Over on the EAIA blog I mentioned and summarized an article in International Security on the US-Japan alliance. I brought it up as a kind of controversial Realist article. Sayaka took the bait and bit a chunk out of the essay in a response she wrote in the next posting. She makes several excellent points [...]
There is a conference coming up (Sept 10-11) at Columbia University on its “Chinese Connection” or famous former students of Columbia who went on to become famous people. It is kind of a promotional event for the university so I think it will mostly be warm and fuzzy but may have some very interesting talks. [...]
I have been following the progress of the Open Access movement in academic journals as closely as my time allows. I gave a presentation to a number of professors and students at Waseda University which talked a lot about the OA movement and I could tell that others became interested when they heard about it. [...]
The Chronicle had a recent article on “Why the E-Learning Boom Went Bust.” I think one of their points was interesting: What’s the reality? For the most part, faculty members use the electronics to simplify tasks, not to fundamentally change how they teach their subjects. They readily translate lecture notes into PowerPoint presentations. They use [...]
David Weinberger has blogged a Kerry camp poll analysis at Corante setting the expectations high for the Republican convention. It is really amusing to read in a cynical light, especially when read against the kinds of media analyses and use of statistics during the lead up to Democrats’ convention.
I’m in the middle of watching two horrible documentaries on North Korea on the history channel. It is a commercial break now but we have just been told that “the story goes that” Kim Jong Il murdered his brother while they swam together in a river as a child. While described as a “story” the [...]
Jonathan Dresner has a great posting over at Cliopatria on how interesting it would be to think about the Swift Boat issue from the perspective of historiography. Historiographically, how would we balance contemporary documents against decades-removed oral history, if it were not a partisan issue? When is absolute certainty justified in the face of contradictory [...]
I found a link on Blogdex I thought I’d pass on. It is a site dedicated to Artists and Children’s Books in 1920s Japan, and in particular, the journal コドモノクニ (“The Land of Children”). The materials are prepared by the International Library of Children’s Literature which is a beautiful library connected to the National Diet [...]
I have been using a piece of software (for Macintosh) over the last six months or so which I have really come to depend on. I have just realized how often I now use this that I wanted to recommend it to others. It is called VoodooPad. It is basically a kind of offline Wiki [...]
Helt utrolig! Norges mest berømte malerier («Madonna» var og stjålet) kippet ned fra veggen i Munch-museet på søndag morning. Sirka 15 minutter før politiet kom til stedet – for sent. Bildene gikk i bakken minst to ganger på veien ut av museet. Minst en of ranerne snakket norsk . En annen versjon av «Skrik» var [...]