Inaugural Post

02 February 2008 by BlogIPT@gmail.com

The aim of this blog is to bring together information, mainly of a scholarly nature, concerning the areas of study that can be broadly described as international political theory or international ethics. My hope is to use this space to collect references of articles, books, journals and conferences, as well as off discussion of particular pieces and events that are of interest.

At the moment this is a one-man enterprise, so it will undoubtedly reflect my particular biases and interests, but I do hope to encourage conversation with anyone who may stumble across these pages and in time to encourage others to participate. I'm particularly keen to get in touch with other graduate students working in the area as well as working academics, researchers and activists.

For now, I'll only mention three things: an upcoming conference that may be of interests, a journal I'm particularly interested in, and finally a very fine recent paper from Niamh Reilly that I want to recommend.

(1) In a totally self-serving bit of promotion, I would like to announce a call for papers for the Millennium Journal of International Studies Annual Conference, which is being held 25-26 October 2008. The subject is 'Interrogating Democracy in International Relations,' and the deadline for abstracts is 15 April 2008. More information can be found here. I happen to be one of the editors of this journal and was involved in selecting the conference topic, none the less I do think reflecting on democracy, in a number of ways and from a number of disciplinary and ideological perspectives, is a hugely important thing for us to do.

(2) I want to give a nod to the 'Muslim World Journal of Human Rights,' available online here. I'm quite interested in the work being produced by this journal, as my own research is concerned with the question of if and how human rights, as both moral values and legal instruments, transcend social and cultural barriers, which are often thought to be either insurmountable or insignificant in regards to human rights. This journal takes seriously both the universal scope of human rights as a project, but also tries to elucidate an understanding that is part of a Muslim intellectual and religious tradition, definitely worth a look.

(3) Finally, I just want to encourage people to read a recent article by Niamh Reilly, entitled 'Cosmopolitan Feminism and Human Rights,' in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Vol. 22, No. 4, available here. Niamh is a Senior Lecturer, Global Women's Studies Programme, School of Political Science and Sociology, National University of Ireland, Galway, and her paper is I think a very good critique of both relativist/skeptical positions on human rights, as well as a critical appraisal of the cosmopolitan position. Good stuff.

More soon,

Joe

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