Matt McDonald

Explicit content warning

12/06/20 • 111 min

Professor Matt McDonald of the University of Queensland joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Brent has known of Matt's work for almost two decades, and known him directly for about half that time, emailing Matt about the latter's fantastic 2010 'Lest we Forget' IPS article and striking up a correspondence, then friendship, since that time.
Matt talks about growing up in a small town in New South Wales and how his dad having a bike accident as a child led Matt and his siblings on a path to college. Matt moved as a kid to Brisbane, learned how to play the piano, and attended UQ for his undergrad, Masters and then his PhD, living with his parents throughout much of that time and commuting to UQ for his classes. He had a brief career as a lounge guitar player playing coffee shops and pubs, but sadly his career as a musician didn't pan out. So he talks about how and when he started to get interested in academia, and the life changing exchange he had to Aberystwyth where he really got into IR theory. He discusses going on the market, finishing his PhD while teaching full time, his first couple of publications, and the very circuitous travel for his ultimately successful interview at Birmingham. He reflects on how enjoyable it was to have colleagues like Chris Browning, at both Birmingham and then at Warwick. Matt, Helen and their two boys enjoyed Britain, but also missed family in Australia. So Matt moved back, again, to UQ where he is today. We chat about his approaches to writing, how he decompresses via exercise, music, camping, and craft beer. This includes his treatment of craft beer evaluation, via Untappd, with the integrity it deserves. And it also, in closing, includes Matt and Brent's infamous and widely ridiculed (by HS podcast episode 4 guest, Jelena Subotic) evening out with Chris Browning in Prague at the 2018 EISA.

Previous Episode

Harry Gould

Harry Gould of Florida International University joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Brent and Harry have known one another since 2007, and have become best friends.
Harry talks about growing up in Florida, the formative experience of watching the Iranian Revolution unfold and becoming interesting in international politics, going to New College of Florida and deciding the foreign service wasn’t for him. He chats about Master’s work at FIU with Nick Onuf, the background to his 1998 study on the agent-structure debate, and his decision to pursue a PhD at Johns Hopkins. Harry talks about the environment at Hopkins, where he met Andrew A.G. Ross, and where he did his PhD work supervised by Siba Grovogui. He relays how he got a Visiting position at FIU while working on his dissertation and going on the market and getting a tenure track position at FIU. We talk about the 2007 ISA where thanks to Tony Lang’s initiative we all met one another on a panel he organized. He discusses the development of his 2010 book on Punishment, how he decompresses and how he approaches writing. Harry and I conclude with some reflections on a difficult topic - how we deal with the loss of close academic friends.

Next Episode

Aida Hozic

Professor Aida Hozic joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Aida chats with Brent about growing up in Sarajevo, the 1984 Olympics, pursuing theater and then having a change of career plans that led her to pursuing a Master's in Bologna, Italy, at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and then a PhD at the University of Virginia. All of this as war and violence engulfed Sarajevo, how her mother moved to the US to stay with her during her PhD studies and beyond, and what it was like to see violence every day on CNN while her academic environment just expected her to keep working. She mentions an ISA where she organized a panel with Naem Inayatullah and the fun conversations that led to it. She recalls the developments in IR in the late 1990s and early 2000s that made IR more interesting. Aida discusses the enjoyable Visiting positions she had in New York, and then moving to Florida where she still is today. She talks about her approach to writing, how cooking helps her decompress, and more!