Vulgarity in the humanities, setting research free and rankings
THE
Is ‘titwank’ an unscholarly term, should research be made open access and how should our World University Rankings change?
The Editor’s top picks:
2. When it comes to pornography, vulgar humanities are happy to talk turkey
4. Energy therapy project in school denounced as psychobabble
- View all your comments here
PLUS: THE ISSUES, THE WRITERS, THE SURPRISES
Off-piste: when academic writers step outside their area of expertise…
"Why fly your own plane? Everyone needs a strategy to de-stress. Work is hard (and seems to be getting harder). Taking home each day's worries is no fun at all. At the end of the week, I need a way to distance myself from work and put frustrations and problems into perspective. So I go flying. As pastimes go, it is relatively solitary since most of us who indulge do so alone. If you're after sociability, stick to golf."
John Turner
"At Gettysburg, I confront my humanness - my own and life's imperfections, contradictions and imbalances. It is there that I most clearly realise that the world is not symmetrical; life is not fair, and there are no square corners and clean fits. If our lives fit at all, they fit as a jigsaw puzzle, with erratic, uneven edges that we try to arrange to make sense."
James T. Crouse
"I felt like a musical version of Goldilocks as I met an eclectic cast of cello teachers. There was the terrifyingly accomplished cellist who barked at me for 30 minutes deploring my inability to hold the bow correctly. There was the timid music student who couldn't make eye contact and whose hands shook when she played for me. There was the jaded teacher who announced that "adult learners are a nightmare" and then charged me £30 for the "consultation". There was the gifted professional cellist with a thriving teaching business who stunned me into silence with her casual racist remarks and right-wing political views. And then, finally, there was the one who was "just right"."
Deborah Bowman
"Cicero says somewhere that there is nothing whatsoever so beautiful that our imagination and our mind cannot conceive of something still more beautiful. And he is right: We surely can, and it's over that hill ... and in the next country."
Judith Weingarten
"All I seem to be doing is waiting, and it seems it's mostly my own fault. I knew there would be a queue if I came at this time and I have failed to bring anything with me, failed to plan or do anything to fill that time. It feels distinctly odd. The final option open to me is to begin a conversation, but this being a very British queue, no one wants to cope with the horror of actually talking with their hungry neighbour. Well, that is not entirely true - some of my fellow takeaway patrons do seem to be talking to themselves."
Jon F. Baldwin
"Knitters often talk about the love they knit into every stitch of a project; it feels like the resulting gift is much more than the sum of its individual stitches. In a similar vein, many knitting groups advertise the need for, and organise, the knitting of "prayer shawls" for those managing medical crises, on the premise that the shawl brings comfort and warmth to the person who is healing because healing thoughts have been knitted into it at the core of every stitch."
Sara Schley
"We first met, Elvis and I, when I was 14. I was in a cafe in Glasgow - the ends of the earth for a Pompey girl. Of all the cafes in all the world ... his music was playing on the jukebox and I was wearing blue. He changed my life."
Christine King
"It is a truth universally unacknowledged that a woman in possession of a certain figure going to New York for the first time is in need of a good bra. Well, that sort of was my excuse after I set off the security system at Heathrow, despite having removed my jewellery, belt, shoes and a light mac."
Joanna Lewis
"Flying is a wonderful escape. There's a real feeling of freedom and independence as you take to the air leaving any troubles you have on the ground. A lot of my friends think I'm a bit loco (including my skydiving friends!), but the risks are controlled ones that can be minimised with common sense, good training, well-maintained equipment and a healthy respect for the sport."
Paul Chapman
“This summer, I won't be attending an Ashes game. Since I first saw a Test abroad, in Barbados in 1998, I have watched 60 days of Test cricket overseas, compared with just ten in Blighty. It is virtually impossible to get a ticket for an Ashes game in the UK, and even then they are grotesquely overpriced. With the England and Wales Cricket Board taking full advantage of the ridiculously small stadiums in this country, demand will always exceed supply in an Ashes summer.”
Nigel Berkeley
