During breaks, the real work?
I just discovered that, along with Benedict Kingsbury, my supervisor edited a book in the exact area in which I mean to write my thesis. It is called The International Politics of the Environment. Obviously, I can't open my mouth in front of him again until I read it. The blurb on the back cover describing it sounds like it could have come out of one of the scholarship proposals I submitted earlier this year: "This book brings together leading specialists to assess the strengths, limitations, and potential of the international political system for global environmental management." It should make for an interesting read, though it is fourteen years old.
4 Comments
He probably wouldn't have gone so long without mentioning it if your ever statement was a gross contradiction of the ideals espoused therein.
Also, him having edited the book is probably a good sign. It indicates interest, but not necessarily extensive expertise.
Don't worry. In a field like IR, there will always be people doing research along similar lines to your own. It doesn't devalue your contribution, because you will doubtless approach similar questions differently and develop different conclusions. The only people who have the luxury of questions all to themselves tend to study things like obscure historical episodes or rare Argentinian centipedes.
if shakespeare be true, i'll pull this line from macbeth iv.ii:
...cruel are the times, when we are traitors
and do not know ourselves, when we hold rumour
from what we fear, yet know not what we fear,
But float upon a wild and violent sea...
things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward to what they were before...
hm. the irony in this is just golden.
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