ISA San Francisco 2013 Report, Part 3

ISA report for Saturday and final thoughts:

I'll admit to getting a little burned out on ISA by this time. Getting out of bed this morning was a struggle. Getting up, dressed and all the way out to San Francisco…on an early Saturday morning? Harsh. Though it was a struggle, I had important things to see today.

First up was a panel on the connections between Realism and Rationalism. There were two interesting looks at Morgenthau, one on Kuhn (someone I had never really heard about but is clearly important, I should look into him) and finally Kant as realist, which is a take I definitely had not heard before. Kant, the writer of perpetual peace, as a realist? Definitely unusual. The panel had Mearsheimer as a discussant, and it turns out he is much more moderate in his views in real life than comes off in discussions about him. He is also an awesome speaker, witty but with informed and clear views on many things. He does remind me of Prof. Hanami though, very clear about his views and is willing to say that other peoples ideas are nonsense if that's what he believes, and both do it while making the audience laugh. I should have a good time in his classes. I was able to introduce myself as an incoming student as well, so hopefully he will remember me in the fall.

Panel two for the day was a combination of thinking about Outer Space and Cyber Space. This was a little different from my last panels about these topics, which both had a military focus. These were a little more general, theoretical, discussing ways of thinking about the fast moving events in these areas, how they intersect with issues of security, sovereignty, but also freedom and connectivity. It was fairly interesting, I didn't learn as much about Outer Space this time, but there was a good survey of the current treaty status, which is useful to have as a starting point for any of my own research.

That was it for today, the convention was pretty much over by this point. In general, I felt that my taking part was enormously helpful to my development as a scholar. I definitely turned some "unknown unknowns" into "known unknowns", and got a sense for what would be expected of me at a similar presentation. As for what I actually LEARNED at the conference…well, that's harder to say. I walked away with many more questions than answers, but it's in answering those questions for myself that I grow as a scholar, and hopefully I can contribute some knowledge next year. I definitely plan on submitting a few paper proposals. Certainly my 550 paper, but I have some ideas about outer space and cybersecurity that I thought up while listening to the panels this year. Whether or not I'll be able to write them all is unknown, but I'm going to try my best to make a name for myself as soon as possible. Apparently, the field is being compressed downward. You used to not have to be published until after you were in a PhD program, even after you had finished. Now, you have to be published well before that, during your MA or even as an undergrad. The conference process seems to be equally important, and I've lost enough time not knowing what was available and what my goals should be.