My friend, collegue and fearless explorer of the public domain Eva has sent me a copy of her new book “Terms of Use”
Love the tigers on the front… If it is anything like her last book it will be great. I will be reviewing it here later but I just wanted to give anyone a heads up straight away – this is an interesting book.
The British Library has published its Digitisation Strategy 2008-2011 and in the document it focuses on a continued commitment to produce a critical mass of digitised content. They write in the
We aim to help researchers advance knowledge by becoming a leading player in digitisation. We will produce a critical mass of digitised content, reflecting the breadth and depth of our collection. We will provide a compelling user experience that facilitates innovative methods of research and meets 21st century requirements for interacting with content.
Over the next 3 years we will build on our existing digitisation programme. Current projects include the digitisation of:
The British Library has been very active in digitalisation and in it’s attempts to make sure that the public knows the value and importance of this work. Even though I tend to have a sceptical approach to feelgood documents such as these the British Library have proven themselves to be great open access activists.
In the olden days Swedish professors had extraordinary job security. Much like a judge, a Swedish professor could not be fired for his or her opinions. The reason for this job security was to ensure and encourage an independent acadmia who would, without fear, couragously attack established, encrusted thought, to bravely rattle cages and knock over pedastals. In theory at least this was what was supposed to happen. In practice not a lot of knocking down took place.
Less than two decades ago this changed. The traditional job security was removed. More academics were produced. More professors, associate professors and PhDs were pushed through the academia factory. At the same time web communications made talking noisly an easy occurance. But when a blogger shouts on the web – does anyone listen?
Many PhD students, part time teachers, project based researchers and jobless PhD’s murmer (not loudly) about the dangers of blogging your mind or writing couragous, critical arguments in the media. Of course your future employers google you – what were you thinking? You didn’t think you could be appointed to the committee after writing “that” in the local newspaper?
But this picture is not as bleak as it may seem at first. There is a group of disrespectful, uncringing, loud academics who speak their minds. Online and offline. Some are quitely and discretely punished but in the long run developing reputations for being fearless, courageous and blunt is an advantage to the academic – even if he or she recieves a few knocks on the way.
Just wanted you all to know that you are seen and appreciated – you know who you are!
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ps this post has nothing to do with, but was inspired by a particularly fearless local academic Prof Bo Rothstein who consistenly charges forward knocking over pedastles, rattles cages and challenges hypocracy wherever he sees it.
Writing about academia has become popular and since there are many academics the market for this kind of literature is growing. Unfortunately many have not taken there texts and opened them up to a wider audience. So it’s nice to see that Alf Rehn has freed up his book The Scholar’s Progress – Essays on Academic Life and Survival and made it available online. It’s really good stuff even if the blurb on amazon is a bit much.
Jorge Cham over at PhD Comics does it again!
The Resistance Studies Magazine is calling for papers for issue 4/08 with a thematic focus on Chinese Resistance.
Guest Editors: Wei Liu wie.liu(at)gmail.com and Jorgen Johansen johansen.jorgen(at)gmail.com
We will consider:
Theoretical and empirical articles on power, resistance and social change in Chinese history and ongoing actions and campaigns with a Chinese connection.
We have a special interest on the struggle in Tibet and the protest and counter-protests around the Olympic Games.
Articles on Internet, electronic resistance and struggle against censorship in China.
Reviews of scholarly articles and books.
Deadline for manuscripts: October 20.
For further information, please see our Submission guidelines on
Expected to be published in December 1.
Hmm, as a member of the editorial board I feel that I should have been better at spreading the word about this. Even though the magazine has been well recieved.
The third issue of the Resistance Studies Magazine is out now. You may read it immediately following this link. It has been a great pleasure to edit the five articles, and they are really worth reading. Here is a short summary of the articles from the editorial column:
Please download and read the articles, and watch out for a CFP for the 2008#4 Special Issue.
Laughed out loud when I saw this. Jorge Cham the author of the Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) comics has done it again!
Just finished reading Richard Dawkins‘ “The God Delusion” – what an excellent book! My main reason for waiting before reading it was that I doubted that it would be different from other atheist literature. I was wrong! Dawkins makes a brilliant argument for independent thought and the need to question everything – including atheism itself.
So in the spirit of the book and spending some time on a beach I obviously needed to ask myself about my beliefs – what else should you do between tanning and swimming?
Formally I was a Lutheran but I grew up in a catholic country attending a Roman Catholic all boys school. Since I was a protestant I did not need to take religion – interesting that the name of the subject was religion since it had nothing to do with anything other than Roman Catholic beliefs.
The mix of relaxed, disinterested Lutheranism and strict Catholic schooling gave me an aversion to my own Christianity. So I searched haphazardly among theoretical approaches to Buddhism, Islam & Hinduism. They were all interesting as historical and cultural topics but not as faiths. Even the laid back philosophical Buddhism was too much. Why label yourself a Buddhist? Why not include, Vegetarian, Existentialist, Marxist, Neo Capitalist when labels only constrain ideas.
So for a long time I decided that I was an agnostic. I thought that the problem was that there was not enough proof. Then I realized when I formally left the Swedish church, which I was automatically enrolled into by the state that it was not a question of proof. I was, I realized, an atheist.
The problem is that after reading Dawkins book not that I don’t agree with him – I really like most of his arguments (well almost all). The problem is that even if proof could be found that proves the existence of a God beyond a shadow of a doubt – I still would not believe.
I would believe the proof. That he/she/it exists as much as my laptop, myself and my blog exists (albeit in different ways) but I would not “believe” in the sense of faith (would it still be called faith if we had proof?). It was not religion I was struggling against. It is not that I do not believe today, I have no need for faith and would not have any even if there were a God.
What comes after atheism?
Yesterday I bought and began reading Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion – The book is a well written, good humored approach to the subject. He includes plenty of quotes throughout the book, an early one in the beginning is from Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: “when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion.”
So far I am very pleased with the book – it’s very nice to read a clear lucid argumentation on atheism. So I guess I will be posting more on this later.