An insightful analysis of the (economic!) benefits of open access in the publishing of academic research: read the article by Adam Stevenson on arstechnica.com here Further reading: * The JISC Report (jisc.ac.uk) * The Academic Publishing Industry Report (stm-assoc.org) *… Read More ›
11 November 2010 – London protests All images: courtesy Kalina Yordanova
It is hard to explain what PhD research is, using words: there seems to be a consensus about this across disciplines, from qualitative sociology to mathematical physics and beyond. As someone who has been doing one for over three years,… Read More ›
The morning after the demonstration in London against education cuts the Today programme on BBC Radio Four carried an interview with two newspaper columnists – John Harris of The Guardian, and Janet Daley of The Daily Telegraph. A question posed… Read More ›
I was very impressed by the numbers who protested in London ten days ago. Indeed, the violence done to Tory Party HQ did not bother me as much as the lack of organized purpose in doing so. This ‘violence’ has… Read More ›
What is at stake in the British government’s spending review announced some weeks ago, is not a question of so-called ‘cuts’, how massive they will be and whom will be most affected; that is a merely technical problem which takes… Read More ›
Have you ever heard someone rant at their computer, as if it were a living creature? Ever done if yourself? This brilliant short article deconstructs anthropomorphic usage of language in relation to machines using examples from the life of hackers,… Read More ›
An interesting TED talk for those who like the RSA Animate cartoons as much as we do at SI:
What does “fair” mean? Is fairness related to responsibility, liberalism, freedom of choice – and “freedom” to deal with the consequences – whether you win, or lose? Or is it more about everyone following the rules and “playing the game”,… Read More ›
Christ was thirty when he started on his mission of changing the world. Siddhartha Gautama was twenty-nine when he decided to renounce the world and become the Buddha. I was somewhere between my twenty-ninth and thirtieth year when I began… Read More ›
In an era in which the neoliberal tenets and conditionalities, after threatening to become the ‘lore’ of the so-called good governance, are also seeking to pervade popular imagination, voice as an articulation of critical insight has become all the more… Read More ›
Belgium’s Jupiler League Belgium’s Jupiler League (Belgium’s top domestic football division) has diminished into a stepping stone for many players, looking to settle in bigger leagues. It goes without saying that Belgium is not the only country to suffer a… Read More ›
In his article, “The Rubicon of class: Sontagist camp and predialectic sublimation”, prof. Paul Brophy from Yale University critiques predialectic and neocapitalist sublimation, contrasting them within the conceptual paradigm of consensus… Often, post-modern theory gets accused of being two parts… Read More ›
For those UK based readers concerned about coalition’s cuts agenda, there’s a website for the emerging movement against the cuts which is worth keeping an eye on: the Coalition of Resistance.
An estimated 50,000 university and college students and academics marched in Westminster yesterday. They were protesting against the raising of tuition fees to £9000 per student per year of study and the cutting of government funding for teaching in the… Read More ›
Internet regulation is lagging behind the development of the Internet itself. Within about two decades of wide public use, the web has accumulated a huge amount of personal data, and it may seem surprising that only in 2010 is this… Read More ›
A few days ago, two French students (one of whom a Muslim) took an unusual approach to civil liberty, as a reaction to the new law banning the wearing of head-covers such as the burka and niqab, which was recently… Read More ›
Globalisation and Football is an engaging, accessible and comprehensive sociological study of the political economy of the world’s most popular sport. The authors Richard Giulianotti & Roland Robertson fuse disciplines to trace the historical evolution of football, its interplay with… Read More ›
As the coalition government prepares to publish its response to Lord Browne’s review, anticipation builds over the likelihood that students may face fees upwards of £9000 per year. The fee rises are intended to compensate for the public funding which… Read More ›
“Land without Bread” is a fascinating documentary from the younger Bunuel, an extraordinary attempt to portray the sufferings of peasants of Las Hurdes in Spain, very intensely done although without the controlled irony of his later work. To admirers of… Read More ›
White is the New Black? The 2010 ‘Football Frenzy’ and the New Zealand Imagination Mark Falcous University of Otago/Te Whare Wānanga o Otāgo In the context of the contested ‘sports space’ of Aotearoa/New Zealand, this seminar contributes to ongoing critiques… Read More ›
It is official: Sociology is a ‘low-cost’, ‘non-priority’ discipline, the government says. It is now clear that the cuts on higher education included in the Comprehensive Spending Review are going to hit harder the disciplines that have been put under… Read More ›