Dr. Devon Cantwell-Chavez

@devoncantwell.bsky.social

6928 Followers 2936 Following

Postdoctoral Researcher @ University of Copenhagen studying urban climate governance. uOttawa, Utah, and Kansas alum. Fulbright 🇻🇳 alum. First Gen. 🇺🇸 living in 🇩🇰

Margaret Thatcher in a tank with a British flag flying from it
Entrance to IKEA Hotell
Matzo chilaquiles
Agenda with knitting on schedule
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News alert about strikes on Iran
Baked uterus challah
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smart features turned off
Breaking news headlines about Venezuela
Goal to relax more
Two goals wrapped around mini bubbly bottles
A regular bike frame and a smaller bike frame side by side
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Cookie dough with dog shaped cut outs
Six different latkes
Ethically, we have concerns about total bans on generative AI as enforcement of such policies necessitates propping up a predatory industry of carceral, surveillance technology. Shortly after the release of ChatGPT, companies like Open AI (Chat GPT’s parent company) released so-called “detector” tools meant to tell professors and others the statistical likelihood that a submitted text was generated by AI. Following suit, TurnItIn, Grammarly, and other educational technology have launched their version of services to sniff out papers with AI generated content. Unfortunately, these tools are error ridden and have high false positive rates for disabled students, international students, and those who use more “acceptable” AI tools like Grammarly (Bailey Citation2023; Laird, Dwyer, and Grant-Chapman Citation2023; Myers Citation2023). Given these equity concerns, there are a number of universities that have rolled out bans or disabled AI detection tools on their campuses.Footnote2 Some professors have also started using lists of words or phrases that they believe might signal use of generative AI in coursework, such as “delve” or “crucial” (Stillman Citation2024). All of these strategies and trends reflect increasing pressure for professors to police academic honesty and integrity in the classroom. The only other viable alternative to this surveillance approach in order to enforce bans on generative AI use is to reconfigure assignments to be done primarily in class and on paper, which introduces additional concerns regarding disability access and substantially limits the types of assignments and assessment at instructors’ disposal.
A Lego Chanukiah and a Chanukiah made of tea lights and a Trader Joe’s seasoning
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Lego menorah
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Spotify calling me old AF
Yellow Lego Chanukiah
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Two dogs being walked down the aisle at a wedding. The woman holding the dog in back has matching enthusiasm to the dog
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Statute of a man holding a lion’s mouth open
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Kissabel apple label on an apple
Visual version of plain text information available here: https://mycpsa-cpsa-acsp.ca/cfp/cfp_callE#wrk2
Faculty profile photo that is 90% an orange tabby
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Swifties v Arianators
What happens when unipolar hegemonic power declines? The system becomes unstable!
Shabbat table set up with pumpkin and pomegranate
What types of proposals can move to an ISA Global program session? Paper, panel*, and roundtable* proposals are eligible. In the case of panels and roundtables, and papers that were submitted as part of a panel, all panelists on the proposal in question need to agree to the potential move, as the ISA Global sessions will occur two and a half weeks prior to the in-person portion of the program, and participants on ISA Global sessions cannot appear on the in-person part of the ISA 2026 program. We especially encourage submissions from students, early career scholars, scholars from historically low-resourced institutions, and scholars from the Global South who might experience added burdens (e.g. financial) in traveling to the Annual Convention. *Special program panel and roundtable types, such as Committee, Partner Organization, Distinguished Scholar, and others, are not eligible for ISA Global at the this time, nor are papers included on such items.
ISA Global is an opportunity dedicated to scholars based outside the United States. Scholars who can travel to Columbus on a domestic flight are not eligible. Please note: We understand that scholars with neurocognitive differences and others based outside the U.S. might avoid online sessions. We encourage you to consider all our in-person opportunities for research and networking additional to the Annual Convention - including region, section, and caucus conferences and workshops as well as our annual midyear conference - and the in-person opportunities of our sibling societies outside the US, such as EISA, BISA, and IPSA.
Third Wave Feminism - Origins Judith Butler Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity Who’s Afraid of Gender? Undoing Gender (fun aside- she once rescued a colleague’s apartment from a guy who destroyed/squatted in the unit on their sabbatical )
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Katabasis and an iced flat white on a table
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I recognize that generative AI tools have been embedded in many of our everyday technologies, including the use of accessibility tools such as captioning, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and object recognition. Additionally, many organizations, including the Government of Canada and the Danish Agency for Digital Government, have explicitly allowed for the use of (and even encourage) generative AI as part of daily work. However, extensive literature about generative AI has documented ethical issues with massive carbon emissions, contamination of drinking water and air quality in Black and low-income communities, unsustainable use of water resources, and labor exploitation. Moreover, due to how generative AI is trained, it often contains biases with respect to race, gender, culture, language, and geography. Furthermore, there are often blatant factual errors in the responses that generative AI computes. Given these ethical and practical issues, I strongly discourage the use of generative AI content creation tools (like ChatGPT) for use in course activities, assignments, and exams. Furthermore, you must disclose your use of generative AI tools for the course at the end of the semester. We will have many, ongoing conversations about the ethical and practical issues related to this technology, especially as it is applied to IR and security. As per university policy, you will not be directly penalized for the use of these tools on your exam. However, you will find that because of the structure of the learning activities and assessments in this course, it is extremely unlikely that generative AI tools will be useful in your work. To put another way, in the (paraphrased) wise words of Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom: AI is extremely mid. Be more than mid.
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Royal Dansk tins
A wire rack on top of a toaster
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Four jalapeños
Devon and Jenny's grandfather
Devon masked in front of a Seoul sign
Devon and Danile in a paper lantern shop
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Map of at-risk PBS and NPR stations with weather related risks
NYT editors note about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq
Calendar invite for “Devon’s PhD Thesis Defense” on Wednesday, August 6 from 10-1pm