Podcasts and audiobooks

Because the spoken word content on Spotify is so-so most of the time (aside from podcasts like Ologies and the Spycast), I have been trying Audible to provide better quality listening material during walks.

So far I have finished James Donovan’s book “Strangers on a Bridge: The Case of Colonel Abel” about the espionage trials and eventual prisoner exchange of a KGB colonel living as an illegal in New York (also depicted in the excellent film Bridge of Spies) and Lyndsay Faye’s “Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson” which I learned about from an interview with the author on the I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere podcast and then finished in two days.

Donovan’s book was quite interesting, if read a bit mechanically. Faye’s book is a great pastiche, interestingly written with both deep knowledge of the canon and a willingness to innovate, and very well read in this edition.

Over several weeks I have listened to the first half of “Anna Karenina” read by Maggie Gyllenhaal, which is superb. She brings a great saucy enthusiasm to the text and language, and it’s easy to imagine that one is being read to by her character from the film Secretary.

Finally, in the hope of better understanding American conservatism in order to better strategize about climate change, I have been listening to Geoffrey Kabaservice’s “Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party.” I’m still working through the 1960s, which is still fairly little-known history to me. The book is a bit challenging both because a lot of the names and events are unfamiliar and because the narrator is a bit monotone in a way that tends to enhance the difficulty of paying attention.

I found that such narration was commonplace in the books and spoken word content on Spotify, so generally I have been very happy about how Audible has shifted my listening toward fully accomplished published works with enduring social importance, rather than just the (sometimes excellent) present-focused podcast and news content.

Hand editing chapter drafts in U of T libraries

To advance the aim of getting down to four 50-page chapters, I have been bringing printouts to review on campus for the last couple of days. The change of scenery has certainly been accompanied by a change in feeling and thinking, and I am starting to feel the emotional distance from the text which is necessary for effective editing.

The big tasks ongoing are to cut out or move away any sections not important for the scholarly argument in the dissertation; to split out my own normative conclusions from empirical and analytical arguments, to be moved into a chapter of their own at the end; and to cut out passages that are too theoretical or speculative, trying to stick more closely to what can be anchored and justified with reference to the campus fossil fuel divestment movement specifically.

The political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and repertoires chapters are all getting this treatment now, and it feels more like progress forward than continuing with my recent efforts to grind through micro-level changes from my own comments and those of committee members.

It may be that the long section which I wrote on counter-repertoires against divestment developed by university administrations can be pulled out and self-published soon. I did ideally want to find an academic journal for it to get it more attention, but with all the rounds of revision and editing that would require it’s probably best to get it out as a personal draft and focus on getting the actual dissertation out as soon as can be managed.

Cohen historical theory

Avner Cohen provides a great summary of writing history (here under the particular limitations of studying Israel’s nuclear arsenal):

The narrative I offer, then, is by nature incomplete and interpretative. Like all narratives, it is not written from God’s-eye view; rather, it is a story told through incomplete human and archival sources.

Cohen, Avner. “Before the Beginning: The Early History of Israel’s Nuclear Project (1948–1954).” Israel Studies 3.1 (1998): 112-139.

Back in libraries

To do my part in reducing the reproduction rate of COVID-19, since March 2020 I have been avoiding indoor spaces and largely only going out for grocery walking and exercise walks.

I had stepped into a few U of T libraries to pick up and return books, but tonight was the first time I have gone in and read for several hours since pre-pandemic. Three surprise nice features:

  1. Being at Gerstein and Robarts made me feel like a student again, not just an ex-student with a very long incomplete overdue assignment
  2. The legibility of books under these lights is a reminder of how dim the lighting fixtures are in my current Byq Bepuneq Ubzrf apartment in North York (along with the flimsy plumbing fixtures, cheap locks, woeful lack of insulation, and notably inefficient furnace and AC unit)
  3. Seeing people wearing masks properly and voluntarily — because it’s the rule and because it makes sense — is heartening when so many in Toronto do a terrible job (useless clear hard masks, masks around chins, and loudmouths demanding service unmasked in shops and usually getting it because nobody wants to confront them)

As part of completing 50 page drafts of my political opportunities, mobilizing structures, repertoires, and framing chapters I am going to try reviewing and prioritizing the contents of paper printouts in these libraries during the short time ahead.

Cohen on the purpose of Dimona

The scope of the Israeli request for French technological assistance, the details of which Shimon Peres spelled out in Paris in 1956/1957, was tantamount to a national proliferation commitment. Enough is now known about the extent of the Dimona deal to appreciate how determined Ben-Gurion was to pursue it. The Dimona nuclear complex was designed to include all the technological components required for a plutonium-based nuclear-weapons infrastructure. The project’s scope and purpose were evident in the facility’s sanctum sanctorum, the deeply dug underground reprocessing facility designed to extract plutonium from spent uranium rods. Nothing is more indicative of Israel’s initial commitment to build a nuclear-weapons capability than this supersecret and costly facility. From the beginning, Israel hoped that [sic] within a decade or so to have enough fissile material to build its own nuclear device.

Cohen, Avner. The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb. Columbia University Press, 2010. p. 57–8

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