The Hayseed Scholar Podcast

Professor Jason Ralph joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Brent has known Jason's work for two decades, but only fairly recently met him in person. Jason grew up in the village of Norton Canes in South Staffordshire near the West Midlands of England.  His father had worked in the coal mines years prior, but then started a business where all of Jason's family would eventually work. The original plan was to get a teaching degree focused in physical education, but that didn't quite work out. Jason's intellectual turn happened in a number of locations - working back at his father's business during breaks while reading the newspapers, in the US during a stint at 'Camp America', which put him close to UMass-Amherst, and then in Wales at Aberystwyth, where he would get his Bachelor's and then Master's, concluding with a PhD in War Studies at King's College London. But it was equal parts critical theory and security, as well as strategic studies and intelligence, that inspired Jason's interests.  Jason's earlier work was on American Exceptionalism and the ICC, including a Review of International Studies article that Brent would read and begin to know Jason's research through. Jason talks about breaking into academia through positions at Exeter, and then Leeds, where he remains to this day. He reflects on his approach to writing, what he does to unwind, how playing the guitar helps with both, and more!

Associate Provost and W. Harold Row Professor of Global Politics Jamie Frueh, of Bridgewater College, joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Jamie and Brent have been friends for over 15 years, meeting at the ISA-Northeast conference in 2009. Jamie is also the only (other) person on this podcast besides Brent who is from Iowa, and Jamie also hosts his own podcast, The Teaching Curve.Jamie talks about growing up in Des Moines, with parents who both encouraged his curiosities and educational journey. Jamie was on his high school's debate team, which enabled him to travel throughout Midwest a bit. He talks about the decision to go to Georgetown University to pursue a degree and then career in the Foreign Service.   While that didn't quite pan out, his protesting of apartheid in college did lead him to South Africa, where he taught at Catholic mission schools in more rural, predominantly Black areas of the country. It was a transformative trip for a bunch of reasons, including that being the setting where he discovered his love of teaching. We go through how Jamie figured out how to apply for graduate study, and what role Thomas Kuhn played in that. We cover how he ended up and then stayed at American University, his experiences on the market, his enriching experiences at Bridgewater, his development of the ISA-Northeast Pedagogies workshop, how he unwinds, how he approaches podcasting, and more! Listen to Jamie's podcast The Teaching Curve:https://www.buzzsprout.com/1976329And on YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG5L5ARIehIiSZkjVA816OefQqY8kTZru&si=A1xJsKjFN58uOJ5W

Professor Sebastian Kaempf of the University of Queensland joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast this week.Seb grew up in Germany, with the fall of the Berlin Wall happening when he was entering his teenage years. While it had a big impact on him,  he distinctly remembers his parents' emotional reactions to that moment. He also was a conscientious objector and thus did not serve in the German military but his service was in some ways even more challenging as he notes here. Seb talks about going to uni in Germany before transferring to the LSE for his Bachelor's and Masters, heading towards the academic track being trained for his PhD under Nick Wheeler and Alastair Finlan at University of Aberystwyth Wales. His first gig on a post-doc working with Alex Bellamy at UQ where he has been ever since. He discusses how the Theaters of War film project came about, what that was like, how he approaches writing, his co-hosted podcast with Al Stark, Higher Ed Heroes, what he does to unwind, and how he and friend of the pod and Hayseed Scholar co-host Matt McDonald will likely become the next big indie rock band as they are currently playing venues in Brisbane where they have achieved almost cult status at this point. 

 Professor Lene Hansen of the University of Copenhagen likely needs no introduction to most listeners of this podcast. She has worked within what would be called the Copenhagen school or securitization theory, emphasizing within that school the overlooked lens of gender. Her work on discourse analysis is famous for being a key contribution to the development of especially interpretive methods in the 2000s and 2010s, and her more recent work in visual IR and visual/image analysis. She talks about growing up on an island, Langeland or Long Island, off the coast of Denmark, riding horses and playing sports while also being a great student (as she said she ‘had to be' with parents who were teachers at the school), attending uni first at the University of Southern Denmark then the University of Copenhagen. Taking a course from Ole Waever on IR and French philosophy got her interested thereafter in poststructural IR and doing research on European security architectures.  She talks about an impactful visiting professor position at Yale University in the late 1990s, as well as some of the background to her famous works like the 2000 Millennium article on gender in securitization and Security as Practice the 2006 book. She concludes reflecting on how she approaches writing, selecting images to analyze, and how she relaxes and recharges  through exercise and cooking.As this episode was getting ready to launch, it was announced that Professor Hansen just won the 2024 ISA Susan Strange award! This award 'recognizes a person whose singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency in the international studies community'. MANY congratulations Professor Hansen!https://www.isanet.org/News/ID/6384/2023-2024-Award-Recipients

Huss Banai of Indiana University is an individual Brent considers himself incredibly fortunate to call a friend.  He joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast to tell his amazing story and journey through life and academia. Huss was born in Iran and grew up in Northern Tehran until his family moved to Canada when he was 15. In Iran, Huss and his family experienced the war with Iraq, the fallout from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (his father worked with Afghan refugees during that time), and with a dad who worked for a business promoting Japanese Exports, electronics and video games. The transition to living in Canada was a bit bumpy for Huss until he had a key bit of counsel and guidance from a high school teacher. Huss talks about going to York University as an undergrad, working on the set of The Fog of War with Errol Morris and Robert McNamara, his experiences as a Master's student at LSE and working on the editorial team of Millennium, and pursuing a PhD at Brown University. He talks about his experiences on the market, working at Occidental and now Indiana, his approach to writing, his love of gardening, and more! 

Dr. Erica Simone Almeida Resende of the Brazilian War College joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Erica grew up in Brazil but, as she phrases it, 'in between worlds'. There was her Brazilian home, and there was her German school, which she explains has situated her as a sort of 'bridge' moving between the Global North and Global South. Erica went to law school and worked for a law firm in the 1990s, but changed gears and pursued graduate degrees in Political Science and International Relations. In this period of her life, she started attending ISA meetings which she 'loved' going to. She shares what the Brazilian academic market process is like, her love of travel, how her German schooling shapes her enjoyment of 'administration', how she approaches writing, and more! 

Professor Jarrod Hayes joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Jarrod was born in Colorado, but moved to Utah at a young age and grew up there for a bit before relocating with his mother to just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. In high school, he found he enjoyed doing research especially with science and technology, and so he went to the University of Colorado to pursue a degree in Astrophysics. But at Colorado he also enjoyed studying International Relations because it seemed to cover the 'big things' he had long enjoyed thinking about (a la Carl Sagan). He would get a PhD at USC, working with Pat James, and realized at an ISA meeting that he wanted to divert from going into the government and foreign service to instead pursue a career in academia. Jarrod talks about his time at OU in Norman, then moving back to Atlanta and a job at Georgia Tech where he got promoted and tenured. He and his wife Professor Janelle Knox-Hayes would end up in Cambridge where they are today with their beloved daughters and dog. Jarrod concludes the show by discussing with Brent his love of weightlifting, hobbies with his daughters, how he approaches writing, and what it has been like for him and Professor Knox-Hayes to be the Heads of a Residence House, Burton Conner, at MIT.

Dr. Oumar Ba of Cornell University visits the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Dr. Ba grew up in Senegal, attending his first school at an early age near the Senegal-Mauritania border. He developed an interest in politics in high school and at his first university (Cheik Anna Diop in Dakar) where he pursued Geography. Oumar moved to the United States in early 2001, taking a Greyhound Bus from New York to Ohio. Following a series of jobs, including one at an auto manufacturing plant, he would return to academia pursuing a Master's in International Affairs and Political Science at Ohio University. It was there he worked on his thesis, exploring topics in International Law under the guidance of Professor Andrew Ross. He then went to Gainesville to pursue his PhD, and where he met friend of the pod Professor Aida Hozic. Dr. Ba reflects on his time at Morehouse College, an HBCU where he worked in his first tenure track job, and the interview (during the pandemic) and then recent move to Cornell. He reflects upon his experience of his book being the subject of the 2019 ISA-Northeast circle, discusses his approach to writing ('chaos'), and what he does to recharge and unwind. Dr. Ba and Brent conclude with a discussion on the World Cup.

Professor Rita Abrahamsen joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Rita grew up on a small island off the coast of Southern Norway. She was a good student, very interested in the world with parents who had been the Merchant Marines, and a father who had served during World War II. She talks about the subjects she enjoyed in school, the decision to go to university and pursue journalism, and her career in journalism, especially radio, working  including serving as an anchor for the Norwegian Broadcasting Company. Her purpose in graduate school was to get more training to become a foreign correspondent, but at Swansea she pursued a PhD with training in both African politics and International Relations. She tried out the market, and after a few interviews,  landed a Lecturer position at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. She reflects upon those years at Aber and its dynamic intellectual environment, the British academy, and her rapidly expanding research profile throughout that time. She concludes by talking about her move to Canada and helping build out the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at Ottawa, her approach to writing, what she does to recharge (and how she's hoping to get back to running), and more!  

After months, and perhaps years, of cajoling and haranguing the Hayseed Scholar, friend of the pod (ep14) Matt McDonald finally convinced Brent to turn the tables and become a guest on the  podcast. Matt interviewed Brent at the end of the International Studies Association conference in Montreal, in Matt's hotel room. This was after Matt had enlisted throughout the week a host of conspirators who helped him lobby Brent to be interviewed. Over a few beers and with much good cheer, they chat about Brent's growing up in Iowa, attending Chicago Bears games as a kid, having two teachers as parents, and how golf shaped his college decision-making. They discuss Brent's journey through graduate school, the PhD, and his positions at the University of Kansas and now the University of Utah. Often pounding the table like some 1930s-era dictator, Brent discussed what the tenure process was like for him at KU, the difficult but also life-changing move to Utah, walking with Chase pups for all kinds of reasons, how he approaches writing and how he unwinds and recharges by going back to Iowa and seeing his family. Matt and Brent first connected in 2010 when Brent reached out to Matt about his IPS article, and that prompted a discussion here about how and why Brent has sent those complimentary emails to scholars. A number of F-bombs were dropped, razzing of Jelena Subotic, Tony Lang, and Chris Agius ensued and friend of the pod and special guest Cian O'Driscoll made an appearance towards the end of the conversation.  It's a whirlwind discussion and one Brent remains self-conscious about, but also a rewarding experience for him in chatting with, and about, longtime friends in this vocation. 

Professor Debbie Lisle of Queens University, Belfast, grew up in North Vancouver, in an environment of 'liberal feminism' which gave her a sense of possibility in life, but it was an interesting journey thereafter. Debbie chats with Brent about her decision to go to McGill for college, playing soccer throughout her undergrad and Master's years, and an in-between period of working at a lumber store and then traveling the world including to Southeast Asia and South Africa. Those months of traveling in her early 20s shaped for Debbie the major threads of research she would pursue throughout her academic career. This started at Victoria, where 'chance played a role' when she took a seminar with Rob Walker that would get her thinking of academia as a career. She went to Keele in the UK for PhD, working initially with David Campbell and then, when he left for Newcastle, finishing with Andrew Linklater. She talks about how critical IR, especially in the UK, had a different dynamic back in the late 90s and early 2000s,  before it 'exploded' onto the scene and branched into different streams of research. Debbie reflects on getting a job at Queens, being a working parent, how she handled the criticism of a harsh review of her first book, incorporating it for her second book, and her approach to writing. She closes the conversation discussing her recent health challenge and how she has worked through it in the past year. 

Professor Ann Towns of the University of Gothenburg visits the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Professor Towns grew up in Sweden, and was interested in playing music and especially performing classical music as a child. But by the time she was in high school, she wanted to broaden her horizons, and get out of not only her town but Sweden. That led her to Kansas, where she finished high school in an exchange program. She lived outside of a small town, and she reflects on the different contexts in the rural US compared to Sweden - religion, expectations on teenagers, and the social environment of that time and place. She went to Nebraska for undergraduate, and she talks about the classes she took, the music scene in Lincoln, and what she wanted to do after college. Professor Towns traveled to Peru after college, and ended up working for an NGO that helped those who suffered from political violence. She talks about going to the Univ of Minnesota for graduate school, some post-docs she took after her PhD, going on the market and working at the University of Delaware, her experience at the ISA-Northeast Circle in 2009, and then eventually going back to Sweden where she is now. She concludes with how she approaches writing, what she does to decompress, and more! 

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 going to the Humphrey school for her Masters, working with the UN, heading on for her PhD thereafter, and then getting a tenure track  job at Wisconsin alongside discussing her first few publications.  Prof Kinsella discusses her approach to writing,  the challenges of keeping up with ‘debates' in IR, doing yoga and F45, and more!Read more about Prof Kinsella's work at her website: https://www.helenmkinsella.com 

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 University in DC, he quite college, went back to Miami and worked various jobs (including brokering) for the next seven years. Alex chipped away at his undergraduate degree, finishing in Spring 2003 with a BS in Mathematics. He became interested in International Relations, and took an IR theory seminar, co-taught by Harry Gould and Nick Onuf, at FIU in the Spring of 2004 that got him interested in being an academic. After being wait listed that year for the PhD program at Johns Hopkins, Alex got in the following year and pursued his PhD studies there. He talks about writing and publishing with Francois Debrix, including his first book published by Routledge in the Interventions series in 2012. Alex got a job at American University of Beirut in 2013, where he and his family stayed until 2014, seeing first hand the impact of the nearby civil war in Syria. Alex returned to FIU as an Assistant Professor that year, where he has been ever since. They finish by chatting about how he approaches writing, his practices of decompressing and health, spending time with his family, and more! 

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 the mid-90s in Chapel Hill, NC, where she first encountered political theory, and was a tour manager for the local indie rock band June in 1996:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_(North_Carolina_band)Professor Owens went to Cambridge for her Masters, then to Aberystwyth for her PhD. She reflects on that time and the fellowships and postdocs that happened in the late 1990s and early 2000s in the US academy, and how those shaped what she was interested in. But there was always Arendt, a theorist whose work influenced Prof Owens' throughout the 2000s (work that Brent connected with especially during his time at KU), and 2010s. Professor Owens talks about the Women in the History of International Thought project, a Leverhulme-funded project that has reconfigured our understanding of the history and historiography of International Thought (and IR):https://whit.web.ox.ac.uk/home She and Brent conclude with her thoughts on writing, decompressing, and more! 

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 reflects on presenting at conferences (which she says she didn't enjoy back then but does now), and getting a tenure track position at Kansas State. She talks about getting settled in at K State and she and Brent discuss how her high productivity led her to go up early for tenure. Carla discusses how and why she eventually began to enjoy going to conferences, how she balances work and not working, how she approaches writing and her analysis and her ways of decompressing through running and cooking. The discussion concludes on the topic of her upcoming move to SUNY-Buffalo where she'll be taking a position this fall, after a decade in Manhattan. 

Professor Duncan Bell joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Duncan grew up in the Midlands in a rural area of England. He was interested in international politics from a fairly young age. Duncan chose to pursue a degree in war studies at King's College London, and considered joining the military thereafter. But the transition to London from a quieter area, and the experiences he had there, changed his plans. He tells Brent about getting his Master's and then PhD at Cambridge, and a momentous year he spent in the US at Columbia during his studies and changing his PhD topic that led to several of his first publications. Duncan reflects on attending the WPSA and ISA conferences and the role of the English School section, and organizing panels with Casper Sylvest. He discusses his books as a 'loose trilogy', how he approaches writing including an intense few weeks in Berlin a few years ago where he finished Dreamworlds. He talks about what he does to unwind, and then spends time on the newest member of their family, Pablo the Poochon!

Xymena Kurowska of Central European University joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Professor Kurowska grew up in the northern part of Poland, at a time of world and local transition. She discusses what it was like to move around to 'closed' cities in a military family, having a father who served in the Polish military and also in a UN peacekeeping operation in Southern Lebanon. Xymena recalls how a karate injury almost kept her out of going to a university, and how she came to study International Relations. She reflects on what Warsaw was like in the late 1990s, getting her MA in Warsaw when Poland was part of the 2003 'Coalition of the Willing' for the US-led Iraq War. She recalls being on the waitlist, and then attending, European University Institute in Florence for her Phd, and the challenges and opportunities that entailed, eventually working with Prof Fritz Kratochwil. She discusses the experiences she had with Dvora Yanow who 'changed her life' through introducing her to interpretive methods and a network of interpretive 'American Political Scientists' like Friend of the Hayseed Scholar Podcast, Professor Peri Schwartz'Shea. Xymena recalls how she got a job at CEU right after her PhD, getting a Marie Curie fellowship at Aber,  how she decompresses via hiking and watching Mixed Martial Arts, and how she approaches editing a journal. 

Professor Tarak Barkawi joins Brent this week. He discusses growing up in Orange County in the 1970s and 1980s, in a very politically aware family, and his varied interests in military history but also LA's punk rock scene, having a school that doubled as a fallout shelter and his first encounters with eye-opening racial violence. He talks about his decision to go to George Washington University, getting his master's at the LSE, his brief overlap with John Vincent before the latter died, the influence of Bud Duvall at Minnesota, his work with Mark Laffey, going on the market, getting jobs at Wales-Aber, Cambridge and now back to the LSE. He discusses his approach to writing, how he handles stress, and his predictions on conferences and academia post-Covid and the need to get back to meeting in person.

Professor Harman joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. She starts off discussing with Brent her childhood and growing up on a farm in Buckinghamshire in SE England, her interests and aspirations during that time and the family dynamics regarding politics and who was expected to take over the farm each generation. She had a gap year, then went to Manchester for undergrad and graduate training, got into global public health, political economy, and traveled to Tanzania, and then as she tells it was able to get a job in London at City University after approaching some folks from there when they were hiring, at a BISA, after two gin and tonics. She discusses the burgeoning section and field of global public health and how that slowly grew, but remained a somewhat smaller section even up until ‘the big one', the current pandemic of Covid-19 that spread across the world in 2020. She is a film maker, the first one on this podcast, and her film, Pili, is an amazing accomplishment of a movie that was produced and filmed in Tanzania, about a woman who gets a chance to get a better job/role but is keeping a secret about her HIV-positive status. It is available on Google Play, Amazon Prime, Youtube, and other sites:https://play.google.com/store/movies/details?id=tn6QEm-KjOU.P Professor Harman finishes up her conversation discussing how she approaches writing, how when and where she and fellow global health scholars Sara Davies and Claire Wenham first discussed the possibilities of Covid-19 becoming the pandemic it is today, Polyani, the upcoming ISA Presidential election and friend of the pod Prof Laura Shepherd, and more! 

Professor Rebecca Adler-Nissen joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Professor Adler-Nissen is a proflic scholar known for her work on diplomacy, integration, practice theory, and her deep knowledge and use of social theory. She talks to Brent about growing up in Denmark, but also Israel and the United States. Before going to uni, Rebecca spent some time working on boats, sailing at one point to the Canary Islands where she looked for more work at the age of 18. She eventually returned to Europe, attending both the University of Copenhagen and Sciences Po. Rebecca went to Copenhagen as well for her Master's and PhD, at a time when the 'Copenhagen school' was gaining momentum and the lectures and conversations in her program were filled with excitement. She talks to Brent about writing her PhD at Copenhagen, how she got into the topic of European integration to 'update' her grandmother who had fought in the resistance against the Germans, on the possibilities of Germans being the ones after the Berlin Wall fell who were building a peaceful order.  Rebecca reflects on her visiting position at the EUI in Florence, before defending her thesis and going on the market in 2009-2010. It was in the 2010s when Rebecca burst onto the scene with a flurry of now iconic publications, and she talks about what went into that. She shares her perspective on writing, how she decompresses with her family and through running, her approach to reviewing manuscript, and more!  

Dr. Toni Haastrup of the University of Stirling joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Dr. Haastrup was born in Aberdeen, but moved  to Nigeria when she was very young. She talks about primary and then secondary school there, the decisions she had to make early on about language training in the schools, and then her family's move to California during the last part of high school. She discusses going to Las Positas in California, and then UC Davis, where she pursued a degree in IR, with a minor in Political Science, and her decision to go to University of Cape Town in South Africa in part because of the 2004 election here in the US. She reflects on her time at the University of Edinburgh pursuing a PhD while also working three jobs. She spent some time in Warwick after that, where she developed two book projects, a monograph that was  published in 2013 and an edited volume that was published in 2014. She talks about moving to Kent, then to Stirling where she is currently a Senior Lecturer in International Politics. We chat about her approach to writing, how she balances work and life and recharges, and her public engagement and work in fostering the women also know stuff network, which promotes the expertise of women in political science. 

Professor Francois Debrix of Virginia Tech University joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Francois grew up in France, attending college there with degrees in Spanish and English, and then International Law, Political Science and Diplomatic History. An exchange program through the University of Strasbourg brought Francois to the US and Purdue, where he pursued his Master's, and then PhD under the supervision of Cynthia Weber. Professor Debrix talks about his interest in ideology that led to his dissertation and first book, Re-envisioning Peacekeeping. That book in part helped land him the job at Florida International University where he worked for 13 years, at a time when his publishing only accelerated. He talks about moving to Virginia Tech thereafter, directing the ASPECT program, balancing his research with his administrative positions, and his approaches to writing and reading. 

Professor Timothy Longman of Boston University joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Tim chats with Brent about growing up in Illinois and Kansas, with two politically active parents and a father who was a pastor. Professor Longman attended Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma, pursuing his interests of religion and politics. While there, he also became politically active, working on the Mondale campaign in 1984.  He speaks about his graduate training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his interest in African politics and his decision, eventually, to focus on Rwanda as the basis for his dissertation, examining the role of the Christian churches there in its political transition. This included fieldwork in 1992 and 1993, but by the end of his time there it was becoming apparent that violence was a real possibility. In 1994, Tim took a Visiting Assistant Professor position at Drake University, and it was there that Brent took his  first political science class taught by Tim in the Fall of 1994. Tim talks about how the genocide changed his focus of his dissertation, how he was able to defend in the Spring of 1995 while still a VAP at Drake, a period of temp work in Minneapolis that preceded his work with Human Rights Watch back in Rwanda where he worked closely with Dr. Alison Des Forges on examining the factors that led to and facilitated the genocide. Tim talks about his time at Vassar, then at Boston University, as well as his approach to writing, work/life balance, and more!  

Professor Anthony F. Lang, Jr. visits the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Tony grew up in Cleveland in a big Catholic family, and he went to Catholic schools all the way through college at Notre Dame, where he took a class with Alasdair MacIntyre. Tony shares how he became interested in philosophy, and then political science, pursuing his PhD at Johns Hopkins where he took classes from William Connolly, David Campbell, and developed his dissertation under the guidance of Stephen David. He discusses his first job at the American University in Cairo, his return to the US to work at the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs and then his eventual move to St. Andrews where he still works today. Tony chats about the International Ethics section of the ISA and how it developed into the friendly environment it is today for junior scholars. He talks about his approach to writing, and how writing fiction is completely different from academic writing but how the two enrich one another for him. He concludes with some reflections on his Ethics Distinguished Scholar roundtable at the most recent ISA. 

Professor Laura Shepherd from the University of Sydney joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Professor Shepherd is an iconic and authoritative voice in International Relations, and especially with her multiple-award winning works on Gender, Peacebuilding, Methods, and and Feminism. And yet, she didn't start out planning for a career in academia. Growing up in London, then moving to just outside of Cambridge, Laura wasn't quite sure what she wanted to do. For a time, her work in the hospitality sector seemed to be the route she'd pursue. Laura reflects on her undergraduate studies, then her backpacking across the world including spending in time in Sydney, before returning to the UK. Watching a news program one evening on a human rights disaster changed her views on what she wanted to do, and she pursued graduate studies at the University of Bristol. To do so, her Master's was entirely self-funded, so she recalls working at a factory for 5 months to generate the money to pay the fees.  Laura notes that it wasn't the easiest first term, but once she found her footing there was no turning back. She talks about finding her way in academia, her first 'big three' publications, her first lecturer position at Birmingham, and the decision to move to Australia sparked from a conversation with her friend Prof. Penny Griffin. Professor Shepherd concludes with her reflections on writing, decompressing through knitting and acupuncture, and more! 

Professor Aida Hozic joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Aida chats with Brent about growing up in Sarajevo, the 1984 Olympics, pursuing theater and then having a change of career plans that led her to pursuing a Master's in Bologna, Italy, at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and then a PhD at the University of Virginia. All of this as war and violence engulfed Sarajevo, how her mother moved to the US to stay with her during her PhD studies and beyond, and what it was like to see violence every day on CNN while her academic environment just expected her to keep working. She mentions an ISA where she organized a panel with Naem Inayatullah and the fun conversations that led to it. She recalls the developments in IR in the late 1990s and early 2000s that made IR more interesting. Aida discusses the enjoyable Visiting positions she had in New York, and then moving to Florida where she still is today. She talks about her approach to writing, how cooking helps her decompress, and more! 

Professor Matt McDonald of the University of Queensland joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Brent has known of Matt's work for almost two decades, and known him directly for about half that time, emailing Matt about the latter's fantastic 2010 'Lest we Forget' IPS article and striking up a correspondence, then friendship, since that time.Matt talks about growing up in a small town in New South Wales and how his dad having a bike accident as a child led Matt and his siblings on a path to college.  Matt moved as a kid to Brisbane, learned how to play the piano, and attended UQ for his undergrad, Masters and then his PhD, living with his parents throughout much of that time and commuting to UQ for his classes. He had a brief career as a lounge guitar player playing coffee shops and pubs, but sadly his career as a musician didn't pan out. So he talks about how and when he started to get interested in academia, and the life changing exchange he had to Aberystwyth where he really got into IR theory. He discusses going on the market, finishing his PhD while teaching full time, his first couple of publications, and the very circuitous travel for his ultimately successful interview at Birmingham.  He reflects on how enjoyable it was to have colleagues like Chris Browning, at both Birmingham and then at Warwick. Matt, Helen and their two boys enjoyed Britain, but also missed family in Australia. So Matt moved back, again, to UQ where he is today. We chat about his approaches to writing, how he decompresses via exercise, music, camping, and craft beer. This includes his treatment of craft beer evaluation, via Untappd, with the integrity it deserves. And it also, in closing, includes Matt and Brent's infamous and widely ridiculed (by HS podcast episode 4 guest, Jelena Subotic) evening out with Chris Browning in Prague at the 2018 EISA. 

Harry Gould of Florida International University joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Brent and Harry have known one another since 2007, and have become best friends. Harry talks about growing up in Florida, the formative experience of watching the Iranian Revolution unfold and becoming interesting in international politics, going to New College of Florida and deciding the foreign service wasn't for him. He chats about Master's work at FIU with Nick Onuf, the background to his 1998 study on the agent-structure debate, and his decision to pursue a PhD at Johns Hopkins. Harry talks about the environment at Hopkins, where he met Andrew A.G. Ross, and where he did his PhD work supervised by Siba Grovogui. He relays how he got a Visiting position at FIU while working on his dissertation and going on the market and getting a tenure track position at FIU.  We talk about the 2007 ISA where thanks to Tony Lang's initiative we all met one another on a panel he organized. He discusses the development of his 2010 book on Punishment, how he decompresses and how he approaches writing. Harry and I conclude with some reflections on a difficult topic - how we deal with the loss of close academic friends. 

Professor Lucian Ashworth of Memorial University joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Luke talks about growing up in England and Wales, then moving to the Netherlands at the age of 15. He chats with Brent about his decision to go to Keele, some of the major figures in IR that shaped his interests very early on, and then going to Career Services at Keele to try and decide where to go for his PhD. Ultimately deciding on Dalhousie, Luke recalls how he developed an interest in interwar figures like Norman Angell and David Mitrany, while also becoming aware of a new guard of approaches and scholars developing Gramscian, Feminist and post-structural applications of International Relations. Thereafter, some time spent at Carleton University with David Long began a series of collaborations that would produce work published at the end of the 1990s. Luke discusses his job interview at Limerick, where he then worked for 16 years until moving to his current position at Memorial in Newfoundland. Luke reflects on the students he trained at Limerick who are still in the academy to this day, such as former Hayseed Scholar podcast guest Cian O'Driscoll and the now 'internationally renown' Seán Molloy. Luke shares the ways in which the moves in the late 1990s and early 2000s to rethink, and reconstitute, the historiography of International Relations, happened in tandem, and then eventual dialogue, with scholars like Duncan Bell, Brian Schmidt and Cecelia Lynch. These moves helped in part to setup the vibrant Historical IR section that includes another Hayseed Scholar podcast guest, Halvard Leira, along with Or Rosenboim and Ben de Carvalho. Luke also discusses the pathbreaking work which has also reconsidered the racial and gender dynamics of this historiography, including by Robbie Shilliam and the Women and the History of International Thought project. He concludes by sharing his thoughts on how studying past civilizational collapses may help us with our current crises of the pandemic and climate catastrophe. 

Professor Priya Dixit of Virginia Tech joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Priya talks about being born in Thailand, growing up in Nepal, college and her master's in Australia, working for the United Nations, and pursuing her graduate work at American University in DC and the transition to living in the United States.  She also discusses the challenges of the US Visa process, and how it has impacted her research. Brent and Priya visit about her transition to the tenure track position at Virginia Tech, her approach to writing and decompressing. They conclude by discussing Professor Dixit's love of dogs and also being a lifelong Liverpool fan. 

Maria Mälksoo of the Brussels School of International Studies, University of Kent, joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Professor Mälksoo chats about growing up in a small town in Estonia during and at the end of the Cold War, the decision to go to the University of Tartu and her exchange year in Montana, and taking the GRE in Helsinki and getting her picture taken following a rainstorm. She talks about going to the University of Cambridge for her Masters, her return to Estonia and her work in diplomacy for the Estonian Ministry of Defense, and going back to the University of Cambridge where she completed her PhD under the supervision of Tarak Barkawi. Maria then discusses her work as a Research Professor at Tartu, her post-doc at LSE, and her current position at BSIS. Brent and Maria conclude by chatting about her approach to writing, her approach to decompressing, her fondness for running, being out in nature, traveling with her family and how IR will be transformed by the pandemic. 

Professor Juliet Kaarbo of the University of Edinburgh and Brent go way back to their days as colleagues at the University of Kansas in the mid-late 2000s. Julie shares with Brent her growing up in Kansas and Oklahoma, her graduate studies at the Ohio State University and developing her research program in Foreign Policy Analysis, getting the job at KU and the challenges of the tenure process especially being the first person in the department to have a baby. She discusses taking a visiting position in Geneva at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, the decision to come back to the US and KU, and her transition to Edinburgh where she is today. Julie had a couple of scares that she discusses, including fighting (and beating) cancer and a serious accident in Turkey while she was there on a fellowship that put her in the hospital for some time. She concludes by sharing her thoughts on how she approaches writing, her work in administrative roles over the years including as Grad Director at KU and her work with the KU Office of International Affairs, how she handles stress, her thoughts on the pandemic and how it will shape IR, and the experience of being named the 2018 Distinguished Scholar of the FPA section. 

Halvard 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, his role as a dad, and how he decompresses via walking and weight-lifting. They conclude their discussion with thoughts on how the pandemic might change the study, and the field, of International Relations. 

Dr 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 eventual move to where she is today at Cambridge. Dr Zarakol also shares how she approaches writing, her research, exercising with weight training and boxing, and what she thinks will be the lasting impact of the pandemic on International Relations going forward. 

Brent 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 back to ASU, his approach to administration, being chosen as the President of the ISA, how he approaches writing (including waking up in the middle of the night and emailing himself), and more! 

Brent 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 on approaching research topics that others work on, how she writes, walking her puppy, traveling to conferences and workshops with her children, and how Chris Agius taught her daughter how to play pool.

Jelena 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 Serbia in 1999, moving to the US and graduate school at Syracuse and then Wisconsin-Madison, the tough transition to a tenure-track position at GSU, and the feeling of 'I'm going to be alright' after her first book was accepted with Cornell University Press. She also discusses how she approaches writing, how she was introduced to tennis, her adventures on twitter, and much more! 

Cian 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. 

Cian 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 of September 11th, being on one of the first flights back into the US shortly thereafter, Irish neutrality and Michael Walzer's work, and his first year or so of PhD at Aberystwyth University (Wales).

The 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.