Tuesday 12 March 2013

Introduction


I have decided to embark on a journey into the dark and, for me, little-understood world of blogging. The decision to delve into this crowded arena was taken for two reasons: mainly so that my thoughts, research and discoveries in the universe of international politics could be recorded, and act as an 'extended mind' for myself, as philosopher David Chalmers called it (see him give a Ted Talk on this particular thesis here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksasPjrYFTg).

The second, lesser reason, is that I felt some people may be interested in hearing my thoughts and examining the evidence and sources behind some of my claims. Those of you who have had the misfortune of being around me for an extended period of time will have no doubt been exposed to a lengthy tirade on international politics, or at the least the occasional comment with an odd-sounding opinion. This blog is to try to give those who are interested a small window into my frame of reference and world-view in International Relations, and hopefully provide some interesting view-points and information.

Having recently been elected president of the Warwick International Relations society (FB Page here- http://tinyurl.com/cbychb7), and having the good fortune of getting an article published in the major campus magazine on International Relations, the Warwick Globalist (can be found online here- http://tinyurl.com/axowkf2- all the articles are worth a read; mine is on page 33-4, on the topic of West Papua, something I will post a 'blog' about at a later date), I felt that a blog on International Relations would be an enjoyable (?) activity. If it goes anything like I hope it will then there will be some space for constructive debate and sharing of ideas and information.

I am terrible with technology and have little idea what a blog is beyond a place where people 'write stuff and put it online' (maybe that really is all there is to it), so this could go horrendously. My hope is that: I will stick to a regular blog of reasonable length on varying topics around International Relations; with a place to comment (not sure if that's standard on a blog); and Google will make it easy for me. Some thoughts for upcoming blogs include: The Iraq War ten years on, the Iranian 'threat', West Papua, the global arms trade and Western Sahara.

I will attempt to reference all my sources in accessible online form using TinyURL, and give full names of articles, books and page numbers when my sources are only available in this form.

Now to figure out how to publish this.

2 comments:

  1. this blog changed my life... thank you 'Conor Woodman'. whoever you are... thank you...

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