December 2010
24 posts
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Is political science too hard for policy makers? →
A good brief comment (from the folks at The Monkey Cage) on the problematic disjuncture between policy makers and political science research. Worth thinking about—particularly as we struggle to make our students aware that they should care about these things.
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What Pride and Prejudice Can Teach Us About... →
I recently read Pride and Prejudice (and soon after, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) and was struck by how well it would work in a class on politics and literature. I would particularly love to deconstruct Gossip Girl (or some similar show) using Austen as a guide.
via thepoliticalnotebook:
Jane Austen has thus not only illustrated the all too common trade-off between romance and riches but...
Foreign Affairs is hiring →
foreignaffairsmagazine:
Foreign Affairs is looking for a Marketing Associate with experience in marketing at a Website or publication, and has strong communication skills including writing and social media. And loves Tumblr. Know anyone?
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“For your writing to be great—I mean great, not clever, or even brilliant, or...”
– An Inspirational Letter to My Students (via Instapaper)
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“To the great body of men who have had exceptional advantages in the way of...”
– Theodore Roosevelt, “The College Graduate and Public Life” (The Atlantic, August 1894).
Read the full article here.
(via theatlantic)
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“A lead is a promise. It promises that the piece of writing is going to be like...”
– Great writing advice from John McPhee, Pulitzer Prize winner, New Yorker author, Writing a Strong Lead is Half the Battle. (via futurejournalismproject)
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Mexico's Drug Killings | Wall Street Journal →
A student sent me this link to an interactive feature on Mexico’s drug war. It allows you to track deaths by (Mexican) states from 2006-2010. There’s a lot of other interesting material, too.
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Cappuccino Reconsidered | NPR Planet Money →
The Planet Money crew did it again. This time they reconsider an old analogy used to explain how capitalism works by deconstructing a simple object/commodity. This time, it’s cappuccino, w/ guest economist Tim Harford.
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Africa's Social Media Revolution →
I always like stories about Africa that make people reconsider the “third world” stereotypes to look at the complexity.
By André-Michel Essoungou
From Accra and Abidjan to Lusaka and Nairobi, African programmers are designing and launching new home-grown platforms and tools that will keep the African online conversation going and growing in the years ahead....
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"The Tank Man" | PBS Frontline →
The story of the iconic “tank man” serves as the starting point for this PBS Frontline documentary about China in the decades since the 1989 Tienanmen Square crackdown.
The story runs 90 minutes. If you want something shorter, PBS Frontline has a shorter (7 minute) story on the 60th anniversary of Communist China.
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End of Semester Book Recommendations
I have a tradition of giving out a short list of book recommendations at the end of every semester to my students (current, but also many former students). Even if you’ve never taken a class w/ me, here’s a list of recommendations for some holiday (or post-holiday) reading. The links are to their entries in my Amazon store, but you certainly don’t have to purchase them from...
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The Most Damning Wikileaks Cable You'll Ever Read →
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The 1916 Easter Rebellion | National Library of... →
An online exhibition from The National Library of Ireland on the 1916 Easter Rebellion. I’m considering using it as the online assignment to discuss political violence next semester. Thoughts?
My idea is to have students analyze the Irish revolt using the three perspectives outlined in the textbook (institutional, ideational, individual)—then compare the Irish rebellion to some other...
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Europe's economies | The Economist →
A really simple, but informative interactive presentation of the current European economic crisis.
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“He is more grandiloquent than heroic … Chávez has never made the gestures...”
– Interesting excerpt from an interview w/ Rafael Simón Jiménez (former vice president of Venezuela’s parliament, until he broke w/ Chávez) available alongside the PBS Frontline World 90-minute episode, “The Hugo Chávez Show” (2008).
I use the film in my populism seminar, along w/...
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The Joy Of Stats | Open University →
Hans Rosling (of Gapminder fame) has a BBC program starting next week called “The Joy of Stats.” I’ve no doubt it’ll be brilliant. This is the link to the show’s site at Open University. Can’t wait to dig into it myself.