The project team convened a panel ‘Ritual Specters of Deterrence and Diplomacy: History, Memory and Theory’ at the ISA-Northeast 2023 Annual Convention, ‘Specters of International Relations: Emotions, Aesthetics, and Memory in the Past, Present, and Future of IR’ in Providence, Rhode Island, USA on 3-4 November 2023. The panel explored the historical scripts of deterrence (Thomas Fraise), aesthetics of China’s nuclear deterrence (Cameron Hunter), memory-political deterrence (Maria Mälksoo and Karl Gustafsson, Stockholm University), a micro-moves approach to deterrence (Minseon Ku, Dartmouth College and Brian Finch, The Ohio State University), and the impact of novel nuclear weapons on the US-Russia nuclear deterrence (Spenser Warren, Indiana University Bloomington).