Heads up on two upcoming conferences...

A brief note to fill the silence

Hi. It’s been a bit quiet here of late, with nothing particularly original for over a month. This pause will end soon as I prepare to have my writing here be more closely aligned with my academic research and writing. In that spirit, here are two upcoming events where I’ll be speaking:

2023 Connexions Conference

From April 10-12, 2023, The University of Texas at Austin will host the #Connexions Conference on global media in diplomacy and foreign policy. #Connexions will create an international space for discourse on modern media and technology in state affairs to help address the critical need for informed and expert leadership in the information sphere, promoting a safer and healthier digital environment that in turn shapes the direction of history. Of main focus will be the chaos of information itself and how it informs and impedes the creation, execution, and communication of policy and the effective conduct of diplomacy. Academics, policymakers, and media practitioners will convene to address the key issues of our ever-evolving media environment, including fake news, disinformation, social media, cyber warfare, artificial intelligence, and the vulnerabilities of technologies that govern and drive global connectivity.

Visit https://www.slavx.org/connexions for more information and to register to attend virtually, like me, or in person. I’ll be on the first panel of Day 1 (Monday 10 April) as “speaker” with Jeff Trimble as moderator and Dr. Nick Cull as “discussant.” The title of the panel is “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A Historical Look at the Politics of US Information Warfare.”

Munich Dialogues on Democracy

The Yale Club of Germany and Munich’s Amerikahaus (the Bavarian Center for Transatlantic Relations), through their joint program Munich Dialogues on Democracy, will be hosting me for a discussion 26 April 2023 (Wednesday) at 7p Central European Time (1p Easter Time). The conversation will be in person and live-streamed on YouTube. More information on the event is available here: https://www.dialoguesondemocracy.com/mattarmstrong. I will be there in person as it’s less than 4hrs by train from home, which is a lot easier and less expensive than getting to Austin, TX. Though the title of my presentation for this event – “The Politics of US Information Warfare: The history, why we are so bad at this, and current challenges given the domestic and geopolitical situation” – is nearly identical to that of the earlier Connexions conference, there will be substantive differences. This conversation will attend to the present situation, with the history component to situate the present in an arc, an arc that is grossly misunderstood, especially by “big picture” historians and commentators. The 7p (local time) will follow a day of conversations with students from a local international school, which I’m equally excited to have and perhaps a bit more nervous about.

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On a personal note – to fill up space here I suppose – I was in an archery championship tournament recently. The word “championship” is a bit generous as there wasn’t a qualifier, which is good as I’ve not been able to shoot even once a week, with maybe 3 times a month over the past six months being more accurate. Suffice it to say that I didn’t do great, but I wasn’t as terrible as I could have been. The following picture, taken early in the competition (i.e., some of the holes were from warm-up), reflects my inconsistency: two 10s and a miss.

I shoot traditional recurve, by the way. My son, who is the reason I took up the sport, shoots Olympic. He didn’t compete as he doesn’t believe in competition as practice… My bow is below. The picture is from before the start of a different competition in February held under different rules (Field Archery Association rules with 5 arrows a round, or “end,” versus the recent Swiss Archery competition with 3 arrows an end).

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Well, that’s it for now. I’ll end this with a picture of Paisley taken during a short pre-dawn trail run yesterday morning. More soon…