Reading around for Panto stuff again, and remembering Marx’s fascination with Robinsonades: Robinson Crusoe crops up a number of times, either as a title or as a character. Of course Steve Shaw’s Robinson Crusoe takes its title from the novel by Daniel Defoe, but since the pantomime tradition does not leave much room for solitary castaways, the plot [...]
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trinketization: Things that won’t be in the book part 213 – Robinson Crusoe pantomime’s
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trinketization: Things that won’t be in the book 223 – Roy Orbison’s song Pantomime
“Pantomime” Well thanks a lot thank you Now I’m the talk of the town Of all the fools they drink to I am the king of the clowns I play the lonely joker I take what fun I can find I laugh when things aren’t funny I throw away my last dime You’re not mine [...]
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The Subversive Archaeologist: Let's Call the Whole Thing Off! You Say Hominidae and I Say Homininae.
Heeeeeee's Baaaaaaaaack. [Apologies to MGM.]But he feels a little like he's been dragged by rope through death and back to life in the context of a cult horror classic film. [Why is he writing in the third person? Why am I writing as if I'm not here?]I should start by saying that I've passed my 60th birthday, and I cut my human-palaeontological teeth 40-plus years ago at a time before molecular comparisons included individual base pairs. In those days it was quite all right to classify all apes in one exclusive taxonomic group, the Superfamily Hominoidea, and subdivide them as follows.Order Primata Suborder Haplorhini Infraorder Simiiformes (or Anthropoidea) Parvorder Catarrhini Superfamily Hominoidea, broken down as shown below.Clean and simple. No? We're different from the other apes. In retrospect this classification appears somewhat naïve. From molecular biology we now know that the oldest extant lineage among the tailless Catarrhini is the one from which the four extant gibbon genera have evolved. That hasn't changed---the gibbons are still classified as Hylobatidae.[Off topic aside. Any idea which American country and western song is Biruté Galdikas's favourite? Scroll down for the answer.]During my absence from the pixels before you I've many times thought I should retitle this blog the Submersive Archaeologist, so deeply this time has it seemed to me that I've descended into the rabbit-hole. Which rabbit-hole was that? The one out of which emerged the present-day view of Hominoid taxonomy, against which I've been fighting a losing battle with cladistics on the matter of what to call you and me and the other members of the genus Homo in terms of which the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature would approve. Wood and Richmond pretty much carved in stone this new view of the Superfamily Hominoidea a few years back. ["Human evolution: taxonomy and paleobiology." Journal of Anatomy 196:19--60, 2000.] Their scholarship is not in question here. I'm quibbling about names, not anatomy; natural groups, not genes.I lost the battle I waged with windmills over the past couple of weeks because the molecular biology can't be refuted. As we construct the hierarchical relationships between us and progressively less closely related organisms, it's simply irrefutable that we share common ancestry with ever-more-inclusive pairings of hominoid groups.According to the consensus view, the most recent of these common-ancestor diads to which we belong is the tribe HOMININI---comprising the Subtribe HOMININA [Genus Homo], several subtribes of fossil bipedal apes, the Subtribe PANINA [Genus Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos)], and any subtribe or subtribes of Pan's fossil precursors.The next most inclusive grouping---Subfamily HOMININAE---includes the tribes HOMININI and GORILLINI [Genus Gorilla and the tribe or tribes comprising Gorilla's fossil precursors].Next most inclusive grouping---Family HOMINIDAE---consists of the subfamilies HOMININAE and PONGINAE [which includes all of the fossil hominoids not belonging to either the subfamily HOMININAE or the family HYLOBATIDAE].This use of the taxon HOMINIDAE (Gray 1825) is, I believe, pre-emptive and arbitrary. By rights it should be the Family PONGIDAE that makes up of the group of hominoids that remain once you exclude the gibbons and fossil forms belonging to the family HYLOBATIDAE.Instead, the wizards that renamed the entire superfamily chose to use HOMINIDAE (Gray 1825), most likely because according to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature the family name HOMINIDAE has 'priority' over PONGIDAE (Elliot 1913) in the long history of naming organisms. While I can understand why one taxon should have priority over another when one is deciding what to call a previously recognized species or genus, the choices aren't as clear-cut at more inclusive nomenclatural ranks [I've ALWAYS wanted to use the word nomenclatural in a publication. This is as close to real publication as I'm ever gonna get again. So, I'm really stoked!]I've made a slide that I think presents the choices entailed in classifying the hominoids. It has made it easier for me to get my head around the issues. Keep in mind that the first two chips off the old block---the gibbons and orangs---arose we know not where, at about 18 Ma and 14 Ma, respectively. All we can be certain of is that their descendants are today found only in east and southeast Asia. [Yes, I said east Asia. The gibbons are extirpated throughout most of what's China today. However they were widespread historically and figure prominently in iconography and legend in that part of the world.In presenting the above, I'm hoping that it'll become clear that it's not a straightforward matter what to call the smaller and smaller remainders of the great geographic swathe of hominoids when all that's being considered are the molecular data from extant lineages. What, for example, do we decide to do about the inevitable evolutionary dead ends at each successive rank? As it is, the nomenclature is being stretched. A few more spurs on the family tree and we'd run out of nomina in a real hurry.The upshot: no one's ever made such an inclusive classification as the one depicted above. Thus, I think that nomenclatural priority shouldn't apply in this case, and that the group that sits opposite HYLOBATIDAE by rights ought to be PONGIDAE (Elliot 1913), if only because PONGIDAE has priority when naming the group containing Pongo, Pan, and Gorilla and all of their fossil precursors. That had been the case up until molecular data put the kibosh on lumping Pongo with Gorilla and Pan. Adding the bipedal apes shouldn't, to my mind, imply substituting PONGIDAE with HOMINIDAE. In addition, using HOMINIDAE in this way, after so many, many years of using it in the old way, seems to me to be more confusing than it needs to be. And, alternatives are available, which wouldn't require as all-encompassing a revision as the one seen above. I say, dump HOMINIDAE as a taxon!Nothing, for example, precludes use of the zoological rank of Epifamily as the rank immediately following Superfamily. The following provisional revised revision more closely follows what we know of the pace of hominoid evolution. The Epifamilial split occurred about 18 Ma. That of the Family happened about 14 Ma. Thus, the African great apes, more closely spaced in time---a common ancestor some time in the last 7 or so Myr---comprise a family, within which the gorillas on the one hand, and chimps and humans, on the other, inhabit different subfamilies.Superfamily Hominoidea Epifamily Hylobatoidae Epifamily Hominoidae Family Pongidae Family Hominidae Subfamily Homininae Tribe Panini Tribe Hominini Genus Australopithecus Genus Ardipithecus Genus Sahelanthropus (?) Genus Orrorin Genus Paranthropus Genus Homo Subfamily Gorillinae Genus Sahelanthropus (?) Genus GorillaThis suggested hierarchy violates none of the molecular data, while still providing plenty of leeway for the addition of taxa as our knowledge of hominoids expands.I welcome your comments.That's all I'm a gonna say about that! Biruté Galdikas's favourite American country music song is "Take the gibbon from my hair."[I really hope you haven't been waiting with 'bated breath for the return of SA. Somehow the above is less satisfying than it ought to be. Never mind.]SA announces new posts on the Subversive Archaeologist's facebook page (mirrored on Rob Gargett's news feed), on Robert H. Gargett's Academia.edu page, Rob Gargett's twitter account, and his Google+ page. A few of you have already signed up to receive email when I post. Others have subscribed to the blog's RSS feeds. You can also become a 'member' of the blog through Google Friend Connect. Thank you for your continued patronage. You're the reason I do this.
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Shenzhen Noted: the view from the top, circa 1997
The 69th floor observatory of the Diwang Building remains an important tourist destination, albeit something of a time capsule. The Diwang building was completed in time to celebrate the Return of Hong Kong… Read More →
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hawgblawg: "Inverted worlds" - Congress on Cultural Motion in the Arab Region
I haven't had a chance to watch/listen to the papers yet, but I wanted to call this event to readers' attention. In October 2012, the Orient Institut Beirut sponsored a very interesting conference on Arab culture called "Inverted Worlds." I of course am particularly interested in the papers on music, but there is much more, papers on social media, graffiti, youth, visual art, humor, and so on.Here are the music papers; they all sounded interesting to me:Yves Gonzalez-Quijano(Université de Lyon): Arab Rap: a Culture of Revolution and a Revolution in Culture (check out Yves' excellent blog here)Mark LeVine (University of California, Irvine): "Scripting" the Revolution: Music, movement, and the Arab Spring’s Auratic MomentumJackson Allers (Cultural writer and film maker): Arab Hip Hop – Rhymes and Revolution (Jackson covers the scene in Beirut, his blog is here)Nicolas Puig (URMIS/CEMAM, USJ): Critical Sounds from the Periphery: Palestinian Electro in Lebanon (a list of Puig's pubs is here)Ines Dallaji (University of Vienna): Tunisian Rap Music and the Arab Spring: Revolutionary Anthems and Post-Revolutionary Tendencies (Dallaji's dissertation in progress is: "Die Stimmen der Revolution. Tunesisch-arabische Rap-Musik als Ausdruck des Protests gegen das Regime Bin ʿAlī und die politischen Umbrüche in Tunesien 2010-11")Stephan Prochazka (University of Vienna): The Voice of Freedom – Egyptian Revolution Pop: Provocation or Encouragement (a list of Prochazka's articles is here)Simon Dubois (Université Lumière Lyon II): Street Songs from the Syrian ProtestsPLUS: Discussion with members of Hip Hop Project Khat Thaleth, moderated by Ahmed Khouja aka Munaqresh. Participating artists: El Rass (Lebanon), Sayyed Darwish (Syria), Watar (Syria), El Far3i (Jordan), Zeid Khemiri (Armada Bizerta, Tunisia), Ahmed Galai Ezzar (Armada Bizerta, Tunisia).Check it out here.
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hawgblawg: Old Port Said, New Port Said
National Geographic, as part of its very recent effort to look at the news through its archive, just published this photo of Port Said's "Arab Quarter" in the 1920s, along with an account of recent events.Port Said, it will be recalled, was chiefly a European city, at the Mediterranean entrance to the Suez Canal. National Geographic tells us that the Port Said soccer team, Al Masry, at the center of the current unrest, was founded in 1920. Prior to that, "Port Said's football clubs were made up mostly of European expats who were part of the city's boom: Scottish canal engineers, French bankers, and Greek tobacconists."Meanwhile, Erin Cunningham reported on Port Said's ongoing general strike in today's Global Post. She tells us that Port Said's residents have adopted a new, and rather novel, in confronting the state and its security forces: non-violent resistance.“Attacking the police is a losing game — especially with the lives already lost,” said Port Said resident Mahmoud Naguib, a 23-year-old activist member of April 6, a political movement formed in 2008 to support striking workers in the town of Mahalla. “The state is accustomed to this,” he added. “So civil disobedience is a much better tool — the economic losses are immense.”The tactic is novel in that the previous rounds of confrontation have all involved considerable violence. Given that football fans are a key element of Port Said's opposition movement (at least if the report by James Dorsey, which I cited yesterday, is to be believed), it will be interesting to see whether this form of protest will be sustained, given the very confrontational stance of Egypt's footbal ultras towards the police.
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tabsir.net: Karim Ben Khelifa: “The World is Changing, Change With It”
Karim Ben Khelifa
Photojournalist Karim Ben Khelifa is interviewed about his work in war zones with a collage of his photographs on Vimeo. This is a short video; check it out for an excellent insight into the art of photojournalism in the Arab Spring and other conflict contexts. For his website of older galleries, click here. For his Twitter account, click here. Karim has also found a new online photojournalism site called Emphasis.is.
Karim’s work in Le Monde
(more…)
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Visual Anthropology of Japan: "100 Years in Tokyo"
From Japan Today, 2/24/13:
“100 years in Tokyo” is a series of 202 portraits, photographed in
Tokyo in 2009-2012. The book contains portraits of men and women for
each year of age from 0 to 100.
The book has its origins in photographer Petri Artturi Asikainen’s
deep interest in the city. He has lived in Tokyo on several occasions
since 2009. For him, the visual abundance of the city makes it
exceptionally fascinating. It feels as familiar as any Western metropolis, yet completely different and strange.
The theme of Asikanen’s pictures is the full range of human life.
Simultaneously, he hopes to have succeeded in creating a portrait of
Tokyo. It is the people that make the city.
Asikainen is a Finnish photographer, who has worked on freelance
basis for 20 years. He has contributed to several newspapers, magazines
and corporate publications, specializing in portraits and photo
editorials.
Source: [www.japantoday.com]
More info: [pa.artturi.com]
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The Naked Anthropologist: Sex on Sunday: Sleaze and survival, taxi-dancing in Times Square
The increase in coverage of anti-trafficking operations and Rescue Industry rhetoric is such that I only blog about a tiny fraction of it. I post much much more on facebook, short commentary on media articles, and sometimes interesting conversations ensue. You can subscribe to my facebook posts (I don’t accept many friend requests now). You can also follow me on twitter.
As part of my thinking about how the sex industry fits within everyday cultures, here are photos showing how striptease and taxi dancing were traditionally wedged into the Times Square landscape. Some venues survived the clean-up of the 1990s, especially on upper floors, but few are left now. Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York records losses such as these. Both he and I are perfectly aware that developers as well as a lot of middle-class folks consider these places to be sleazy, the adjective usually invoked for such small sex-businesses run on shoe-strings and charging little to the clientele, crunched into small spaces on streets that get less public sweeping than they need. Some see beauty in them or just appreciate the individuality of the facades, so unlike the shopping-mall homogeneity now dominant in Times Square, often called Disneyfication.
We don’t have to be overly sentimental or ignore sexism and other injustices perpetrated inside these little businesses to appreciate that they look like individual places – workplaces for some, entertainment places for others. It’s appealing, too, that dance venues are sandwiched between lighting shops and delis – note Parisian dancing above Whelan’s Drugs.
Taxi-dancing, which some of these palaces offered, involves a lot of waiting around for the dancers, who must try not to look too bored. It’s a break in the emotional labour of flirting while at the same time keeping distance.
Images of taxi-dance girls as immoral seductresses abounded not so long ago.
Although it sounds charmingly antique, taxi-dancing lives on in other parts of New York. Here are some non-taxi dance pictures from an earlier Sunday: erotic, exotic, artistic, talented). Below, taxi-dancing far from Times Square, in the state of Montana.
–Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist
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Language Log: "All of we"
At a recent memorial service for Aaron Swartz, Alan Grayson (U.S. Congressman from Florida) gave an eloquent eulogy, which began like this:
Aaron worked in my office as an intern, and had a quality that I found unnerving, which is that he could come up with better things for him to do than I could come up with for him to do.
And time and time again, I would give him something to do, and he'd say, "Is it OK if I also work on this other thing", and this other thing turned out to be much more important than anything I could come up with. And I learned to live with that.
I learned to live with that shortcoming, which I took to be a shortcoming of my own, not one of his.
The other unnerving quality that I found in him was the fact that when he would conjure these assignments, they actually came to fruition — an unusual phenomenon here on Capitol Hill. He'd give himself something to do, I recognized that it was very worthwhile, I let him do it, and it got done!
He was a remarkable human being.
Midway through his remarks, Congressman Grayson used a striking turn of phrase (emphasis added):
And who lost, out of that? Well, Alan Turing lost. But so did all of we. We lost as well. All of us who would have benefited from that first, and second, and third Nobel Prizes that Alan Turing had in him. And that Aaron Swartz had in him.
At least, reader DF found it striking enough to send me a link.
The standard pattern is
So did they.
So did we.
because they or we is the subject of did, but
So did all of them.
So did all of us.
because them or us is the object of of.
And indeed, Mr. Grayson uses "all of us" just four words later. If it weren't for that, I'd be inclined to think that he's taking "all of" to be a sort of compound quantifier rather than a construction involving an embedded prepositional phrase.
Perhaps this is related to the processes that lead people towards uncertainty about which pronoun forms to use in coordinate structures.
(Full transcript, video)
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hawgblawg: PBS on hipster hating
yes, it's gone that far: commentary on hipsters that tries to make some sense of the oh-so-popular hipster-hating bloodsport and that also gives us a lesson on Bourdieu and cultural capital. what was missing? no discussion of the mocking of hipsters for their skinny jeans and kufiyas, as i have posted on several times. but maybe that moment has passed?
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ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY: Thoughtful, Respectful, and Progressive: Regarding the “Responsibility to Protect”
Some of this has already been raised, in my recent interview with Phil Taylor, plus in an excellent article by Ken Stone, “UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay: ‘Pretext-maker’ for Western Military Aggression,” and by The Wrong Kind of Green (“Must Watch: MP Laurent Louis Exposes International Neo-Colonialists Behind ‘War On Terror’ & ‘Humanitarian Interventions’ [...]
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Recontextual: Brass band fixations
The first episode of the Norwegian documentary series Korpsfiksert (Band fixated) was shown on NRK TV a few days ago, and is now available on NRK net-tv. The 8 episodes follow members of Eikanger-Bjørsvik Musikklag from 2011 until their participation in the European Brass Band championships in 2012. By focusing on the contexts behind the music for band members, director Anne Marie Kvassheim is making an exotic behind-the-scenes experience available to a wide audience. I look forward to seeing the rest of the episodes in coming weeks.
Bravo, Anne Marie!
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Erkan in the Army now...: Merkel in Turkey as Majority of Germans opposed to Turkey EU entry..
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel (2nd L), accompanied by Turkey’s Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz (L), speaks as she meets with troops from a German NATO Patriot missile battery at a Turkish military
ANKARA, Turkey: Merkel visits troops operating Patriots in Turkey – World Wires – MiamiHerald.com
Majority of Germans opposed to Turkey EU entry: Poll
from Hurriyet Daily News
Six out of 10 Germans are opposed to Turkey joining the European Union, a survey published..
EU doubts, Kurdish rebels cloud Merkel visit to Turkey
from Yahoo news
BERLIN (Reuters) – Angela Merkel embarks on a tricky visit to Turkey on Sunday looking increasingly isolated in her personal opposition to its European Union entry bid and facing charges from Ankara that Germany is soft on Kurdish militants. Her two-day visit occurs at a sensitive moment – a change of president in France is bringing new momentum to Turkey’s EU membership application, just as
Related posts:
Turkey FP roundup. Turkey bites tongue over Greek border wall plan, angry with Merkel over Cyprus…
Merkel in town, for what?
Angela Merkel hangs out with ‘privileged partners’
"EU's Rehn says 2009 turning point for Turkey entry talks, Cyprus deal
Merkel continues to fantasize with privileged partnership…
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Language Log: "All but" = "nothing but"
From JF, here's one for the misnegation files, undernegation department: According to the Sun Sport Live Match Centre:
With all but a monumental collapse now standing between Manchester United and a record 20th league title, all eyes turn to who will win the fight between the alsorans for second place.
Obligatory screen shot:
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Erkan in the Army now...: Yeni Anayasa Gündemi: “Muay Thai’ Federasyonu Yeni Anayasa Ve Başkanlık Sürecine Destek verdi…
TBMM Anayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu Çiçek Başkanlığında Toplandı
Haberler
Başbakan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ile Anayasa çalışmalarının ele alındığı yemekli görüşmenin ardından TBMM Genel Sekreterlik binasına geçen Çiçek, Anayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu toplantısına katıldı. AK Parti Genel Başkan Yardımcısı ve TBMM Anayasa
TBMM Anayasa Uzlaşma, ‘Genelkurmay’ maddesinde anlaştı
T24 (Basın Bildirisi)
TBMM Anayasa Uzlaşma Yazım Komisyonu, Genelkurmay’ın Milli Savunma Bakanlığı’na bağlanmasında anlaşma sağladı. “Başkomutanlık” ve “Milli Savunma” başlıklı maddenin ilgili fıkrası, “Genelkurmay başkanı, silahlı kuvvetlerin komutanı olup Milli
Anayasa için İmralı turu!
Gerçek Gündem
GERÇEK GÜNDEM – HABER MERKEZİ / BDP’nin terör örgütü lideri Öcalan ile görüşmek üzere İmralı’ya gönderme kararı aldığı Sırrı Süreyya Önder ile Altan Tan’ın AnayasaKomisyonu Üyesi olması dikkat çekti. Tan ile Önder’in Öcalan’la yeni anayasayı
Türkiye Muay Thai’ Federasyonundan, yeni anayasa ve başkanlık sürecine …
Haberler
Bitlis’in Tatvan ilçesinde basın açıklaması düzenleyen Muay Thai Federasyonu As Başkanı M. Salih Aygün, “yeni anayasa oluşturulursa terörde biter doğunun dil, ekonomik sorun, hayat şartları, spor, gibi her alanda sıkıntılar çözülür. Eğer bu gün 2023
Muay Thai’ Federasyonundan Yeni Anayasa Ve Başkanlık Sürecine Destek
Haber 3
Bitlis’in Tatvan ilçesinde basın açıklaması düzenleyen Muay Thai Federasyonu As Başkanı M. Salih Aygün, “yeni anayasa oluşturulursa terörde biter doğunun dil, ekonomik sorun, hayat şartları, spor, gibi her alanda sıkıntılar çözülür. Eğer bu gün 2023
Anayasa komisyonunda ‘Diyanet’ tartışmaları!
soL Haber Portalı
TBMM Anayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu’nda “Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı”nın statüsü konusunda uzlaşma çıkmadı. BDP Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı’nın kaldırılmasını talep ederken, CHP’nin, “Diyanet din ve mezhep çeşitliliğini gözetecek” şekilde düzenlensin
‘Maltepe Nazım Hikmet Kültürevi’nde bu akşam yeni anayasa süreci tartışılacak
soL Haber Portalı
“AKP’nin Anayasa Atağı ile İmtihanı” başlığı ile 21 Şubat 2013 Perşembe günü saat 20.00′da gerçekleştirilecek etkinlikte “AKP’nin yeni anayasa ısrarı ve dayatması ne anlama geliyor?”, “Referandum sonrası değişiklikler toplumsal yaşamdan neler çaldı?
Referandum (Yeni Anayasa taslağını okuyan var mı?)
Milliyet
Zira yapılan araştırmalara göre oy verenlerin %87 si değiştirilip referanduma sunulan büyük çoğunlukla kabul edilen “anayasa” maddelerini okumamışlar bile… İçinde Cumhurbaşkanını “halk” seçsin diye bir madde vardı hatırladınız mı? Ne oldu bileniniz
Kılıçdaroğlu: Anayasa’da ‘Türk milletinin’ yer almasını istiyoruz
T24
CHP Genel Başkanı Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, Anayasa’nın başlangıç bölümünde “Türk milleti” ifadesinin yer almasını istediklerini söyledi. Kılıçdaroğlu, “Bu devleti yücelten, bireyi küçülten bir kavram değil” dedi. İmralı sürecini de değerlendiren CHP lideri
Türkiye Konfederasyonlar Topluluğu, Chp”den Anayasa Çalışmalarına Destek …
medya73.com
Türkiye Konfederasyonlar Topluluğu Genel Başkanı Nezaket Emine Atasoy, CHP Genel Başkanı Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu”ndan yeni anayasa çalışmalarına destek vermesini, katılmasını ve Türkiye Konfederasyonlar Topluluğu”nun TBMM Anayasa Komisyonu”na
Anayasa’ya süre gerekiyor
Yeni Asya
Bu temel sorunsala koşut olarak, yeni çözüm ile yeni anayasa arasındaki doğal etkileşime bir sontarih koymak da mümkün değil. Anayasanın içeriği çözümü, çözümün içeriği anayasayı etkileyecek. Ve ne çözüm ne anayasa kolay ortaya çıkacak. Buradan
İmralı’da anayasa görüşülecek
Milliyet
Adalet Bakanlığı’nın onay verdiği ikinci BDP heyetinin İmralı ziyareti bugün yapılacak. Heyet, İmralı’ya yeni anayasa çalışmalarına ilişkin dokümanlar ile darbe komisyonu rapor ve belgelerini götürecek. Heyete MİT görevlilerin eşlik edeceği öğrenildi.
Devrim kanunları Anayasa’dan çıkarılıyor
Haberler
Mevcut Anayasa’nın ‘çeşitli hükümler’ başlığı altında ise ‘İnkılap kanunlarının korunması’ maddesi yer alıyor. Partilerin komisyona verecekleri önerilerin içine bu maddeyi alıp almayacakları yetkili kurullarında yapacakları değerlendirme sonrasında
Ergin: Yeni anayasa için umutlar azalıyor
Haber7.com
”Yeni anayasa çalışmalarıyla ilgili doğrusu aradan geçen zaman uzadıkça, umutlar bir miktar azalıyor, ama sonuna kadar bu süreci zorluyoruz. Mutabakatla yazabileceğimiz en çok maddeyi yazalım istiyoruz. Temenni ediyoruz ki tamamını mutabakatla
Ümit Kocasakal Uyardı: Yeni Anayasa Atatürk’e Cumhuriyet’e ve Demokrasiye …
Turk Time
Kocasakal, Yeni Anayasa çalışmalarının başarıya ulaşma şansının olmadığını öne sürerek, “Yeni Anayasa Atatürk’e Cumhuriyet’e ve demokrasiye veda anayasası olacak. Yapamayacaklar ama yaparlarsa yine bir gün o Anayasa tarihin çöplüğüne gömülecek.
Komisyonun yoğun temposu milletvekillerini etkiliyor -TBMM Anayasa Uzlaşma …
T24
TBMM (A.A) – Meltem Yılmaz – TBMM Anayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu’nun haftada 5 gün, akşam saatlerine kadar süren yoğun çalışma temposu, komisyon üyesi milletvekillerini de yoruyor. Komisyonda zaman zaman yaşanan tartışmalar, gerginliklere, strese
Akademisyenler: ‘AKP’nin ne YÖK yasası ne de anayasa yapma meşruiyeti vardır!’
soL Haber Portalı
Isparta’da, Isparta Öğretim Üyeleri ve Üniversite Konseyleri Derneği’nin (ÜKD) düzenlediği “Anayasa ve YÖK Yasa Taslağı Nasıl Bir Üniversite Amaçlıyor” paneli geniş bir katılımla gerçekleşti. Moderatörlüğünü Prof.Dr. İzge Günal’ın yaptığı panelde ilk
”Türkiye Nereye Koşuyor” paneli -MHP Genel Başkan Yardımcısı Öztürk …
T24
”MHP olarak, Anayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu’nda bizim çizgilerimiz bellidir. Bu çizgilerimizi de her fırsatta dile getiriyoruz. Yapılan anayasa çalışmalarında Türkiye’nin bölünmez bütünlüğünü tehdit edecek maddelere asla destek vermeyecek ve bu tür
Related posts:
Yeni Anayasa Gündemi… Erdoğan Mart’a kadar süre verdi…
Yeni Anayasa Gündemi: Başkanlık taslağa girsin mi girmesin mi…
Yeni Anayasa Gündemi: İsmet Berkan: Yeni anayasa çıkmaza mı giriyor?
Yeni Anayasa Gündemi: “Anayasa Yazım Komisyonu çalışmalarına tekrar başlıyor
Yeni Anayasa gündemi. TESEV Anayasa İzleme Komitesi ve diğer haberler…
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Erkan in the Army now...: A seemingly awful anti-piracy system hits US internet users on Monday…
New Anti-Piracy System to Hit U.S. Internet Users on Monday
from Mashable! by The Daily Dot
Starting Monday, most U.S. Internet users will be subject to a new copyright enforcement system that could force them to complete educational programs, and even slow their Internet speeds to a crawl.
“Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy Scheme Starts Monday
from TorrentFreak by Ernesto
Free Speech Battle Over Publication of Federal Law
from EFF.org Updates by Rebecca Jeschke
Wrongheaded Copyright Claim Blocks Online Posting of Important Technical Standards
San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked a federal judge today to protect the free speech rights of an online archive of laws and legal standards after a wrongheaded copyright claim forced the removal of a document detailing important technical standards required by the federal government and several states.
Kim Dotcom and MEGA: Piracy or Privacy?
from Daily Bits by noemi
Recently hacked, here’s Microsoft’s statement on pending cybersecurity legislation
from The Next Web by Alex Wilhelm
The cyber age demands new rules of war
An international mechanism is needed to check the covert acts of violence made possible by technological advances, writes Zbigniew Brzezinski
Related posts:
Cyberculture roundup: PEW report on the demographics of Social Media users… Victory for Wikivoyage…
“Piracy Wars and Internet Censorship in 2011″ another cyberculture roundup…
Internet Blackout all over. Netizens vs. SOPA/PIPA bill gangs. A roundup
Towards Jan. 18: Netizens against Internet enemies. SOPA roundup
Against copyright trolls -anti ACTA activism all around Europe!
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The Age of Intuition: Enchanted America, Enchanted Archaeology
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In a recent essay (2013), he starts by discussing older thinkers who worried about how our “rational” world was non-harmonious and disenchanted: The notion that there was a way of life characteristic of modern (or industrial) societies that was qualitatively different from the way of life found in pre-modern (or folk) societies goes back, at least, to the German sociologist Max Weber [2009]. Modern societies, said Weber, are governed by bureaucracies; the dominant ethos is one of “rationalization,” whereby everything is mechanized, administered according to the dictates of scientific reason. Weber famously compared this situation to that of an “iron cage”: there was no way the citizens of these societies could break free from their constraints. Pre-modern societies, on the other hand, were permeated by animism, by a belief in magic and spirits, and governance came not through bureaucracy but through the charisma of gifted leaders. The decline of magic that accompanied the transition to modernity Weber called die Entzauberung der Welt–the disenchantment of the world.He goes on to mention other thinkers who have made similar distinctions, such as the Gemeinschaft [community based on good social relations] and Gesellschaft [society based on contracts] cultures of Ferdinand Tönnies (2002), the Genuine [contented, satisfied] versus Spurious [frustrated, dysfunctional] cultures of Edward Sapir (1924), and the moral versus technical order of Robert Redfield (1963). These are all simple, old fashioned, distinctions about modern culture versus “pre-modern” with the emphasis on the non-modern as being a more humane way of life. It is them looking over the fence and seeing greener pastures. Of course, he could have added Nietzsche (1872), Ruth Benedict (1934) and E. T. Hall (1976), who also divided cultures into two types, the Apollonian-Low context cultures versus the Dionysian-High context ones. While there is no doubt that Hall’s Low Context Culture resembles a spurious technically ordered society it is hard to say that Dionysian cultures are always moral orders full of community minded folks. After all, Dionysians can be genuinely nasty. I, of course, prefer this distinction and emphasize that it does not force a moral valuation of one or the other. They are good ways to describe cultures without judging them. To be disenchanted, one must believe the basic premise of modern versus pre-modern, and then draw a moral distinction. One supposedly seems better than the other based on some yardstick of warm, sweet and cuddly versus cold and impersonal. Certainly, Weber’s work has been debated greatly. Does rationalism and technological change really disenchant? Some folks don’t think so (Jenkins 2000; Landy and Saler 2009) and I don’t think so. When people become enchanted with science and rationality, the magic of it all isn’t called magic but something else, such as “it’s an elegant theory” or “it’s a no-brainer.” However, let us suppose that Berman is correct and play along with him. Is America disenchanted based on the criteria outlined above? Let’s look at animism, belief in magic and spirits, and governance via the charisma of gifted leaders. First, we do have a bureaucracy without charismatic leaders. In my adult lifetime, back to Reagan, I can’t think of a single person in the political realm who inspired me. Martin Luther King was inspiring but he wasn’t a political leader. So chalk one up for being disenchanted with our leaders.Does American culture have animism, magic and spirits? They dominate our popular culture. In the last year, every commercial for Jaguar cars has been animistic; this month, the tag line for the newest commercial is, the car is “Alive as you are.” Our entertainment is full of wizards (Harry Potter) and ghost hunting (Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, Haunted Collector). Moreover, if ghosts don’t get your attention then vampires, werewolves, zombies, and angels are there to fill the void. The basketball player called “Magic” Johnson didn’t get his name because he plays like a machine but because his movements are “magic.” By any standard, American popular culture is as enchanting as any recent Brazilian carnival.Some critics might say that popular culture doesn’t reveal the “real” culture. This is foolishness, typically coming from older modernists who still glorify intellectualism and “high” culture. Pop culture is our folklore, our mythology, our soul. To make this point a little deeper, let’s look at a subset of American culture, the profession of American archaeology. Do archaeologists believe in ghosts and spirits? Some of them do. Most of them do not have cold-blooded clinical mentalities. Archaeologists go into strange unusual places and they tend to find ones that were once sacred. They are human, all too human, and many of them are susceptible to their emotions, their imagination, and the heebie-jeebies. Many will tell stories of places that spooked them so much they had to leave; others talk of having nightmares while excavating graves. Many a lab technician has heard things go bump in the night and day, especially when human remains are on tables or in boxes nearby. Spookiness and archaeology go together.Does archaeology have animism? Very much so, it’s everywhere. Whenever archaeologists report their analysis of an artifact assemblage you will likely hear phrases such as “these are objects of change” or “vectors of change” or “this artifact symbolizes.” Archaeologists reify and animate objects with regularity because it’s the way Americans communicate. Animistic statements are complex metaphors that tie us to our natural world. Objects and technology are part of our natural environment. Tools, all material culture, are extensions of us. There is no difference between a cyborg and a robot. Why shouldn’t we talk about them and interact with them as if they were alive? Likewise, we talk about abstractions as if they were alive: statistics “speak for themselves,” cultures move from one place to another, and America is said to “fail”. How can America “fail”; is it alive with agency? Just as in “pre-modern” cultures, it is customary for Americans to communicate in this way. For archaeologists artifacts have magical powers. Not every artifact or site does, but some do. If you dig a hundred shovel tests and find only one arrowhead then that moment of discovery may be magical, special. Most archaeologists are connected to the tools of the trade. Many have their special trowel that symbolizes their professionalism, like a red badge of courage. Field vehicles are old friends, held onto for many years. Just as the cable show Warehouse 13 demonstrates, some artifacts are imbued with meaning and power such that they can be transformative. Find the right type of site or artifact and it can change your life, your career, no different from winning a large lottery. Ideas are also magical. Coming up with a new and compelling interpretation or explanation can be career enhancing.However, most archaeological ideas are coyote tales, full of trickery and suspension of disbelief. Given a couple hundred artifacts and a few carbon dates, an archaeologist can reconstruct the life way of a culture. Do you believe it? Archaeologists have also held many debates over the “realness” of their artifact typologies. It doesn’t matter that sand tempered cord marked pottery from Virginia likely resembles sand tempered cord marked pottery from Nebraska; they have to be different based on the archaeological mentality. Many a thesis or dissertation has been written based on the analysis of a few ceramic shards or a shoebox of “projectile points” (many of which were likely knives or scrappers). Nevertheless, who cares? A compelling statement is what matters. Currently, there are a few charismatic characters in archaeology. However, none of them is leading the profession. In the recent past, there were charismatic leaders, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. In those years, America was transforming from an Apollonian culture steeped in rationalism into a Dionysian one based on intuition. This transformation was the Fourth Awakening (McLoughlin, 1978) that was a revitalization movement (Wallace 1956). It was a frenetic era with social unrest and an unpopular war. These years are marked in archaeology as the New Archaeology era. During this time, Louis Binford introduced a narrow form of positivism into the profession, the idea caught fire in popularity with minimal disbelievers, and the profession rode the wave of “rational” ecstasy for twenty years, until it burned out. It also coincided with the broader love fest for science that was underway in the social sciences at that time, such as the New Ethnography, Enthnoscience, the New History, the New Geography, and monetarism in economics. The New Archaeology had all the traits of an old-fashioned religious revival movement (McLoughlin, 1978). Led by a charismatic leader, it used something old and abandoned, positivism, to make corrective changes within the profession, to make it more scientific. In the face of rising intuitive processes and complex metaphors it was a retro, conservative, effort to continue rationalism that ultimately failed, as all revivals do, because it didn’t instill long term change. When the New Archaeology flame burned out scientism crashed in American archaeology, as it did in all of American culture in the late 1980s and 1990s. The irony is that the New Archaeology was a Dionysian process, a slight of the hand, or the brain, if you will. It is well known that left hemisphere processes (McGilchrist 2009) direct Apollonian cultures; the control, order, hierarchy, and temporal aspects of life are emphasized over their opposites. Rationalism is a left hemisphere metaphor. But, what happens when the right hemisphere plays with it? You get eye dazzlers. Apollonian artifacts usually have geometric designs and they are simple and elegant—think of the popular late modernist corporate buildings from 1970s with all the rectangular glass. Next, take all those rectangles and compound them so much that the positive and negative fields are blurred. You get a design that shimmers as patterns go back and forth. It becomes an eye dazzler. The same thing happens with our concepts and ideas. Take conceptual linearity too far and you get conceptual bedazzlement. The New Archaeology, with its hypothetical deductive argumentation, was a coyote tale of bedazzlement, enchanted by its supposed rationalism.Today, American archaeology is fully Dionysian. There are a few elder modernists holding on to their left brained science but they live at the margins. Right-brained science and non-science are in control; Post Modernism and Romanticism are the buzzwords of the day. Other warm and fuzzy concepts are widely used such as collaboration and “community archaeology.” The preference is Gemeinschaft as a way of approaching archaeology, a desire for a moral order that is genuine and democratic, leaving everyone satisfied and fulfilled. It is enchanted archaeology. There are problems within archaeology. While many likely believe that historic preservation compliance is the redeeming feature of the profession, because it drives the majority of work, it actually is a vampire sucking the soul from the profession by reducing the total number of excavations done every year. And digging is the true life-blood of the profession. It is what the majority of the public wants from us; not site preservation. Archaeologists can break free of this cage if they choose. But since they have not done so, the need is not dire enough for it to happen.Maybe the troubles of America that Berman documents so well in his books could compel archaeologists to switch gears and go another direction. I’m all in favor of it. An “iron cage of rationality” is not one of those troubles. America is fully Dionysian and enchanted; its troubles stem from the wild impulses emanating from our right hemispheres. This will continue until the next Awakening, some forty years hence. Meanwhile, resolving immediate problems will have to be done by tickling the right hemisphere, and the solutions will be based in reciprocity and reflexivity, not cause and effect.There is no reason to be disenchanted when life is such a wonderful carnival. ReferencesBenedict, Ruth1934 Patterns of Culture. Houghton Mifflin, New York.Berman, Morris2012 Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline. John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, NJ2013 The Moral Order: A Dying Civilization. CounterPunch, February 8, 2013; [www.counterpunch.org] accessed February 22, 2013)Hall, Edward T.1976 Beyond Culture. Doubleday, New York, NY.Jenkins, Richard2000 Disenchantment, Enchantment and Re-Enchantment: Max Weber at the Millennium. Max Weber Studies 1: 11-32.McGilchrist, Iain2009 The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.McLoughlin, William G.1978 Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform: An Essay on Religion and Social Change in America, 1607-1977. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Nietzsche, Friedrich, 1967 [1872] The Birth of Tragedy, in the Basic Writings of Nietzsche, translated and edited by Walter Kaufman, pp. 1-144. The Modern Library, New York. Landy, Joshua and Michael Saler, eds.2009 The Re-Enchantment of the World: Secular Magic in a Rational Age. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.Redfield, Robert1963[1953] The Primitive World and Its Transformation. Cornell University Press.Sapir, Edward1924 Culture, Genuine and Spurious. The American Journal of Sociology 29(4): 401–429.Ferdinand Tönnies, Ferdinand, 2002[1887] Community and Society. Translated and edited by Charles P. Loomis. Dover Publications, Mineola, NY.Wallace, Anthony 1956 Revitalization Movements. American Anthropologist 58: 264-281.Weber, Max2009[1904] The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Norton Critical Editions.
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Shenzhen Noted: cancer village map
On May 6, 2009, Deng Fei (邓飞) published the “Cancer Village Map” which documented reports on villages where cancer rates were significantly higher than elsewhere in the country. Three days ago, the Chinese… Read More →
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Aidnography - Development as anthropological object: Are journals hindering creative academic writing & engagement with research?
tl;dr (for those who find blog posts on academic publishing too long) The focus on ‘open access publishing’ and ‘better academic writing’ may be overrated when it comes to fostering creative writing, public engagement with research or finding cures to eradicate poverty because the commodity of academic journal articles has limited value outside a relatively narrow circle of academic insiders. In addition to advocating for more open access publishing we should think outside the box of a particular written genre to ensure that the goals we envision to achieve are truly met in today’s digital world. And sometimes not publishing another article at all can be the part of the solution, too...A familiar presentation of journal article writing rituals and standards For quite some time now, there has been a debate in the academic sphere about the future of academic journal article publications that more or less focuses on questions around access, namely on publishing these articles under various ‘open access’ options. Aaron Swartz was maybe the most prominent activist in this area (see my development-related post Rituals, risk, development & Aaron Swartz – in response to Owen Barder), but there is also an interesting debate at the Guardian about the (im)moral dimension of open access publishing which I found quite interesting. Although mostly ‘STEM-’ or natural science-focussed, anthropology has recently stepped into the arena and has started to debate the subject vividly. The debates are complicated and this is not a post to review the arguments. More recently, another debate emerged that at first sight seems only marginally related to journal publishing: Why is Academic Writing So Bad and how can academics enhance their skills? What I find fascinating, though, is that the debates seem to be focussing on which way is the best to publish articles and not if academic articles are the best, future-proofed way of engaging with ‘the public’, contribute to the advancement of science, enjoy the process of creative and ‘good’ writing or fulfil many of the aspirations that open access publishing seems to be promising. My main argument is that as long as we think within the genre box of ‘academic journal article’, questions of ‘access’ or ‘quality’ may actually be far less important and may even take up valuable discussion space that could be used for broader debates around publishing in the academy and supplementing reputation-building with alternative forms of writing. Academics tend to overstate the impact of their academic writing There may be a belief by some ‘members of the public’ or ‘taxpayers’ that academic journal articles are pretty much the Holy Grail when it comes to academic impact and publication. In today’s highly specialised, fragmented and professionalised academic industry journal articles are the leading commodity in career and reputation building, but with the exception of a few medical and technical journals they often present new, interesting, thought-provoking findings that are only relevant to a small community of colleagues. I like writing, reading, reviewing them, but I am also aware that these processes take place within the parameters of any genre of writing. In short, even if every journal would be available online, for free and openly accessible, many, many articles will still go unnoticed. Academic articles are a literary genre with substantial limitations to style and content Open or not, academic articles are only one way of writing, publishing and engaging with stakeholders, partners, policy-makers and members of the public. They follow a certain structure, they have undergone many rounds of feedback, revisions and rewriting which make them ‘academic’, but in many cases almost unreadable or at least uninteresting for a broader readership. Most journals also have strict guidelines on length, citation styles and other technical details and they are usually published in a visually less-than-appealing environment of a publisher’s very technical website. Again, I do not want to dismiss their value, but I want to caution enthusiasts who think that open access publishing will solve ‘all’ our problems. In many instances, articles seem to end up as a data entry into a searchable database-very important to find relevant material, but almost the opposite of an encouraging environment to write outside the box when keywords and abstracts matter a lot. Other than books, academic articles are pretty much the only legitimate way of publishing in academia and if we really care about ‘impact’, ‘public engagement’ or ‘making research accessible’ maybe we should spent less time on this particular genre at all – whether behind a paywall or openly accessible. I would respond to the question ‘should I submit my paper to an open access or journal or not?’ with ‘Why do you have a paper in the first place?’. I realize that the US National Science Foundation has now extended submissable products in their grant applications to things other than printed academic work, but for social scientists this is potentially more difficult. Academic articles have become part of the publisher’s ‘value-chain’ where in some instances the author no longer even receives a complimentary physical copy of the journal issue the article was published in How important is open access publishing of academic articles for the future of higher education? Another point I find is that I sometimes feel that the debates around ‘open access publishing’ mask some more important questions about research, universities and higher education funding. Is it really the paywall of an academic journal that prevents, say, scholars from the global South to contribute to research? Would development really improve if every aidworker had access to the latest academic journals for free? And would academic library budgets been adjusted to the money they would save on expensive journal subscription packages? Once you go beyond access you will find many issues from underfunding of tertiary education to linguistic or cultural issues or complicated research grant applications that may be more difficult to address. And maybe the focus on for-profit-publishers is too convenient when we should be asking questions about for-profit-universities, for-profit-governments and other for-profit entities that benefit from research and publishing? Let me be clear: Open access is the preferable, hopefully soon to be default standard, but it may be a smaller battleground in the future than we anticipate. Look, mum, I paid for a poster that celebrates the publication of my article I published for free in an expensive journal! Do paywalls create stronger and ‘better’ (informal) academic networks? Yes, this is a provocative headline. But bear with me for another short paragraph...I know the ideals of open access publishing, the sharing, commenting, citing, connecting, curating, remixing and building towards better research. But this sounds very similar to what idealists thought about ‘the Internet’ before the arrival of trolls, obnoxious newspaper commentators, conspiracy theorists, lobbyists and big multinational companies. I am blogging so I do want to engage with the wider world, but I am more skeptical when it comes to academic articles in particular. You can share them already today, informally, within a grey area, often legally and other times illegally (which I never do and never encourage). In short, those who are interested in your work, those who are part of your networks and those who want to include your name in a big, fat research grant application will be able to access your work. Open access would make it easier and potentially would expand your networks beyond the ‘filter bubble’, but how realistic is that really? Like finding a job through LinkedIn or finding a long-lost relative through facebook it happens, but for many people in many areas it is likely to remain an illusion. I do not want a happy petting zoo of academic articles behind paywalls, but every digital innovation has brought a lot of ‘noise’, too, and given that most academics are already working long hours I am just wondering aloud whether an email from someone who requests a copy of your article could be more ‘valuable’ than 50 ‘random’ people downloading it from an open access site. This is definitely a more complicated debate. Not publishing more academic articles could be a moral stance, too Every discipline has seen a vast increase in publications. New journals, new formats, more articles, more books,...and all of them for the advancement of science and society. It is interesting how we in the academic industry have internalised this discourse and yes, publishing has always been an essential part of academia since the days of Humboldt and probably even earlier. But the current debate about access is also addressing some traditions, customs and ‘ways we have always been doing these things’. ‘This is a system generated email ! Please do not reply to this message’. You worked on the article for 10 months and all you get is an automated message from a databaseMy final thought is therefore that the discussion could go beyond how we publish to why we publish – and why we need to publish more of a particular genre. Not everything needs to be short or blog-able. Not every researcher can and should write op-eds for newssites. And different institutions will always have different demands when it comes to assessing careers, reputation and public engagement. I just find that many commentators tend to overestimate the impact of freeing academic articles as a timely way to share ideas or engage with non-academic audiences. It would be great for many reasons, but maybe we also need to think outside the ‘academic article’ box more radically.
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