Seven years ago today, 28 May 2005, is the day that this blog was, in an important sense, born. The previous day the day Dan officially posted the announcement that The Duck of Minerva was henceforth a collective enterprise (he said “collaborative endeavor,” but whatever), and on the 28th, Bill Petti and I started weighing in with posts of our own: Bill on nuclear (non-)proliferation, and me — in what should have been an early signal that I wasn’t exactly going to be doing mainstream IR as my regular schtick here — on “momentum” and why it’s a poor metaphor for events in social life, even the trajectories of baseball teams through the regular season. True, Dan actually started blogging here on 17 May 2005. But the strange animal that is The Duck of Minerva really got going once he decided to invite others, and the conversations we were having among ourselves in person or via private e-mail chains started to take public form online.
So: Dan gets a gold (or maybe gold-pressed latinum) star for his foresight in getting this thing started, and my gratitude for inviting me on board right at the beginning. Happy quacking anniversary, everyone.
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson is Professor of International Studies in the School of International Service, and also Director of the AU Honors program. He previously taught at Columbia University and New York University. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 2001. In 2003-4, he served as President of the International Studies Association-Northeast; in 2012-2013, he did so again. He was formerly Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Relations and Development, and is currently Series Editor of the University of Michigan Press' book series Configurations: Critical Studies of World Politics. He was named the 2012 U.S. Professor of the Year for the District of Columbia by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Jackson's research interests include culture and agency, international relations theory (particularly the intersection of realism and constructivism), scientific methodology, the role of rhetoric in public life, civilizations in world politics, the sociology of academic knowledge, popular culture and IR, and the formation of subjectivity both in the classroom and in the broader social sphere. Jackson is also a devoted (some might say “obsessive”) baseball fan, and a self-proclaimed sci-fi geek.
0 Comments