The Duck of Minerva

alvard Leira is Research Professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (aka 'NUPI') in Oslo. Professor Leira and Brent have been friends for some time. He chats with Brent about growing up in Norway in a family of academics, his 'devouring' of history, his graduate work at LSE and the University of Oslo, his joining NUPI and meeting the cohort of elite NUPI scholars he's become good friends with since. He tells the stories behind his publications, how he and a few others were able to get a Historical IR section of the ISA going, how he approaches writing,...

r. Ayse Zarakol of the University of Cambridge joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Dr Zarakol chats with Brent about growing up in Turkey, her decisions to attend college in the US, become a political science and classics double-major, and pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin (and her dissatisfaction before it with work as a paralegal). She talks about graduate school, developing her dissertation and choosing her dissertation chair, her success on the job market before the financial crisis in 2008 eliminated a lot of options, publishing her first book, and her...

rent interviews Professor Cameron Thies of Arizona State University and the current President of the International Studies Association. Cameron talks about growing up in Nebraska, how the farm crisis along with world events got him interested in politics, almost taking a job globetrotting with Arthur Anderson, the helpful advice of his professors at the University of Nebraska during his Master’s, getting his PhD at ASU and the breadth of courses and professors there, working with Steve Walker, getting a job late in the cycle at LSU, his time at Missouri, Iowa, and then...

rent chats with Jennifer Mitzen of Ohio State university. Jennifer talks about growing up in Evanston, Illinois, going to Wesleyan, living in New York after college and being an aerobics instructor, calling her mentor from a pay phone at 22 to ask for advice on grad school. Going to U of C for the PhD, her master’s thesis on Morgenthau/Waltz, her first dissertation topic on Arendt and how/why she changed. The transition to teaching at Ohio State, how she and Catarina Kinnvall met and got ontological security studies going as a research community, her ‘healthier’ views now...

elena Subotic of Georgia State University is an accomplished scholar of International Relations who focuses on the politics of memory and identity, transitional justice, international ethics, and ontological security studies. She spoke with Brent about a number of topics during their conversation. Jelena discusses growing up in Yugoslavia and how identity became an issue 'overnight' in the late 1980s, going to LSE for undergraduate studies while Yugoslavia was breaking up, being a DJ at a Belgrade radio station in the 1990s, the feeling of bombs during the NATO war on...

ian O'Driscoll is a Professor of International Relations, pursuing topics related to Just War, ethics, and international security. In this second part of Brent's interview with Cian, they discuss his early years as a junior scholar, including publishing, transitioning into his position at Glasgow, the infamous Elshtain book roundtable at the 2007 ISA, the International Ethics section of the ISA and the people he met there, his practice of writing, finding his voice, his philosophy on reviewing, and what he does to recharge and keep at it. 

ian O'Driscoll from the University of Glasgow does work on Just War theory, international security, and international political theory, and international ethics. He has been a friend of Brent's for well over a decade. They spoke in April 2019 following a workshop at the University of Warwick. Their conversation went a little long, so this is part 1 of 2 episodes with Cian. In this episode, Cian tells us about his intellectual journey: growing up in Limerick and going to the uni there, spending some time in the US, his Master's work at Dalhousie in Nova Scotia, his memory...

he first episode of the Hayseed Scholar podcast is an interview with Professor Peri Schwartz-Shea of the University of Utah. We discuss her evolution as a scholar and academic, the questions she's pursued in her research, and how she became so interested in interpretive methods.