When Am I Going to Use This Rebecca Eggenschwiler on the crux of the matter. Students never really ask “when am I going to use this?” honestly: And the question itself — “When am I going to use this?” — is nearly always a lie, a front. The asker is not genuinely contemplating the use-value of Material X; rather, he or she is merely announcing the intent to give up.

Let’s Write The hashtags for #NaNoWriMo (National Novel Write Month) are starting to populate my twitter feed; yet conspicuously absent thus far are those for academics, affectionately hacked to #AcWriMo. Although #AcWriMo does not begin until November, often in this final week of October, blogs, academic websites and e-journals begin posting on the theme, writing up tips on how to take advantage of #AcWriMo. This year, now that I recently begun my dissertation prospectus and studying for a prelim exam on international politics, I wanted to jump start my writing by making a public commitment to regular writing during November.

Social constructivism, a research school found largely in international relations, should also aid identity politics research. No doubt it may seem malapropos to import a research agenda used largely to investigate questions of inter-state behavior, international security, and the like. However, the methods employed by the social theorists are simply those: social science methods. As such, when applicable, researchers should borrow and adapt whatever methods helps them investigate the questions driving their research.

Would a conference by any other name smell as sweet? Last week the American Political Science Association (APSA) cancelled it annual conference which was to be held in New Orleans because of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Isaac. As as result, thousands of faculty, ABD interviewees, and other attendees suddenly had to think about practical implications of a year without the major conference. In their announcement about the cancellation, APSA suggested that all papers uploaded to SSRN (a public database where scholarly papers can be downloaded), would count for purposes of CV inclusion.

Concept In light of Hurricane Isaac, the American Political Science Association cancelled its annual meeting scheduled to be held in New Orleans, LA. But with all these conference papers dressed up with nowhere to go, a small collection of faculty, graduate students, publishers, and the APSA decided to post our papers and give our presentations anyway. What follows is the Virtual Program for #virtualAPSA2012 A shameless credit claiming here, my tweet may have been the first to start it all.