Joseph MacKay
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lefteleven.bsky.social
Joseph MacKay
@lefteleven.bsky.social
Canadian in Oz. IR academic. History of international ordering, history of international thought. He/him. Book, "The Counterinsurgent Imagination." https://bit.ly/3h86v4Y
I'm a few weeks late to this, but Paul Musgrave is excellent on whether or not to get a PhD. slate.com/life/2025/10...
Harvard’s Dismal Grad School News Is Just the Tip of a Very Bad Iceberg
Grad school's been grim for years. But it's always possible for things to get worse.
slate.com
November 13, 2025 at 11:12 PM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
November 13, 2025 at 9:06 AM
This looks excellent.
Ever wondered why some countries get recognition while others struggle to be seen?

My book 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘴 is finally out in the world!

📘 academic.oup.com/book/61560
The Making of International Status
Abstract. With great power rivalry on the rise again, many worry that struggles for status among states could lead to war. As a growing consensus indicates
academic.oup.com
November 13, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
Ever wondered why some countries get recognition while others struggle to be seen?

My book 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘴 is finally out in the world!

📘 academic.oup.com/book/61560
The Making of International Status
Abstract. With great power rivalry on the rise again, many worry that struggles for status among states could lead to war. As a growing consensus indicates
academic.oup.com
November 12, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
🚨Special issue on Global Politics of Cultural Heritage edited by @elifkalay.bsky.social and yours truly for @risjnl.bsky.social is now fully out! The project is about placing cultural heritage at the core of IR. Here is the intro, individual articles in thread👇
Global politics of cultural heritage: Status, authority, and geopolitics | Review of International Studies | Cambridge Core
Global politics of cultural heritage: Status, authority, and geopolitics
www.cambridge.org
November 11, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Deleting a post (about the Bosnian “sniper tourism” story) that could probably have been worded more cautiously. I’m not sure I can tell what’s going on there.
November 12, 2025 at 8:04 AM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
Hoping this helps our colleagues across the industry
November 5, 2025 at 1:01 PM
America is, in fact, a land of contrasts
Mar Awa III, patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, also born in Chicago, gave Pope Leo a Cubs jersey.
October 28, 2025 at 2:47 AM
The new Office for Mac icons are a special kind of early 00's ugly.
October 27, 2025 at 3:22 AM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
this headline hums with ancient autumnal dread
October 23, 2025 at 12:41 PM
So will the reveal at the end of The Diplomat be that they all go to jail?
October 23, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
breaking into the louvre and just stealing napoleonic and second-empire jewellery is proof that 'money can't buy you taste' also applies to thieves
October 20, 2025 at 6:52 AM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
You're absolutely right — starting a land war in Asia wasn't just a bad call, it's 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗰 𝗯𝗹𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀. Thank you for calling me out on that — really. I'll be extra-strategic from now on.

Would you like me to get cracking on those 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿?
dawg we are gonna lose a war because ChatGPT has this guy mobilizing divisions that don't exist and tasking real troops with holding mountain passes and ports an LLM hallucinated
October 17, 2025 at 5:55 AM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
Nemiscam, Alberta
October 16, 2025 at 4:26 AM
Say what you will about these folks, they’re considerably more interesting than Thiel is.
October 11, 2025 at 8:20 AM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
Saul Zabar, Smoked Fish Czar of Upper West Side, Dies at 97 www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/d...
Saul Zabar, Smoked Fish Czar of Upper West Side, Dies at 97
www.nytimes.com
October 8, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
New paper out with @dasalgon.bsky.social: “Far-Right Agenda Setting: How the Far Right influences the Political Mainstream” doi.org/10.1017/S1475676525100066 #openaccess in @ejprjournal.bsky.social🧵
October 7, 2025 at 7:14 AM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
The epigraph to Neil Postman’s “Technopoly”
October 7, 2025 at 12:59 AM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
Series of stained glass windows at St Louis U celebrating the evolution of textuality from Scroll to Manuscript to Printing Press to Computer
October 4, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
“Herein lies the question: if not to sustain ANU’s once diverse range of courses and degrees, and if not to retain the knowledge and skills of its academics, then what is that $232.4 million revenue for?”

www.woroni.com.au/news/austral...
WoroniAustralia Institute Analyses ANU Budget Reports—No Deficit Found - Woroni
The Australia Institute has released its audited analysis of ANU’s 2023 and 2024 budget. ANU’s unaudited deficit was reported at $142.5 million, while its audited revenue showed a surplus of $89.9 mil...
www.woroni.com.au
October 4, 2025 at 3:58 AM
Additional to this being generally excellent, I’m cheered that the homunculus theory of mind lives on in folk psychology.
I think about the tiny OSHA guy inside of me at least once a day, but today he's basically all I can think about.
September 30, 2025 at 8:52 PM
The replies here—assenting, informative, helpful—are indicative of why Bluesky is great.
there are almost certainly more people — more blue collar laborers, specifically — involved in the cultivation and production of chardonnay grapes and wine than in coal
Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Fox: "We're announcing today expanded programs to help the American coal industry. We're helping it because for years it has been under assault. It was out of fashion with the chardonnay set in San Francisco, Boulder, and NYC ... coal just makes the world go round."
September 30, 2025 at 1:58 AM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
A friend writes:

I saw someone's post somewhere that talked about how their
nine-year-old and all his friends have started using "That's AI"
instead of "I don't believe you."

Mom: "We're having dinosaur meat for dinner tonight."
Kid: "That's AI."
September 29, 2025 at 1:46 AM
BBC just casually going full, cartoon doomer here.
September 26, 2025 at 7:11 AM
Reposted by Joseph MacKay
JOB!
Permanent Lecturer / Senior Lecturer position (education focused) in Political Economy at the University of Sydney.
Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Political Economy (Education Focused) - University of Sydney - Progress in Political Economy (PPE)
The Discipline of Political Economy at the University of Sydney is advertising a continuing education focused position, to be appointed at either Lecturer or Senior Lecturer level. This position is pa...
www.ppesydney.net
September 25, 2025 at 2:08 AM