We are making journal content on JSTOR published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere,
freely available to the public for reading and downloading. This includes nearly 500,000 articles from more than 200 journals, representing approximately 6% of the total content on JSTOR.
posted by Trurl
on Sep 7, 2011 -
84 comments
The Rise of the Pseudo-Conservative. Out of context, one could be forgiven for reading the following words as a critique of the political philosophy embraced by the modern-day Republican party and the various Tea Party groups organized around it: "It can most accurately be called pseudo-conservative. . . because its exponents, although they believe themselves to be conservatives and usually employ the rhetoric of conservatism, show signs of a serious and restless dissatisfaction with American life, traditions and institutions. . . Their political reactions express rather a profound if largely unconscious hatred of our society and its ways — a hatred which one would hesitate to impute to them if one did not have suggestive clinical evidence."
[more inside]
posted by saulgoodman
on Aug 5, 2010 -
91 comments
A letter by Rene Descartes, stolen in 1840s, recovered in 2010 by online detective work. The letter was stolen by Guglielmo Libri, inspector general of the libraries of France, who stole thousands of valuable documents and fled to England in 1848. Since 1902 it's been in the collection of Haverford College, its contents unknown to scholars, and nobody there realized that it was an unknown letter. But because they had catalogued it and recently put their catalogue on line, Dutch philosopher Erik-Jan Bos found it "
during a late-night session browsing the Internet". (A Haverford undergraduate thirty years ago had translated it and written a paper on it, in which he recognized that the letter was unknown -- but nobody followed up and the letter had sat in the library since then until it was listed online.) The letter includes some last-minute edits to the Meditations, and some thoughts on God as causa sui.
Haverford, whose president was a philosophy major, is returning the letter to the Institut de France.
posted by LobsterMitten
on Feb 26, 2010 -
21 comments
Dave Chalmers has just launched
PhilPapers, a directory of nearly 200,000 online papers in philosophy. This is a jawdropping and amazing resource for philosophical research. For evidence of the scope of this project and the care that has been given to it, see the
taxonomy of philosophy that was developed for the site.
posted by painquale
on Jan 28, 2009 -
28 comments
Did a 'dream team' of biblical scholars mislead millions? [Chronicle of Higher Education] You may recall the curfuffle over the gnostic "Gospel of Judas"
(previously). The National Geographic's documentary premiere "attracted four million viewers, making it the second-highest-rated program in the channel's history, behind only a documentary on September 11. . . . However, it's a perfect example, critics argue, of what can happen when commercial considerations are allowed to ride roughshod over careful research. What's more, the controversy has strained friendships in this small community of religion scholars — causing some on both sides of the argument to feel, in a word, betrayed."
posted by spock
on Jun 30, 2008 -
142 comments
The Scholar Ship , an international floating university stewarded by top universities in
Morocco, the
United Kingdom,
China,
Australia,
Mexico,
USA, and
Ghana, have
temporarily suspended all voyages due to lack of funds - mainly caused by the withdrawal of main sponsor and initiator
Royal Caribbean International. The program ran two voyages in
2007 and
2008 before shutdown. Alumni and prospective students on
Facebook and
Ning are busily sourcing options to revive the organization, while
Semester at Sea is offering spaces to students who were accepted for the now-cancelled voyages.
[more inside]
posted by divabat
on Jun 14, 2008 -
9 comments
The Work of Carol Rambo. (Warning, these articles are all PDF or .doc format.) Carol Rambo is a professor of sociology who paid her way through school by working as an exotic dancer. Rambo has written articles on the sociology of strip clubs, drawing upon her own experience as an exotic dancer.
In one article, Rambo writes about "the discourse of deviance" that exotic dancers use to "organize their identities" in a process Rambo calls "narrative resistance."
In another article, she writes about the concept of old age as it affects exotic dancers.
In a third article, drawing upon her own experiences as a "table dancer," Rambo writes about "Interactional strategies that table dancers use to cultivate counterfeit intimacy," and she concludes that dancers manage to "carve out an autonomous niche in an otherwise oppressive context." Also interesting is her article on growing up as the daughter of a mentally retarded mother,
"On Loving and Hating My Mentally Retarded Mother."
posted by jayder
on Oct 4, 2006 -
54 comments
All I have to do is change my name to Peyton, motivate my girlfriend to marry me and have a baby, and hey presto! young Peyton will receive a six-figure scholarship to
Brighton College in England, explains the BBC because the college can't fulfil the bequest by former pupil Derek Wakehurst Peyton. Brighton
looks a nice place so roll up all Peytons, the college principal is spreading "the net wider to the United States, Australia and beyond." Second thoughts ... maybe simpler for me simply to motivate her to change her name ...
posted by Schroder
on Mar 6, 2006 -
11 comments
This is good From
RLG, an international not-for-profit organization of libraries, museums, and other research institutions, comes this incredibly useful research tool. Start with as vague a query as you like, it'll provide an ordered list of search limiters to help you zero in on the resources you need in a far more organic and rapid fashion than similar tools I've seen. An invaluable resource for students, librarians, and the curious.
posted by Grod
on Apr 27, 2005 -
10 comments
Lexicon: An RPG - The basic idea is that each player takes on the role of a scholar, from before scholarly pursuits became professionalized (or possibly after they ceased to be). You are cranky, opinionated, prejudiced and eccentric. You are also collaborating with a number of your peers -- the other players -- on the construction of an encyclopedia describing some historical period (possibly of a
fantastic world).
posted by robocop is bleeding
on Apr 21, 2005 -
45 comments
SCOTUS rules for seperation of church and state for once. The court's 7-2 ruling held that the state of Washington was within its rights to deny a taxpayer-funded scholarship to a college student who was studying to be a minister. That holding applies even when money is available to students studying anything else.
"Training someone to lead a congregation is an essentially religious endeavor," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the court majority. "Indeed, majoring in devotional theology is akin to a religious calling as well as an academic pursuit."
posted by skallas
on Feb 25, 2004 -
42 comments
Female kicker's chilling effect. "Instead, the $2 million Mercer was awarded has given them two million reasons to question the risk of giving
any woman a chance, especially at smaller schools where female players would otherwise be most likely to succeed."
posted by owillis
on Oct 22, 2000 -
5 comments
