The International Studies people painfully need me. Currently, their course is a mixture between Duginism and wokeism. It suggests that people must aim to be global citizens in a multipolar world and welcome climate refugees while hoping for the rise of China at the expense of the US.
I’m throwing away everything, including the textbook. Which text would you suggest as the main book for the course? It’s for next spring, so I have a lot of time.
Maybe this one? The Plot to Change America by Mike Gonzalez
Reviewed by Rubén Martinez @ https://jsri.msu.edu/publications/nexo/vol-xxv/no-2-spring-2022/book-review-the-plot-to-change-america-how-identity-politics-is-dividing-the-lan
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OT. Israel and US are doing everything possible to make sure the war destroys the world economy. This strike was completely unnecessary and it’ll only lead to more misery, and the world will suffer.
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Stringer, you’re starting to sound like an upside-down Moskrr (or however he spelled it). Everything is about Israel all the time, no matter the topic.
There are enough posts where Israel is on-topic that you don’t need to spam other posts. Or is your goal to get people to just skip it when they see your name?
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What happened to Mosckrrr and his rants? I had completely forgotten about him? Anyone has any news? I enjoyed (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) his tirades full of Talmudic commentaries, God bless his heart!
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Oh, that’s who people mean! I forgot as well. Good times.
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Something is wrong with this guy. He chooses this moment to crap on Jesus?
https://x.com/i/status/2034713271517794575
I can’t even.
At least, I found a person at work who also opposes the Iran war. It’s my Ukrainian Fulbrighter. We had a great conversation about it today.
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Maybe it’ll wake up some of the evangellies?
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“How can I convince Christians to like me? Hmmm … Oh, I know! Let me rubbish Jesus during Lent. That’s got to do it “
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The only thing that would have made it better is if he’d added “and that’s why we crucified that bastard.”
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Now people are excusing this with “it was just a quote.” As if quotes were assigned randomly to speakers with no agency on the speakers’ part to choose what they quote. I’m sure it would be perfectly fine, then, to address the Jewish people in Hebrew and say, “it is unfortunately true that, as Goebbels says, the Jew is a scoundrel and a parasite.” Let’s all lighten up! It’s a quote.
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Maybe he’s fishing for support on the US left 😉
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Everyone suffers because of this one country.
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What is “International Studies”? It is some sort of Global Studies department? PoliSci? My first instinct would be to teach some short literary texts from different parts of the world, with the same topics. But I am probably out of scope.
Ol.
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I’m in the same boat as OI. What is (International Studies) exactly. Or rather what are some of its borders? Is it any current nations? Does it allow nations that existed before hand? Is it just writing and so forth from said nations, or does it branch out to include stuff like excerpts and examples of their culture. For example, pictures of various unique architectural styles that started in a nation that spread later on, influencing other stuff.
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They have 3 tracks: diplomacy, sustainability and culture. Our students tend to be extremely oblivious about the geopolitical situation, so it’s a way to get them up to date at least somewhat.
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Intro to Geopolitics then, which is more and more important to understand. Perhaps there is something in Routedge’s “Very Short Introduction” Series. And perhaps some theory on nationalism? I trust you can build something on nationalism with little preparation.
Ol.
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Oh yes. I’m going to do nationalism up the wazoo. And I’ll do an activity on why “global citizenship” is a moronic idea.
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Good. You could also talk about the concept of “cosmopolitanism,” and make sure that 50% of students drop the course.
Also, I do not know the answer to the multiple-choice question below.
Ol.
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\\ Good. You could also talk about the concept of “cosmopolitanism,” and make sure that 50% of students drop the course.
Reminded me of O Henry’s short story – “A Cosmopolitan in a Cafe”, published in 1906.
https://www.online-literature.com/o_henry/the-four-million/3/
Imo, a course on globalism should include a historical aspect of ideas like cosmopolitanism, the ability to travel w/o passports or visas among European states before WW1, and so on.
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Who could’ve predicted this? A death cult of parasites who will take down the entire world with them.
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I’m still waiting for Trump to get this upset with Russia but I’m not hopeful that it will happen.
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\\ I’m still waiting for Trump to get this upset with Russia but I’m not hopeful that it will happen.
Clarissa, SB, Trump was trolling Iranians.
From David Gendelman, an Israeli military expert:
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OK, it’s worse than I thought, then.
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Actually, it may well be worse than many understand. Not just the West, but the entire modern world, depends upon reliable, low cost, energy. The pampered lefty idiots of the West may dream of “net zero”, but India and China cannot afford to be that childish — energy affects the cost of transport but fertilizer, the cost of food.
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Student here: Don’t worry, students don’t read the book nor listen to the profs. INTS class was taught by a professor who did not teach a single lesson. Entire class was college freshmen giving high school freshmen level presentations on international topics and 5 question quizzes on basic knowledge. I skipped all but 6 lectures and passed with a 110%. They need help.
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Wow, it’s like you were in this exact course. That’s exactly how it was. Student presentations and multiple choice quizzes. My favorite question was as follows:
To be a global citizen you need
A. A passport of another country
B. Have multicultural heritage
C. To be of age
D. Have cultural competence
Strangely, the correct answer, which is “to suffer from a high degree of retardation”, was not included.
Yes, they need me.
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“A. A passport of another country”
Finally! We have located the uniting feature of affluent liberals and illegal migrants!
They’re just alike, you see.
Does that make the victimhood a shareable asset?
-ethyl
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This is the best comment. It’s so spot on! Finally, we found the defining commonality.
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LOL, and here I thought DEI was an utterly, competely teats useless waste of skin ;-D
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Would you like to add a few excerpts from literary works (autobiographies, poems, etc.) from different time periods too?
I thought of Zweig’s memoir ‘The World of Yesterday: Memoires of a European‘ which “has been called the most famous book on the Habsburg Empire” (wiki). It presents a surprising and uncomfortable connection between ‘posivite’ concepts like ‘globalism’ and ‘negative’ ones like ’empire’ and ‘colonialism.’ Cannot think of something similar about the British empire, but such numerous texts must exist.
In the most ancient times, spread of religions created the Christian world and the Muslim Ummah, for example.
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A good short poem by Adrian Mitchell (UK, 1932 – 2008) –
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Yes, it’s World Poetry Day. Let’s celebrate with poetry.
https://x.com/i/status/2035327409755505109
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Hmmm, well okay Kid, this seems rather apt ;-D
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
—Yeats
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My favorite English-language poet, actually. 😀
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I haven’t read this book yet, but it looks interesting and connected to your new course:
“Revolt: The Worldwide Uprising Against Globalization―An Eye-Opening Examination of Nationalism, Populism, Corruption, and the New Status Quo” by Nadav Eyal , “one of Israel’s leading journalists … a master’s degree in global politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and holds a LL.B from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. ”
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In general, would be extremely interested to read posts about your discoveries and any material you’ll use in this course. Would love to read the main book you’ll choose. Pity cannot take this course myself. It sounds like so much fun.
Will you include materials on international law? Wanted to share this post “The ICC as an anti-colonialist project? Or as an embodiment of universal law?”
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I’ll have to learn a lot about this, definitely. Which is the whole point of doing this course.
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\\ I’ll have to learn a lot about this, definitely. Which is the whole point of doing this course.
Hasn’t Philip Bobbitt written extensively about the evolution of international law in “The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History”? (That was the half of his book that I skipped then.)
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International relations is pretty much the only thing the SA government understands. This is mostly due to them being being supported by the international left while in exile during the cold war.
https://www.thecommonsense.co.za/Editorials/bozell-us-need-to-quickly-grasp-sa-government-s-strategy
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