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Building on PM's earlier post, "Cultural Weapons and International Relations" I'd like to look at an example that helps to illustrate the ways in which Realism misunderstands the role of culture in...
Drew Conway discusses the evils of word clouds. He doesn't go far enough: the meaning of speeches and texts depends on the order and proximity of words, not the frequency of their appearance....
Last week I participated in a workshop at the Al Jazeera Center for Studies in Doha, Qatar, which brought to an end the ESRC’s Radicalisation & Violence programme of research projects, led by Prof....
I kid you not. The Chicago Tribune reports the following:"On March 17, there will be a "Battlestar" retrospective at the U.N. in New York and a panel discussion of how the show examined issues such as "human rights, children and armed conflict, terrorism, human rights and reconciliation and dialogue among civilizations and faith," according to Sci Fi. The "Battlestar" contingent on the panel will consist of executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, as well as stars Mary McDonnell (who plays president Laura Roslin on the show) and Edward James Olmos (Admiral William Adama). UN...
What are you watching?I'm tuned to the History Channel's "Next Nostradamus":Two men sharing startling visions of the future possess distinctly different backgrounds: Michel de Nostradamus was a French apothecary and healer in the 16th century; he would become the most famous seer in history. His 21st century counterpart is Dr. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, a renowned political scientist who teaches game theory at New York University and Stanford. While Nostradamus looked to the stars and mysticism to divine his apocalyptic revelations, Dr. Bueno de Mesquita relies on the most omnipotent tool ever...
At the urging of a friend, I have recently finished consuming the complete box-set of Joss Wheddon's now-defunct Firefly TV series plus the feature film Serenity. (Totally missed this show in 2002 while writing my dissertation.)Though my partner can't quite see what I like about Firefly/Serenity(and didn't accept my claim that I was viewing it as a mere artifact of popular culture - really), truth is it's a damn cool series that should have survived beyond one season.If you're unfamiliar with Firefly, here's the premise: humankind has colonized a new solar system, characterized by a strong,...
While I was in Japan last week interviewing government officials about their "human security" foreign policy agenda, I visited the Yasukuni shrine. Readers may be aware that this memorial to modern-era Japanese war dead has been controversial in the region: victims of Japan's imperial wars see it as a salute to war criminals, and the opposition in Japan considers any national monument to militarism a violation of the post-war constitution. A Chinese documentary film about Yasukuni was released over the weekend in Tokyo amid stringent opposition from nationalists.Most of the controversy...