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October 2015

In fact, I'd say "academic freedom" is about making radical expression possible, not about sheltering students from radical expression.

I've always assumed that the space needed to be "safe" so that students could voice radical or unpopular views without being degraded.

What's weird about this backlash against "safe spaces" at universities is that I've always used the phrase differently.

I do wish our undemocratic second house wasn't the only thing stopping the worst excesses of our government. It makes me conflicted.

Or practically the whole chapter in my own book on this very aspect. Or the several chapters in Z. Kolbuszewska's edited volume.

Well, that's true if you don't cite the things that have. Like the whole book on /Terrorism and Temporality/ in Pynchon by James Gourley.

But I think this seems like an oversight so far if talking about contemporary philosophical "critique" & its persistence.

Whereas falsifiability (negative knowledge) & intersubjective defences against false appearance strike me as natural-scientific concepts.

What I haven't seen so far is enough emphasis on the fact that "critique" might come from the practices of the natural/empirical sciences.

I feel @chrissyfleps & @tinyhippo1979 may have underplayed how scary Crimson Peak is for horror wimps. But beautifully shot & still enjoyed!

Hmm, we're a bit wimpish with horror but enjoyed most of del Toro's output... (esp. Pan's L.) How will we do with Crimson Peak?

Stayed in a "CitizenM" hotel & it resonated so much with Hu's data centres/parataxis in /A Prehistory of the Cloud/.

My counter for the "vs science" arg: if lit contains a comparable epistemology, why is it also treated as an object of study? #bbkhustvedt

Stringent peer review procedures, good access provisions, but unless it gets a number via a made-up formula assigned by an external provider

I despair of all the talk about new journals and impact factors. We're really saying that you can have expert editorial boards...

Stem-, Spraak- and Taalpathologie, a journal were discussing, sounds a great deal like something in The Flame Alphabet. @DrBlacklock

One reading of RCUK merger: trying to signal efficiencies in a HEFCE-like way. HEFCE maybe doing a better job internally.

Two more OLH signups since I sat down at #ucloa15. Pleasing! This makes one of my slides inaccurate. Displeasing! #conflicted #notreally

I do remember in my teens looking at SciFi dates in the future & wondering if I'd live that long. Of BTTF I felt confident. OMF2097 less so.

Unless I misheard someone this evening on the OA monographs panel said or implied (paraphrased) that OA for journals is easy. Errr.

"One of them was a report so nasty it made me question my will to write another sentence." How does that ever help anyone?

Started work on that Jennifer Egan piece in August 2013. Highlight of the article's development: Jennifer Egan telling me she loved it.

Thanks to @DrMagennis for handling peer-review process (& thanks to the anonymous reviewers). Was terrified of submitting to my own place!

If I wanted to manually semantically tag a corpus, including sentiment information keyed to terms, is there a good framework out there? #dh

When it's arbitrary, petty, statistically insignificant, binary gatekeeping (which I've seen more in journals), it feels broken.

When peer review works well (especially for books) by providing constructive and specific feedback to improve work, I like it.

Clear CILIP statement is a strategic move to ingratiate etc. but need to highlight damage done to our public infrastructure by this gov.

UK government to introduce a new category of HE institution in the UK in order to broaden diversity. They call it the bankrupt university.

But all models of "disruption" seem to be about for-profit providers being paid by students. How "innovative". [4/4]

If a single existing educational institution (with prestige etc.) came up with a model to restore free education [2/4]

Tonight, in a departure from my usual routine, I will be going to see the metal band "Annihilator", for which my brother is the bassist.