I had the pleasure of giving a talk today at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, “Child’s Play: Making Social Meaning in Kids’ Zones and War Zones.” Many thanks to Izabela Steflja for the invitation and to all who attended for the warm welcome and excellent discussion.

Coming soon from Manchester University Press. Cover photo was taken while on fieldwork travel in July 2024. Caption: decommissioned U.S. Marine Corps Grumman F9F Cougar repurposed as children’s playground equipment, Boysen Park, Anaheim, California.

REMINDER:
*** Please share widely ***
Call for Papers: Childhood and Public Memory
Editor: J. Marshall Beier
Deadline for chapter proposals: 30 April 2026
marshallbeier.com/.../cfp-chil....

Join us in person or online for our new @visualpolitics.bsky.social events to hear about new research from @mtrotem.bsky.social (Manchester), Saffron O'Neill (Exeter), @jmarshallbeier.bsky.social (McMaster) and @hmberents.bsky.social (Griffith). Zoom rego: www.rolandbleiker.com/news/new-vis...

Just received from University of Toronto Press. Very happy to have my chapter, “Childhoods’ Diplomacies”, in the company of so many smart people rethinking how we understand diplomacy.

Why Canada must step up to protect children in a period of global turmoil Violence against children is a global crisis. States must take urgent action to prevent it or the cost will continue to impact communities around the world.

Published today in The Conversation.

theconversation.com/why-canada-m...

Looking forward to speaking on children’s rights and social imaginaries of childhood at Peter A. Allard School of Law today.

Coming soon from Bristol University Press...

Dr. Lindsay Robinson at lunch with grad students today, following her excellent talk at the McMaster University Department of Political Science: "Colonial Constructions of Girlhood and Climate Vulnerability: A Feminist Care Ethics Critique of Plan International’s 'Real Choices, Real Lives’ Program".

NEW ARTICLE PUBLISHED 📚

I'm very glad to share that the article "The Boundaries of the Future: Child Protection as a Promise of Peace for the Democratic Republic of the Congo" was published in Contexto Internacional, one of Brazil’s most prestigious academic journals in International Relations.

*** Please share widely ***
Call for Papers: Childhood and Public Memory
Editor: J. Marshall Beier
Deadline for chapter proposals: 30 April 2026
marshallbeier.com/wp-content/u...

Trade in War: Economic Cooperation Across Enemy Lines New book by Mariya Grinberg

The Blue Blaze substack takes a deep dive into Rosenwald postdoc alumni Mariya Grinberg's pending, "Trade in War: Economic Cooperation Across Enemy Lines." Grinberg is assist. prof. of pol sci in MIT’s Security Studies Program. zurl.co/3sj6y

#DartmouthDavidson
#learnfromthebest

Sharing on behalf of a colleague:
Call for papers: Building Future Leaders?: Critical Perspectives on the History of Youth and Civic Engagement in Canada, - Editors Liam Devitt, Kristine Alexander, and Kristina R. Llewellyn

Deadline to submit an abstract to the always fabulous @histchild.bsky.social conference at the University of Sheffield, 1-3 July 2026, coming up on 14th December!* #histchild #histyouth #skystorians

*this is also a reminder to myself

www.histchild.org/pages/sheffi...

Sex and the Nazi Soldier Sex and the Nazi Soldier

Interested in gender & military?

Check out the Advances in Critical Military Studies series, ed by @victoriambasham.bsky.social & Sarah Bulmer. I am delighted that Sex & the Nazi Soldier appeared there.
This WE books are 50% off @edinburghup.bsky.social
edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-sex-and...

Reckoning With Empire at Britain’s Imperial War Museum An exhibition at London’s Imperial War Museum offers a welcome corrective to the nostalgia for empire common among Britain’s elites.

Reckoning With Empire at Britain’s Imperial War Museum
jacobin.com/2025/11/brit...

AMOT 2024 Grants – Cheshire Military Museum - Refreshing for a Younger Generation - Army Museums Ogilby Trust A reflection of the success of their grant project.

Another 2024 Grant Project Complete 🎖️

Refreshing for a Younger Generation – Cheshire Military Museum

Our grant helped the museum create new displays & learning materials to engage school groups & families with Cheshire’s military history.

Read more 👉 www.armymuseums.org.uk/amot-2024-gr...

Critical Military Studies Critical Military Studies publishes research on the critical aspects of military power and operations, institutions and international relations.

Call for Papers 📢

Special Issue on "Towards a Responsible AI in the Military? The Politics of Ethics of AI-enabled Weapons" in Critical Military Studies

Keydates:
Abstracts - December 12, 2025
Full papers - June 1, 2026
Publication ~ mid-2027

meaningfulhumancontrol.de/wp-content/u...

Drones are Changing How Wars Harm Civilians Drones are rapidly changing war. Without global action, their use will lead to greater civilian harm and expand human suffering in conflict.

The use of drones in armed conflicts has increased dramatically since 2020.

Lauren Spink writes that urgent, collective action is needed to reduce civilian harm and suffering from drone attacks around the world.

www.justsecurity.org/123474/drone...

BISA 2026 Roundtable: Integrating a youth lens across International Studies Always present, often overlooked, youth are not just ‘future promise’ but fundamental to the contemporary contours of IR as we face uncertain futures. This roundtable brings together scholars working across multiple sub-disciplines of international studies to reflect on how global challenges might be differently understood and addressed through integrating a youth lens. While much progress has been made in integrating critical intersectional and feminist approaches to international studies, including by drawing more attention to the role of race, class, gender and sexuality in shaping the international, less cross-cutting attention has been granted to age, especially children and young people. This roundtable invites a discussion from scholars across different sub-fields to both explore how youth perspectives shape the landscape of what is known, what a youth lens offers to interrogating and deconstructing knowledge in their field, and how youth-attentive scholarship offers new directions for the discipline in this moment of multiple crises and uncertainty. We are keen to include speakers from an array of topic areas, including but not limited to: • Peacebuilding • Development • Critical security studies • Conflict studies • Foreign policy • Environmental politics • Mass atrocities • Critical terrorism • Feminist IR To express interest to joining this panel, please email Sabrina White at S.L.White@leeds.ac.uk by Wednesday 29th October with a short paragraph about why you would like to be part of this roundtable discussion.

CfP BISA 2026 Panel: Shaping the international through a lens of accountability to children and young people How would centring accountability to children and youth shift our understandings of this current moment of global crisis and what comes next? Can seeing young people as ‘who counts’ offer new pathways for International Studies to meet emerging challenges? This panel explores what an accountability to children and young people lens adds to approaches to addressing global challenges. Accountability is often equated with punitive and/or technical administrative matters rather than questions of global justice, normative frameworks and sustainable peace. By centring children and young people as the ‘who counts’ in accountability in theory and practice, this panel explores the contested place and status of children and young people in the international. Amidst rapidly declining investments in peace and development and vast increases in investments in war and conflict, young people’s rights are rendered optional or deferred until an unspecified ‘later. Threats to promotion and protection of children’s rights and agency exacerbate how we can imagine the scale and impact of global insecurities. This panel reflects on normative, theoretical and empirical conceptualisations of accountability to children and young people, and draws on how particular formations and applications of youth accountability shape possibilities in countering adultist lenses and opening space for counter-narratives of, for and by young people. We seek paper contributions from across multiple subdisciplines in international studies, including but not limited to international development, sustainable development, critical security studies, peace and conflict studies, and global governance. Please submit abstracts for your papers to Sabrina White at S.L.White@leeds.ac.uk by Wednesday 29th October.

Are you going to #BISA2026? @drswhite.bsky.social, @jmarshallbeier.bsky.social Katie Hodgkinson and I have two CPFs for your consideration:

Roundtable: "Integrating a youth lens across Intl Studies".

Panel: "Shaping the intl through a lens of accountability to children & young ppl"

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

I'm honored to appear in the Journal of International Political Theory in a series on "Global Crises and Utopian Hope." My article: "Children and their 'Right to be Heard': On a Child-Friendly Politics in an Age of Polycrisis." 

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

A short 🧵 on my piece —

🔔Call for Papers🔔

Graduate Panel: Including Indigenous Nations in International Relations

Two participants will be selected and paired with an expert from the Indo-Pacific to discuss their work. This is an opportunity to gain mentorship in conference presentation and writing.

>>> bit.ly/4gWF5Kj

How Human Conflict Accelerates Antimicrobial Resistance | ASM.org War and conflict accelerate antimicrobial resistance (AMR) due to the spread of infections and misuse of antibiotics. Addressing the challenges presented by AMR requires international coordination.

#DYK War zones are breeding grounds for drug-resistant infections. Gaza, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine: collapsed health systems + chaotic antibiotic use = antimicrobial resistance exploding. Militarism isn’t just killing people. It’s killing the medicines that could save them.

Rights education and the children’s university This article approaches children’s university programs as engaged forms of rights education allied with efforts toward democratic inclusion of children. To the extent they produce opportunities for...

"Rights Education and the Children's University," now published in vol. 24, no. 4 of the Journal of Human Rights. For those without institutional access, please contact me for the e-offprint link.

‘Put children’s rights at heart of UK law’, urge campaigners - CYP Now "Landmark moves" to bring England into line with Scotland and Wales on children’s rights are being urged by a coalition of 121 charities and organisations.

121 charities have urged the government to bring children's rights in England in line with Scotland & Wales.
The changes, in 2 proposed amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill include placing a statutory duty on ministers to protect children’s rights.
www.cypnow.co.uk/content/news...

The school shooting industry is worth billions — and it keeps growing The effort to keep schools safe from mass shooters has ballooned into a multibillion-dollar industry. Companies are selling school districts assurance with high-tech products.

The effort to keep schools safe from mass shooters has ballooned into a multibillion-dollar industry. Companies are selling school districts assurance with high-tech products.

eprints.lse.ac.uk/129459/1/A_c...

Exhibits, Museums, and Historic Facilities This page provides details on exhibits, museums, historic facilities and public tours affiliated with the Department of Energy.

National Atomic Testing Museum (Las Vegas) rebranded as The Atomic Museum in 2022 and has been positioning itself as a Las Vegas attraction.

from banal militarism to "cute" militarism

McMaster Children and Youth University: Upcoming events