Hello all. As promised, here is my intro post. I will keep it short.

I am a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania in the Political Science department. As far as subfields go I am mostly interested in International Relations Theory and Security–however, I find it increasingly difficult (not to mention undesirable) to analyze such phenomena without incorporating concepts from Comparative Politics. Like Dan, I have a webpage but besides a CV and nice screen-cap from Dr. Strangelove there isn’t much else. Right now I am interested in the practice of signaling as well as the concepts of reputation and image as they pertain to international relations. Additionally, I am trying to incorporate aspects of path-dependence into IR. I have my own seperate blog called Discord and Elaboration, so do check it out.

Other than academics I am interested in baseball and football. I am a diehard NY Mets as well as a Philadelphia Eagles fan–what can I say, I am an enigma. Its a long story so I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say I think working through the cognitive dissonance created by these affiliations, which emerged around the time I was 10, accounts for a great deal of my issues today.

Politically I would say I am a bit of a centrist. I can lean left or right depending on the issue. Other than that there isn’t much to say–my politics will emerge as I post so I will leave it up to you to label it (as I find it difficult to do myself).

I have eclectic tastes when it comes to literature, TV and film. I will probably post about each so I won’t bore you with a list–yet. Recent favorites in each genre include Cryptonomicon, Chappelle’s Show, and Ghost in the Shell: Innocence.

That’s all for now–next time, a substantive post…