R.I.P James C. Scott

Despite being a star academic, he was kind enough to return my emails when I was an MA student. His Weapons of the Weak was influential in political thinking, and his Seeing Like a State was a major source for me retreating from a particular radical politics. In my Rice years, my research focus changed, … Read more

In Barcelona for the #EASA2024 conference

The official site is slightly clunky, but you can get it all there. My session is tomorrow.  I have asked the chatGPT to categorize the conference topics: Top Topics at the EASA 2024 Conference Doing and Undoing Mobility: Several panels address the dynamics of mobility, immobility, and migration, often from an anthropological lens. Anthropology of … Read more

From Sarajevo back to Istanbul

POINT organizers were just great. We felt at home, productive meetings, exchanging ideas, and some sightseeing…   One of the last places I meant to see was Gazi Husrev-beg’s library When you enter the library, the smell of books hits you. I did some reading there with many in the reading room but did not … Read more

What do we do with AI Similarity Reports?

We use Turnitin, which also offers AI similarity reports. There is nearly universal acceptance of Turnitin similarity reports in higher education, but AI similarity reports are a different case. I know a few students whom I trust had high similarity rates. This week, we discussed this with my colleagues. Some colleagues are very aggressive and … Read more

Wikipedia entries on “April 2024 Israel–Hamas war protests on university campuses in the United States”

April 2024 Israel–Hamas war protests on university campuses in the United States Pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses escalated on April 17, 2024, spreading to other universities in the United States and other countries, as a part of wider Israel–Hamas war protests. The escalation began after mass arrests at the Columbia University campus occupation, led by anti-Zionist groups, in which protesters … Read more

Our COST meeting in Istanbul

  This week has been overwhelmingly busy. A few days ago, we met in Istanbul for the Istanbul session for our GRADE COST project. My colleague Ivo Furman did a fantastic job of organizing the event in a lovely place in Istanbul (check out the place, Postane). I also participated in organizing a Wikipedia session … Read more

Unrest in US Campuses. A list of recent issues on American campuses related to pro-Palestinian causes

Recent issues on American campuses related to pro-Palestinian causes include (The list was created with the help of Perplexity):   Suppression of pro-Palestinian voices: There has been a surge in reports of pro-Palestinian activists being fired or facing threats for expressing their views, which has been described as the “Palestine exception to free speech”[2]. Legal … Read more

The Clash Over Pro-Palestine Events in Germany. Nancy Fraser is the latest instance…

Prof. Fraser‘s case was really disappointing… Cologne University has canceled philosopher Nancy Fraser’s planned professorship after learning she signed a pro-Palestine letter. In her first interview after the cancellation, Fraser says she won't let Germany stop her from standing up for Palestine. https://t.co/B6tzjZ2I08 — Jacobin (@jacobin) April 10, 2024 Germany has been under pressure to … Read more

Moral policing at work in the academia

If I were the decision maker, I would not cancel the panel; in the other case, I wouldn’t accuse the professor of islamophobia. Virtue signaling is running amok and losing the virtuousness it once had. Since the interview with Umut Özkırımlı a few years ago, our local virtue signallers are at work, accusing me whenever … Read more

Özkırımlı’s (@UOzkirimli) book on #Cancelled: Both against right-wing authoritarian populism and regressive woke Left identity politics

It has been released now. Ümit Özkırımlı‘s long-awaited book is out. He has been a target of cancel culture practices which had a hard toll on him. I am glad that he could prepare this book. The “woke culture” is killing the left identity politics, which is a tribute to what led to these days. … Read more

Hmmm, Z-Library is back in an unblockable version

Z-Library, the world’s biggest pirate e-book site, is back in an unblockable version AlternativeTo News Chased, prosecuted, and sanctioned, Z-Library has not yet said its last word. Over the past year, the pirate library has endured numerous lawsuits and attacks around the world. Not enough to kill this website, which quietly reappeared this weekend. Pirate … Read more

WOKE at work. “What Lund University (@lunduniversity) Did to Umut Özkirimli

  What Lund University Did to Umut Özkirimli BY JULIE WARK In its treatment of Umut, Lund University, acted as a law unto itself. 1) It denied him a fair workplace investigation and provided “information liable to expose [him] to the contempt of others” (Swedish Criminal Code, Ch. 5) by issuing the report of its “investigation”, … Read more

My colleague Dr. Furman co-authored an article on Sputnik’s Twitter based disinformation in Turkey

It is open access. You can have a look here.  “As Reliable as a Kalashnikov Rifle”: How Sputnik News Promotes Russian Vaccine Technologies in the Turkish Twittersphere Ivo Ozan Furman, Kurt Bilgin Gürel, and Fırat Berk Sivaslıoğlu Abstract Established in 2014, SputnikTR (a localized version of Sputnik News) is the most popular pro-Russian media outlet active in Turkey. The … Read more

“Open access resources and translations on global smartphone use”

I am sharing an email with you. Full of good stuff (I also collect academic resources in this mini website):  We would like to draw your attention to four open access publications and translations deriving from the Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing (ASSA) <https://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/assa/>. ASSA is a collaborative research project based at UCL Anthropology which … Read more

A documentary: Academic Freedom in Turkey and Brain Drain

English subtitles added. As the IVME Movement, we are proud to share our documentary “Academic Freedom and Brain Drain in Turkey” with the public. In our documentary, which is a product of more than a year of collective work and intense volunteer effort, we documented the recent developments within the Turkish academia, and intense political … Read more