ISA Day #1

I am off to New Orleans to attend and present a paper at the ISA (International Studies Association) 56th Annual Convention ‘Global IR and Regional Worlds: A New Agenda for International Studies’ February 18th-21st, 2015, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Traveling to New Orleans was a day of extremes. Leaving Minnesota the temperature was -10 (the windchill was in the -30s) and arriving in New Orleans the temperature was 52. I also crossed the Mississippi River at the top and then I crossed the Mississippi River at the bottom. After some issues with my hotel room (followed later by more issues with no heat and no internet) and I finally got my room with a river view. There is just something so calming about watching the ships sail by. I caught up with some people from my PhD program (its always nice to see everyone) and then I went to attend one of the panels at the conference as the theme was Game of Thrones (GOT)! The official title of the panel was ‘Game of Thrones and World Politics: Empirical Investigations.’ I had some issues finding the room, so after I arrived I asked a women sitting in front of me if this was the GOT panel room and she said ‘the costumes didn’t give it away’? Costumes? What costumes? YES, most of the panelist were IN COSTUME as characters from GOT. The moderators were even dressed up: Charli Carpenter was dressed as Daenerys Targaryen and Daniel Drezner (of ‘Theories of International Politics and Zombies’ fame) was dressed as Jon Snow. The panel also had a Robb Stark, Tywin Lannister, Cersei Lannister, and a few people that did not dress-up. It was a fun panel and had about 50 people in attendance, which is rock star attendance for a conference. Food, Starbucks, walking around the Hurrah’s Casino (sadly too tired to gamble), and finishing my PowerPoint presentation for tomorrow rounded out the night. Coolest thing of the day: I also bought a Twitter bird voodoo doll!