Just like any other medium, video games can serve pedagogical purposes.
Sid Meier’s Clash of Civilizations
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Nerdblogging
James Bond Made Redundant
There is perhaps no greater film institution than the James Bond franchise. Over 27 movies and 59 years from Doctor No (1962) to Goldfinger (1964) to the modern era of Goldeneye (1995) and Skyfall...
Putin-Biden summit, but make it an 18th century gossip column
Gentle reader*, People that have an itch at scribbling generally entertain their visitors with their happy projects, high flights, and wonderful publications, therefore 'tis to be supposed...
A Marx Allergy
If you are allergic to, let’s say peanuts, you would always carefully check the packaging of the food you buy: does the factory use them? Can there be traces in the sauce? After an unpleasant...
More Nerdblogging Posts
A Case for Nationalism
Sorry, clickbait! But admit, it, after an apology of race science in Quillette or “The Case for Colonialism” in TWQ you probably rage-clicked on the thumbnail to let me have it. Periodic IR Twitter flares over teaching "Stoddard light" (i.e., Huntington) also show that not all scholars are aware of racialized origins of world order, existing color lines in global capitalism, or even “race relations” pedigree of IR as a discipline. This post is about a case for teaching about nationalism because it seems like different versions of racist primordial rhetoric just won’t die. As a blog post by...
Will the Dominos Fall in Westeros: When Secession Spreads (or Not)
Folks have been picking on the last Game of Thrones episode for a variety of unrealistic or unearned developments. Here's my take on the secessionist element. Folks have been picking on the last Game of Thrones episode for a variety of unrealistic or unearned developments. Here's my take on the secessionist element. From https://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-called-the-7-kingdoms-when-there-are-9-of-them There have been arguments about secession in one country leading to secession elsewhere. I pooh-poohed (that is the professional term) that, while arguing that secession is contagious within...
Game of Thrones and Alliance Politics
I saw this tweet and could not help but respond: I enjoyed @mchorowitz on GoT Dragon airpower, but it’s time for @RyanGrauer to give the people what they want- an analysis of how Westerosi alliance politics will affect military command structure and battlefield effectiveness. — Jon Askonas (@JonAskonas) April 15, 2019 Given that I have written about both Game of Thrones and alliance politics, I have to enter this discussion. Spoilers dwell below as we get into this: Alliances are always fraught with suspicion and doubt. Glenn Snyder wrote about the alliance dilemma--that allies will...
Under Pressure
Somewhat cranky and slightly under the weather Putin graced the foreign journalists with his presence for almost 4 hours. Starting right off the bat with some optimistic economic indicators (that he used to be able to juggle without any papers), the conference progressed with its predictable pace and predictable plot points: a bunch of questions on economy, token booed Ukrainian question, some dad jokes and good tsar, bad boyars excuses. There was no panache, pizazz or punch. Putin is tired (at some point he was off by 20 million when talking about the Russian population) and his...
Academic Smothering. Part II.
To illustrate this post, I would love to put that cute stock photo of a woman dressed in a taupe formal suit holding an adorable baby in a diaper, but it is just wildly unrealistic. For starters, the baby is horribly underdressed and the suit would have been covered in drool/spit-up/mysterious orange food rests in mere seconds. FYI, stock photo editors, working on a computer with a baby on your lap is also not an option, because in the end there will be one, and it will not be your computer. Guilt ridden and severely sleep deprived (and by “severely” I mean no sleep stretches longer than 3...
(The ultimate) Trump Tweet Bingo
Following the Trump administration is really tiring. And I’m not talking about the last two years -- it’s a challenge to survive single weeks of their news cycle. Hell, a Friday afternoon is already taxing. That is why over here in Europe we’re very careful about checking headlines and Twitter Friday night. The outrage at the next fecal storm would keep you up better than a crying baby/ thoughts on the upcoming semester/deadline [insert your trigger]. The White House scandal diapering, however, is extremely predictable. No collusion, Hillary, fake news, Fox and friends, random capitalization...
Academic (S)mothering
As a new mother of a baby boy I am enjoying a slightly different kind of golden shower than Donald Trump. So, between the 3 AM feeding and 4 AM diaper change I was scrolling through Twitter and stumbled on news about the Stanford white sausage fest that somehow qualified as a conference on applied history. Niall Ferguson managed to organize a conference and not feature a single woman or person of color. Let me walk you through some thoughts about why there aren’t more women in (political) science. I should note right away I am speaking from a place of relative (white) privilege. I do not...
UFOs and the Hyperreal
On Saturday, the New York Times ran an investigative story that revealed a few significant facts about the US’s programs to study UFOs. There were some interesting findings in the article (and citations/paraphrases below are from the article, which can be found here): A 22 million dollar program called “Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification” was operated at DoD from 2007 to 2012—and, in fact, the program continues today without an official budget. The program produced documentary evidence of spacecraft hovering with no sign of propulsion. A contracted company, Bigelow Aerospace, was given...