👨 Darrell Hamlin, PhD (he/him/his)
đź“Ť Hays, Kansas
đź’Ľ Associate Professor of Political Science, Fort Hays State University
âť“ Explain your history and involvement with SWPACA.
My first SWPACA conference was in 2013. I have participated in various ways at every conference since then. Papers, area organizing (Crime & Culture, Politics, Spy Culture), roundtables, recruiting guest speakers, etc. Currently I chair the sections for Politics and Spy Culture. I love seeing the friends I’ve made every year, working with them to create conditions for the best possible conference experience. I also keep coming back because the executive Leadership Team has remained so stable, even as the conference and events evolve to be more relevant, scholarly, and fun.
âť“ How did you become interested in Spy Culture?
I am trained as a political scientist, and what started off as a “guilty pleasure” of spy novels evolved into a focus for professional expression, a way to dig into something I love but also present papers and publish around. At the core of my interest is the paradox that democratic life requires a certain level of transparency, which is at odds with the covert, deceptive operations of the espionage world that presumably is there to protect the interests of democracy. I could not find a section at PCA explicitly dedicated to spy things, nor could I find any regional conference that has an active area on the subject. “Spy Culture” is intended to be a broad enough area to cover where tradecraft, operations, and espionage history intersect with lore and the representation of the spy world in art and popular culture.
âť“ What do you hope folks will gain from participating in Spy Culture in the future?
I hope participants will find their own way into the creativity of scholarly expression around this thing that is supposed to be such a big secret! I also hope participants will help us build the section to a strength that showcases the exclusive dedication SWPACA has to it as an area.
âť“ What is your current pop culture passion/obsession?
Memoirs by successful fiction writers who explore the connections between the deep background of their own childhoods and their commitment to a particular area of genre and the arts. In December, Lexington Books (part of Rowman & Littlefield) will publish a volume of essays I co-edited. Dark Places: Crime and Politics in the Personal Noir of James Ellroy.
