Novelist Arundhati Roy could be charged with sedition from FP Passport by Joshua Keating The Indian Home Ministry has given Delhi police the go-ahead to arrest bestselling novelist andactivist Arundhati Roy on charges of sedition. The charges relate to a recent event at which Roy appeared with Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelan. Roy … Read more
Alain de Botton: A Week at the Airport from Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder For one week, writer Alain de Botton worked from his desk in the middle of Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport, and wrote a book about it, called A Week at the Airport. LIFE magazine on “LSD Art,” 1966 from Boing Boing … Read more
Good for me, I haven’t read him, too… Another author for the to do list… Howard Jacobson Wins Man Booker Prize from Writerswrite.com’s Writer’s Blog The Telegraph reports that Writer and broadcaster Howard Jacobson won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction for his 11th novel, The Finkler Question. Jacobson, 68, is the oldest writer to … Read more
Istanbul gets a new and ambitious reserch university project. A few weeks ago Istanbul Şehir University was officially opened. Several of my friends with great academic credentials begin to teach there. In some respects, this new university reminds me the early years of Bilgi U as it hired so many free spirited academicians. However, we … Read more
Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex Gay issues have been in the news a lot lately, from the debate over same-sex marriage in Congress to a sickening rash of gay-bashing here in New York City. We see a lot of emotion out there, instead of information, and we wanted to provide some data-based context on sexuality … Read more
I think I haven’t read any of his novels. It is a shame:( I will start reading soon… Wikipedia entry on Mr. Llosa Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa wins Nobel Literature Prize from Hurriyet Dailynews Peruvian-Spanish author Mario Vargas Llosa won the 2010 Nobel Literature Prize on Thursday, the Swedish Academy said. ************************************** Surveying religious knowledge … Read more
It is just like that. In another round of never ending headscarf issue, Higher Education Council (YÖK) sent university presidents a memo to actually lift the ban. But of course it will take more time to legally change the situation… It is only after the miserable defeat of Kemalist forces in referendum, this shameful ban … Read more
Orhan Pamuk | 2010 Norman Mailer Lifetime Achievement Prize from Mavi Boncuk by M.A.M Mavi Boncuk | The Norman Mailer Center and The Norman Mailer Writers Colony is proud to announce this year?s Mailer Prize winners to be honored at the Center?s Annual Benefit Gala, which will be held on October 19, 2010, 7:00 PM … Read more
Neal Stephenson’s Novel Experiment from Shareable – Sharing by design by Paul M. Davis A few weeks back, I wrote about authors Laird Harrison and Jesus Angel Garcia, who are leveraging the social web to distribute excerpts of their novels in unusual ways. Now comes word that Neal Stephenson, with his new publishing startup Subutai, … Read more
Pollution-Sensing lung tumor from Daisy Ginsberg’s project Synthetic Kingdom VIA Reflections on summer reading from The Immanent Frame by The Editors As the start of the fall semester inches closer, we?ve invited a handful of our contributors to reflect on what they?ve read over the summer. We asked: What are the best books and essays … Read more
check out the latest issue. Philosophy and the Habits of Critical Thinking by Reflection Cafe Interview with John Searle (California Univ.-Berkeley) … Is it hard to do philosophy? It’s murder, absolutely. I compare it … if you really want to know how to do it, you get up in the morning, there’s a large brick … Read more
11th EASA Biennial Conference: Maynooth, Ireland 24-27th August 2010 Crisis and imagination I have arrived Maynooth, a beautiful town near Dublin, Ireland. There are several Turkish friends attending and we did hang out today in the streets of Maynooth. Our sign of Turkishness today included passing on red lights (as passengers of course- green lights … Read more
Abandoning an Experiment Rice University Press is being shut down next month, ending an experiment in an all-digital model of scholarly publishing. While university officials said that they needed to make a difficult economic decision to end the operation, they acted against the recommendations of an outside review team that had urged Rice to bolster … Read more
Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age By TRIP GABRIEL At Rhode Island College, a freshman copied and pasted from a Web site?s frequently asked questions page about homelessness ? and did not think he needed to credit a source in his assignment because the page did not include author information. ………… from 9GAG … Read more
A Critique of the Cuts July 27, 2010 “Oh be still my beating heart… I just fell in love again. Was that a shawl Eva was wearing, or a superwoman cape?” What prompts academics to declare a scholar a superhero? The praise above is from a comment on a blog that linked to Eva von … Read more