Lines of thought

Dear friends, Wired offers us how to be culturally literate in 2016… Meanwhile, “UC Berkeley issues first-ever university transparency report- Literati roundup…

by

What You Need to Know to Be Culturally Literate in 2016 Wired Top Stories by Robert Capps Here’s a cheat sheet of everything you need to know to understand what’s happening in science, culture, security, business, and design. Feel free to take notes. UC Berkeley issues first-ever university transparency report Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow April writes, … Read more

Literati roundup: “An Academic Journal About Leisure… “Tolstoy and Gandhi Exchange Letters…

by

An Academic Journal About Leisure Exists, and It’s Amazing Wired Top Stories by Sarah Zhang Peruse at your leisure. Tolstoy and Gandhi Exchange Letters: Two Thinkers’ Quest for Gentleness, Humility & Love (1909) Open Culture by Josh Jones Some of the most rigorous moral thinkers of the past century have spent time on the wrong side of … Read more

Literati roundup: “IFLA Publishes a Statement on Privacy in the Library Environment…

by

IFLA Publishes a Statement on Privacy in the Library Environment At its 14 August 2015 meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, the IFLA Governing Board endorsed an IFLA Statement on Privacy in the Library Environment. The FAIFE Committee oversaw preparation of the Statement and benefitted from consultation with IFLA units and various Internet civil liberties advocacy … Read more

Literati roundup: “13 images that helped define the look of the electronic age…

by

Gallery: 13 images that helped define the look of the electronic age  Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow A full-color, large-format exploration of the electronic age, INSIDE THE MACHINE explains the history of technology through over 150 images from magazines, industry pamphlets, and out-of-print books to showcase the powerful graphic and artistic representations of this burgeoning field. … Read more

Literati roundup: #ILookLikeaProfessor hashtag introduces new images of academicians

by

Stop thinking of professors as old white men dressed in tweed Mashable! by Rebecca Ruiz Search for images of a “professor” on Google and this is what you’ll find: a cornucopia of older white men standing authoritatively in front of a chalkboard. This tired cliché has become the target of #ILookLikeaProfessor Theodor Adorno’s Seminal Critical Theory Text … Read more

Literati roundup: ” the Longlist for 2015 Man Booker Prize.. “British Library releases over a million public domain images

by

British Library releases over a million public domain images  Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder The British Library uploaded over one million scanned images to Flickr, designating them as public domain for all to share and use. Quartz has an article about the project. Five American Authors Make the Longlist for 2015 Man Booker Prize Writerswrite.com’s Writer’s Blog … Read more

Literati roundup: A Web project on Grateful Dead… Grateful Dead as Tech Pioneers…

by

Roberto Bolaño’s 12 Tips on “the Art of Writing Short Stories”  Open Culture by Josh Jones For some certain romantic reasons, a segment of the English-language reading population fell in love with Roberto Bolaño in the first few years of this millennium. One invariably glimpsed Bolaño’s award-winning 1998 novel The Savage Detectives on endtables and nightstands after its translation in 2007, … Read more

Literati roundup: “Five politics classics every activist should know about….

by

Five politics classics every activist should know about open Democracy News Analysis – by Tom Butler-Bowdon And they’re not all what you think… 1. Saul Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals (1971) The McCarthy era decimated the ranks of American radicals, yet it did not stop the disillusionment that America’s young felt in the 1960s about politicians and … Read more

Literati roundup: “Franz Kafka’s Kafkaesque Love Letters…

by

Franz Kafka’s Kafkaesque Love Letters  Open Culture by Josh Jones It’s easy to think of Franz Kafka as a celibate, even asexual, writer. There is the notable lack of eroticism of any recognizable sort in so much of his work. There is the prominent biographical detail—integral to so many interpretations—of his outsized fear of his father, … Read more

Literati agenda: “Stanford rector on learning and technology… “Teaching The Humanities Online

by

—– http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/may/academic-council-teaching-050115.htmlStanford Report, May 1, 2015 Academic Council considers role of technology in teaching and learning The role of technology in teaching and learning was the focus of President John Hennessy’s annual address to the Academic Council on Thursday. Also announced was the upcoming 2015-16 Year of Learning, which will spur discussion about teaching, learning … Read more

London mapped according to Victorian Literature… “Kurt Vonnegut’s “Shapes of Stories” as an infographic poster…

by

Kurt Vonnegut’s “Shapes of Stories” as an infographic poster  Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder A Good Professor Is an Exhausted Professor Slate Articles by Rebecca Schuman In higher-ed parlance the herculean act of teaching eight courses per year is what’s known as “a 4-4 load” or, alternatively, a “metric ass-ton” of classroom time. And yet a new bill … Read more

Literati roundup: Blogging or tweeting about research papers? “Umberto Eco’s How To Write a Thesis…

by

  The verdict: is blogging or tweeting about research papers worth it? Eager to find out what impact blogging and social media could have on the dissemination of her work, Melissa Terras took all of her academic research, including papers that have been available online for years, to the web and found that her audience … Read more

Literati roundup: Savage Minds piece: “Why the Peer Review Process Works Even When It Doesn’t…

by

Why the Peer Review Process Works Even When It Doesn’t Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology  by Carole McGranahan [Savage Minds is pleased to publish this essay by Alan Kaiser as part of our Writers’ Workshop series. Alan is a Professor of Archaeology at the University of Evansville. He has published on issues of Roman culture in Spain, … Read more

Literati roundup: Orhan Pamuk looks at sources of inspiration for “The Museum of Innocence”

by

A look at the sources of inspiration behind “The Museum of Innocence” open Democracy News Analysis – by Orhan Pamuk In a famous article in the “Paris Review”, Hemingway made a list of the literary figures who had influenced him. When I decided to become an author, I was determined to make the same list.   ************** … Read more

Literati roundup: news from Yaşar Kemal, Ulrich Beck and Vladimir Nabokov

by

Turkey’s literary dean Yaşar Kemal in critical condition after hospitalization Doctors say the condition of the 92-year-old author is critical and his symptoms suggest pneumonia Ulrich Beck – a memorial from a student to a teacher  open Democracy News Analysis – by Slawomir Sierakowski Together with the beginning of the new year, the world received news of … Read more