
I've started practicing mindfulness, partly to deal with the stress of being a Professor and parent of small kids in a pandemic, and partly to reduce the number of times I become unreasonably angry over bad policy arguments. I experienced a major setback this week, when I encountered yet another evidence-less argument on Saudi-Iran relations. What's worse, it looks like this zombie claim is not only refusing to die, but it is--in zombie...
Introducing Bridging the Gap’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Fellow: Emmanuel Balogun
The Bridging the Gap team is thrilled to announce the addition of a new member of our leadership team: Emmanuel Balogun, the inaugural BtG Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Fellow. We recently sat down with him to ask about his work, hobbies, and plans for the fellowship. Welcome to the team, Emmanuel! BTG: Tell us a bit about yourself. What drives your scholarship? EB: What drives my scholarship is my desire to highlight the multitude of ways...
Not everything outside the Pentagon is “soft power”
As someone who works on religion and politics, I encounter the term "soft power" a lot. Most of the time it's in a good way; soft power is a means to advocate for policies that draw on our values but still advance our interests. But, occasionally, the term frustrates me. Too often it's used as a catch-all to address any foreign policy that doesn't involve military force or economic sanctions. If we want to advocate for a broader set of foreign...
Life in the Time of COVID: Planning for Non-Adherence
If border closures are stopgaps that are costly and potentially illegal, then countries must explore additional options for dealing with infectious diseases.
Writing a Dissertation isn’t Running a Marathon… it’s Training for One
Hilary Matfess is a PhD candidate at Yale University, an incoming professor at the University of Denver’s Korbel School, and a 2020-2021 United States Institute for Peace (USIP) Peace Scholar Fellow. She will participate in the Bridging the Gap NEW Era workshop in 2021. Her work has been published in International Security, Security Studies, Stability, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and African Studies Review. Her first book, Women and the...
Teaching in the Age of Corona, One Year Later
Last year, at this time, I wrote about my first experiences in the new online teaching free-for-all era. Besides no longer using Corona, what else have I learned from teaching online? [Note, I have only taught five classes so my observations are based on impressions and thin anecdata] It does not have to suck. The big difference between last spring vs last fall and this winter is that we had no prep time, not chance to design syllabi, no...
A Gilded Age of Social Science: Big Data Governance, Neopositivist Social Science and Covid-19
As an American living in London, I wake up every morning and check statistics: the number of positive cases reported the prior day in both the UK and US, the number of deaths, hospitalizations and vaccine doses administered, the percentage of the population fully vaccinated and the number of days until the government promises to re-evaluate the lockdown’s end. These numbers determine when I might see my family again, when I might receive a...
Episode 16: Promises, Promises
Patrick and Dan continue their nostalgic tour of 1990s international-relations theory and spend s…