MIRTH – Monday International Relations Thought Series

On Monday afternoons during the academic year, IIS hosts a colloquium centered around contemporary research in International Relations. At the majority of MIRTH seminars,  an external speaker presents and receives feedback on new research, bringing a steady stream of fresh ideas to campus and providing an opportunity for graduate students across cohorts, departments, and other nearby universities to engage with research-in-progress. For students and faculty with research interests in International Relations, the workshop represents the intellectual heart of the community.  It also provides an important forum for PhD students to practice their job talks while they are on the academic job market and provides a venue for faculty and advanced graduate students to share work with one another.  External speakers and faculty are encouraged to present early work rather than research that is published or nearly so.  Feedback tends to be both plentiful and constructive. MIRTH also hosts professional development workshops for graduate students over the course of the semester, and participating graduate students rotate as formal discussants for external speakers. 

Berkeley has long held an speaker series in International Relations, with visiting speakers presenting a few times a semester in 223 Moses Hall since at least the early 1970s, an endeavor that was organized jointly with Stanford Political Science.  In the mid-1980s, after Bay Area traffic got worse, Professor Vinnie Aggarwal changed the IR colloquium to a Berkeley-only affair, which he ran jointly with Professor Steve Weber.  In Spring 2009, Professor Ron Hassner took it over, and turned it into a weekly seminar series.  It was named by one of the PhD student participants, Jay Purcell, as "Monday International Relations THing," but other faculty coordinators have since referred to it as "Monday International Relations THeory" and the full name of the workshop continues to provoke spirited debate.

Individuals wishing to sign up for the MIRTH mailing list and receive notifications of upcoming talks should contact the PhD student coordinator. Past rosters of speakers are listed below. 

2022-2023 Faculty coordinator: Ryan Brutger

2022-2023 PhD student coordinator: Julia Raven

Although a long list of faculty across campus participate from time to time, the regular faculty participants include: Vinnie Aggarwal, Ryan Brutger, Ron Hassner, Susan Hyde, Marika Landau-Wells, Aila Matanock, and Michaela Mattes.  

Time and Location

MIRTH usually meets on Monday afternoons in Moses 233. For the Fall 2022 semseter, the seminar will meet Mondays, 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. Remote presentations will take place over Zoom. Meeting details will be circulated in advance. 

Spring 2023 Schedule

DateMeeting
1/18/2023*Stefanie Walter (U. of Zurich) 2-3:30PM
1/23/2023Welcome Back
1/30/2023Ken Schultz (Stanford)
2/6/2023In Song Kim
2/13/2023Marika Laundau-Wells (UC Berkeley)
2/20/2023Holiday
2/27/2023Paasha Mahdavi (UC Santa Barbara)
3/6/2023Erik Lin-Greenberg (MIT)
3/13/2023Chagai Weiss (Stanford)
3/20/2023Ishana Ratan
3/27/2023Spring Break
4/3/2023Julia Raven
4/10/2023Andrew Blinkinsop
4/17/2023Meg Guliford (Drexel)
4/24/2023Oren Samet

Past Events

Fall 2022

August 28
Introductory Meeting 

September 5
Holiday - No Meeting

September 12 
Alex Stephenson 

September 19
Allison Grossman

September 26
Tara Chandra 

October 3 
Biz Herman 

October 10 
Megumi Naoi

October 17
Thomas Zeitzoff

October 24 
Blair Welsh

October 31
Anna Minasyan

November 7
Department Talk

November 14
Department Talk

November 21 
Thanksgiving Week- No Meeting

November 28
Page Fortna

Spring 2022

January 24
Kickoff 

February 7
Kelebogile Zvobgo (College of William and Mary)

February 14
Suparna Chaudhry (Lewis and Clark College)

February 21
No Meeting (Presidents' Day)

February 28
Ryan Brutger (UC Berkeley)

March 7
Carly Wayne (Washington University in St. Louis)

March 14
Christina Schneider (UC San Diego)

March 21
No Meeting (Spring Break)

March 28
Page Fortna (Columbia University)

April 4
Michael Joseph (UC San Diego)

April 11
Shelley Liu (UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy)

April 18
Erin Lin (Ohio State University)

April 25
Layna Mosley (Princeton University)

Fall 2021

August 30
Kickoff 

September 6
No MIRTH - Labor Day

September 13
Edmund Malesky (Duke University)

September 20
Practice Job Talk
Biz Herman (University of California, Berkeley)

September 27
Practice Job Talk
Katherine Beall (University of California, Berkeley)

October 4
Practice Job Talk
Alex Stephenson (University of California, Berkeley)

October 11
Brandon Kinne (University of California, Davis)

October 18
Kennet Scheve (Yale University)

October 25
Roselyn Hsueh (Temple University)

November 1
Genevieve Bates (University of British Columbia)

November 8
Erin Lockwood (University of California, Irvine)

November 15
Mark Crescenzi (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

November 22
No MIRTH- Thanksgiving Week 

November 29
Tyler Pratt (Yale University)

Fall 2020

August 31
Kickoff & IR Group Discussion

September 7
No MIRTH - Labor Day

September 14
Jacob Shapiro (Princeton University)

September 21
Practice Job Talk
Katherine Beall (University of California, Berkeley)

September 28
Practice Job Talk
Elizabeth Herman (University of California, Berkeley)

October 5
Practice Job Talk
Caroline Brandt (University of California, Berkeley)

October 12
Mark Bell (University of Minnesota)

October 26
Jakana Thomas (Michigan State University)

November 2
IR Group Discussion / Workshop

November 9
Robert Jervis (Columbia University)

November 16
Catherline Worsnop (University of Maryland)

November 23
No MIRTH - Thanksgiving Week

November 30
Leonardo Baccini (McGill University)