“Corona-Tote“ — man denkt dabei nur an Menschen, die in der Folge einer Virusinfektion verstorben sind. Dabei zeichnet sich schon jetzt ab, dass die Todeszahlen infolge der unter Verweis auf Corona ergriffenen „Maßnahmen“ weltweit um ein Vielfaches höher sein werden. Je mehr Zeit vergeht, umso größer dürfte diese Differenz ausfallen. Weil aber ni…[Read more]

Like in most parts of the world, life was on a stand-still in India for the past almost one year, courtesy of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, the poor and the middle class are in a miserable state. Crores have lost their jobs and lakhs have faced savage reductions in their income. Amid this crisis, the Government of India presented its annual budget…[Read more]

सामान्य तौर पर यह समझा है कि चूंकि दिल्ली स्थित जेएनयू के वामपंथ का गढ़ था, इसलिए दक्षिणपंथी ताकतें उससे नाराज थीं। अतएव, सत्ता में आने के बाद उन्होंने इस गढ़ को नष्ट कर देना चाहा। सन् 2016 में इस विश्वविद्यालय में घटी घटनाओं को इसी संदर्भ में देखा-समझा जाता रहा है।

लेकिन प्रमोद रंजन का यह बहुचर्चित लेख बताता है कि जेएनयू पर दक्षिणपंथ क…[Read more]

पेरियार के बारे यह तो सभी जानते हैं कि वे जातिवाद के मुखर विरोधी थे और उन्होंने दक्षिण भारत में ब्राह्मणवाद विरोधी आंदोलन चलाया। लेकिन उनके लेखन में गहराई से रेखांकित करने लायक बात विज्ञान और तकनीक के प्रति उनका आकर्षण है। वे विज्ञान और तकनीक के बूते भविष्य को देखते हैं और उसके अनुरूप समाज को तैयार रहने का आह्वान करते हैं। इसी तरह, स्त्…[Read more]

Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) nasce ad Asheville, North Carolina. Mentre studia drammaturgia ad Harvard scrive per il teatro, ma il successo arriva con il romanzo autobiografico ‘Look Homeward, Angel’ (1929), seguito da ‘Of Time and the River’ (1935) e dai postumi ‘The Web and the Rock’ (1939) e ‘You Can’t Go Home Again’ (1940). ‘Passage to England: A…[Read more]

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a lot of challenges to the globalized world. Globally, it has decimated over six million lives. Since 2019, it has shook the world in many respects, especially, it disrupted economies and societies and halted the majority of human endeavor. Commentaries and reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the…[Read more]

This paper explores interpretations of the Japanese parliament by governmental actors in the Qing empire, most importantly the commissioners for constitutional research Li Jiaju 李家駒 (1871–1938) and Dashou 達壽 (1870–1939). It shows that, within a theoretical framework formed in dialogue with their Japanese constitutionalist colleagues, these actors…[Read more]

This paper explores interpretations of the Japanese parliament by governmental actors in the Qing empire, most importantly the commissioners for constitutional research Li Jiaju 李家駒 (1871–1938) and Dashou 達壽 (1870–1939). It shows that, within a theoretical framework formed in dialogue with their Japanese constitutionalist colleagues, these actors…[Read more]

Report on negotiations for academic jobs, drawing from stories from over 300 faculty members.

Medical tourism can be defined as the process of travelling outside of an individual’s country to another to seek medical care. The current research studies medical tourism in Ghana historically, focusing on Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumase. Using a qualitative research approach, the study p…[Read more]

An infographic exploring why open access is central to the Graphic Possibilities Research Workshop at Michigan State University for International Open Access Week. This infographic was published on Platypus: The Blog for Humanities Commons Team.

The period of masonic internationalism in the last third of the 19th and first third of the 20th centuries saw the most visible – and controversial – attempts to organisationally model the “cosmopolitan imperative” of freemasonry. The various freemasonries in Europe saw themselves as links in a world-spanning “chain of brothers” forged by the…[Read more]

A response to the decision of Wiley Global to “disappear” 1,300+ of their ebooks in the ProQuest catalog at the beginning of the Fall 2022 term without any communication to university libraries at all, thus taking libraries by surprise and indicating Wiley’s move away from libraries as repositories and lenders of their ebooks, passing on costs to…[Read more]

“In Beautiful Terrible Ruins: Detroit and the Anxiety of Decline, Dora Apel goes on the offensive against the myriad myths and delusions peddled about the Motor City; not only that, she rebuffs the blame and shame that have traditionally been directed at the Detroit citizenry, and redirects our attention to the corporations and bureaucrats who…[Read more]

“In Beautiful Terrible Ruins: Detroit and the Anxiety of Decline, Dora Apel goes on the offensive against the myriad myths and delusions peddled about the Motor City; not only that, she rebuffs the blame and shame that have traditionally been directed at the Detroit citizenry, and redirects our attention to the corporations and bureaucrats who…[Read more]

This note outlines several features common to the reception of ancient ruins by the Christian populations of three countries, each located on a different continent. Most of the sites were and are strongly associated with the realm of the dead. Fear of misadventure or calamity typically inspired a respectful avoidance of such pre-Christian sites…[Read more]

In two very influential papers from 2008, Tamar Gendler introduced the concept of “alief” to describe the mental state one is in when acting in ways contrary to their consciously professed beliefs. For example, if asked to eat what they know is fudge, but shaped into the form of dog feces, they will hesitate, and behave in a manner that would be…[Read more]

This article represents an attempt at re-examining some critical issues that are related to progress. There are several questions to be addressed in the following pages: Is progress really necessary? What fundamental purpose does it serve? Can our civilization survive without progressing? Does progress have roots in nature or is it merely a human…[Read more]

In the current social and political turmoil, few issues are more divisive and cause more controversy than issues related to the rights of sexual minorities and gender dissidents. The polarizing impact of these issues is really astounding given the size of these two groups. Explanations for this divisiveness of LGBTQ rights focus on either the…[Read more]

Publication cultures in academia are as diverse as their underlying research cultures. In today’s often normative discourse on Open Access, there is a danger that this diversity will be neglected or even lost in the medium term in favor of techno-solutionist implementations. In the following, I will therefore take a closer look at the approach of…[Read more]