Hilde Restad Profile picture
Assoc. Prof. of international studies at Oslo New University College. UWC & Fulbright alumna, PhD @UVa. I research US foreign policy & American exceptionalism.
Dec 23, 2023 7 tweets 2 min read
You never know where life will take you. In my case, I happened to marry a guy, who in turn happened to be a Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem. You know, where Jesus was born. The place you sing Christmas songs about. I know, because I sang a lot of Christmas songs about Image Bethlehem while growing up in Norway. But what, and where, is Bethlehem? Spending time in the birth place of Jesus, including baptizing our son in the Nativity Church, is pretty different from the Bethlehem of Western Christianity's imagination. I suspect Christians in the West
Mar 8, 2021 9 tweets 5 min read
So you are looking for female researchers on American foreign policy. In honor of #WomensDay I make your life easier by listing a few of my favorite ones, based on my imperfect memory and in no particular order: The esteemed @Prof_Borg seems a great place to start. I remember reading her great book, "A New Deal for the World" in grad school, and partly disagreeing with it in a way that helped me write my dissertation. artsci.wustl.edu/faculty-staff/…
Mar 5, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
My department at Bjørknes College hosting world-renowned #fascism scholar Roger Griffin today, who is giving a three-part zoom-lecture to our students from his office in the UK on the term, its history, and how we should/should not define it. brookes.ac.uk/templates/page… Some highlights from today's inaugural lecture: Marxists early on saw fascism as a child of capitalism, a symptom of its crisis. Seen as an authoritarian anti-left wing movement to suppress socialism. But early research was hampered by lack of a consensus on a definition.
Jun 2, 2020 9 tweets 4 min read
Ok. Guys. As someone who has researched #AmericanExceptionalism a lot, I have A THREAD. #protests2020 First, what is #AmericanExceptionalism? It is helpful to view it as a national identity or narrative (which says that the US is inherently morally superior to other nations, and therefore will rise but not fall like previous great powers, and therefore should lead others).
Dec 18, 2019 5 tweets 2 min read
I am very excited to share my new article on the Big U.S. Foreign Policy Debate that is currently happening. In short, rather than a policy debate, I suggest we approach it as a battle of master narratives, tnsr.org/2019/12/whithe… pitting 'American exceptionalism' against Jacksonian ethno-nationalism. For the first time since 1941, a U.S. president is promoting fundamentally different grand strategy ('America First') that builds on an anti-exceptionalist narrative (Jacksonian nationalism).
Aug 19, 2018 10 tweets 3 min read
I think people need to define "identity politics" a bit better before they are allowed to write articles on it. I think it's fair to say, according to Fukuyama, "politics" is what used to happen, whereas "identity politics" is what happens now. foreignaffairs.com/articles/ameri… For instance, he writes, "For the most part, twentieth-century politics was defined by economic issues." I think an Americanist would tell you, 20th C Am politics was rife with "identity politics" in that it was about the rights of various marginalized groups in Am politics.