The Duck of Minerva

Steve Saideman

Steve Saideman is Professor and the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. He has written The Ties That Divide: Ethnic Politics, Foreign Policy and International Conflict; For Kin or Country: Xenophobia, Nationalism and War (with R. William Ayres); and NATO in Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone (with David Auerswald), and elsewhere on nationalism, ethnic conflict, civil war, and civil-military relations.

Recent Posts

The Tenure Two-Step

by Steve Saideman | 23 August, 2012 |

I have spent the past several days at orientation meetings at my new place of employment.  I am coming in with tenure (just as I did the last time), so I am not concerned about tenure directly.  I do care about tenure procedures because the granting of lifetime employment (essentially) is a pretty serious enterprise and how academic units deal with it shapes the culture of the place.  So, in the course of events, I asked questions about it, and I also watched the folks around me get heaps of advice from the various panelists.  As a result, tenure is on my mind.  Not the first time of course,...

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Friday Nerd Blogging Challenge Met!

by Steve Saideman | 10 August, 2012 |

 I am pretty sure this answers the mail, Charli: Shakespeare, Zombies, John Amos, Shelley Long, June Lockhart, and the dude from Clerks.  Yeah, the the skinny one.  Plus a Weekend at Bernie's reference.  What more could you want on a Friday?Oh, and Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Talk about nerd-overload.

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Friday Nerd Blogging, Redshirts Continued

by Steve Saideman | 3 August, 2012 |

 Given last week's review of Redshirts, I thought I would provide this Comic-con video (shaky, NSFW graphic in the background) that helps to illustrate the humor behind Scalzi's book.  It is a skit written and enacted by Scalzi and a sci-fi friend [ed: Patrick Rothfuss, a 'minor' player in the current SF & Fantasy scene, as pointed out by none other than Steve's better half] : And, yes, the shaky video is an essential part of the post-Comic-con experience.

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Friday Nerd Blogging: Now for Something Completely Different

by Steve Saideman | 27 July, 2012 |

Instead of posting a video, I thought I would present a short book plug/review:I actually don't read that much science fiction or fantasy, but I could not resist once I heard the concept of Redshirts by John Scalzi: that instead of writing about the main characters on a starship, he would focus on those extras that tended to get killed on the away teams that get deployed to the planets the starship would visit.  Scalzi is touching on a key piece of nerd culture as we have long noticed that the folks on Star Trek (classic version) who beamed down with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy tended to have...

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Friday Nerd Blogging, Charli-Less Since 2012

by Steve Saideman | 20 July, 2012 |

 As a change of pace for Friday Nerd Blogging, I thought this nicely combines a kid's imagination with Joss Whedon in entirely unpredictable ways.  Oh, and as long as Joss is involved, I think this counts for FNB, right?Yes, we miss Charli.

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UN as Daddy Day Care

by Steve Saideman | 18 July, 2012 |

Romney apparently said today "we've been 'turning to the United Nations' to 'raise our kids.'"I don't know if this is true,* but it raises a variety of questions/thoughts:Does the UN have stock in ink?  Kids today seem to like tattoos. What is the curriculum include at UN Day Care?Learning How to Circumvent Your Parents' Vetoes? Membership 101: You can join any club you want as long as your name is ok (Taiwan, Macedonia) even if you fall short of standards (Human Rights Commission).The Golden Rule As Applied to Combat: Fire only if fired upon.What is the UN Day Care hours and penalties for...

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Friday Nerd Blogging By Proxy

by Steve Saideman | 13 July, 2012 |

 Charli has volunteered me to sub for Friday Nerd Blogging duty for her for the next three weeks.  It turns out that sending her links to fun stuff is a bad idea.  That will teach me.The most important pop cultural event of the next week is clearly the return of Breaking Bad.  Too bad it does not have any dragons, super-heroes, or other Comic-con bait.  So, BB cannot count for Friday Nerd Blogging.  The good news is that there may be a spin-off of the series as its end is near.Of course, the other big event of the week is Comic-con.  So, here is part 1 of a series that represents the best IR...

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