A lot of ink has been spilled and bytes spent on the reflections over Trump's failed assassination this past weekend. I won't pretend I know better, although as a regular academic that's kind of my job and an occupational hazard. But as soon as my co-author texted me...
Robert Cox’s landmark article, “Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Rela…
For nearly three decades, a pervasive, unspoken fear of civil war created an "ugly stalemate" in Israel, a 'public secret' that pervaded its electoral politics and foreign relations. Thanks to the...
Back in 2019, Uri Friedman wrote that we “find ourselves—as you will have heard in the corridors …
Professor Helen Kinsella joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Professor Kinsella grew up in Ithaca, New York, and she reflects on what that was like, plus a reluctance or indifference to going to college. She eventually chose Bryn Mawr and she talks about what an amazing environment she experienced there. Professor Kinsella also spent some time at Reed college, then after college she went to Seattle and worked with victims of domestic abuse, and working with children in a variety of contexts there, being in Seattle in the early 1990s around the vibrant cultural community there. She discusses...
The University of Chicago’s Paul Poast claims that G. Lowes Dickinson is was the OG “modern” theo…
Professor Alexander Barder joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Dr. Barder was born in Paris, France, but he and his family moved to Miami very shortly thereafter. He traveled back to France often to visit family, and mainly spoke French until going to a bilingual school. His discussions with his grandpa about World War II sparked an interest in history, which, along with math, were his favorite subjects in school. Alex went to boarding school in Geneva his senior year of high school, worked at a bank and thought about finance or banking as a major. But after three semesters at American...
Scholars of international relations don’t agree on much, but they at least agree that anarchy (th…
Professor Patricia Owens joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Professor Owens grew up in London, with Irish parents who'd emigrated from Ireland during the Troubles, and the conflict in Northern Ireland provided a background to her life and especially growing up. Patricia went to a Catholic school in South London until 16, and her Catholicism was less a 'religious' factor than it was a cultural and political identity that shaped her time growing up in England in those days. She talks about playing football from an early age, going to Bristol for uni, the very impactful time studying abroad in...
It turns out that it’s hard to write a roundup of happenings at the Duck of Minerva when there aren’t many to speak of. Much of that’s on me. What’s my excuse? Well, the kid finally contracted COVID. The rest of my family succumbed in short order. So that was fun. On the upside, none of us get seriously ill. On the downside, we got to experience post-COVID fatigue, with a helping of mental fog on the side. We recovered just in time to take our long-planned trip to Thessaloniki. The official purpose of the trip: to participate in 2022 European Workshops in International...
What is the topography of international-relations theory in the People’s Republic of China? What …
Professor Carla Martinez Machain joins the Hayseed Scholar Podcast. Professor Machain talks about growing up in Mexico, specifically outside of and then also in Mexico City, the schools she went to, her interests, doing Model UN and visiting The Hague during an overseas trip when Milosevic was on trial, and then deciding to go to Rice University in Houston for undergrad. She talks about that transition, the decision to go to grad school at Rice instead of the other places she could have gone, how her graduate training included taking 3 years of classes, comps and then her dissertation. She...