SAR Academic Freedom Media Review, May 21-27

The Scholars at Risk media review seeks to raise awareness about academic freedom issues in the news. Subscription information and archived media reviews are available here/a>. The views and opinions expressed in these articles are not necessarily those of Scholars at Risk.

New bill will protect academic freedom
Dan Harrison, The Sydney Morning Herald, 5/27

Slår et flerkulturelt slag for akademisk frihet (in Norwegian)
Claudio Castello, Utrop, 5/27
Automatic translation via Google Translator

AAUP Report Denounces Suspension of Idaho State U. Faculty Senate
Peter Schmidt, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/26

Intervention From On High
Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, 5/26

Do it! Court greenlights academic freedom 100 days event in Zomba
Raphael Tenthani, The Maravi Post, 5/26

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Academic Freedom Media Review, January 15 – 21, 2011

The Scholars at Risk media review seeks to raise awareness about academic freedom issues in the news. Subscription information and archived media reviews are available at here. The views and opinions expressed in these articles are not necessarily those of Scholars at Risk.

Protecting academic freedom seen as key
Jimmy Walsh, Irish Times, 1/21

U.S. Bishops Begin 10-Year Review of ‘Ex Corde’
Beckie Supiano, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/21

Scholars at Risk calls for letters on behalf of Nasrin Sotoudeh, Iranian legal scholar sentenced to 11 years in prison
Scholars at Risk, 1/19

And freedom for all includes undergraduates
Bruce Macfarlane, The Australian, 1/19
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In Memory of Mohamed Arkoun

Few of Arkoun's Books are available in translation, but this is on Amazon.

Mohamed Arkoun, a great philosopher and scholar, particularly on the role of Islam in the development of Maghrebi society and on the relationship of Islam and the West, died Tuesday September 14 in Paris and was buried the following Friday, September 17 in Achouhada cemetery in Casablanca. He was 82 years old. In Robert Altman’s cinema adaptation of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion, the angel of death whispers to a woman weeping over the discovery that a loved one has died peacefully, “The death of an old man is not a tragedy.”

That struck me as fundamentally true. But I thought to myself that it doesn’t make it less painful to those close to him. And while it may not be a tragedy, it is certainly still a loss, especially when the man is a figure of the stature of Mohamed Arkoun. I remember reading his writing when researching my dissertation, and it returned to my mind in the weeks and months after 9-11. It comes to mind again now, as we see nasty rhetoric against heating up again in this country.
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What I’m Listening To…

Every once in a while I like to post some of the things I am listening to, just to see what you think of them. Here are the ten most recent songs that scrolled through my iPhone playlist when set on shuffle.

What are you listening to?

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Global Connections and Exchange Program Combines Technology and In-Person Exchanges

Midlothian High School Exchange

Midlothian High School students planted trees in honor of their guests. | photo courtesy of Jamie Schlais Barnes

Here’s an interesting item from Midlothian Exchange, a local paper in Midlothian, in Chesterfield County, Virginia and a part of the Richmond Metropolitan Area.

Two weeks ago, three men walked into Midlothian High School looking for a better understanding of American culture. Ten days later, they left having changed their own perceptions of U.S. citizens and their students’ perceptions of Arabic culture. Their challenge and that of the students at Midlothian High School is to continue spreading what they learned.

Abdulwahab Albaadani, a teacher at Ibn Majed in Sanaa, Yemen, Amine Slimani, a teacher from the Secondary School of Nedroma in Nedroma, Algeria and his pupil, Mohamed Belmeliami, traveled to the U.S. as a culmination of nearly a year’s worth of video conferencing, cultural lessons, and web logging with social studies classes at Midlothian High School…

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“The Boy from Lebanon” or “The Killer Kid”?

A good percentage of the entries I write for this blog end up being here totally by accident, and that is the case with this one. I watched a film last night called The Boy from Lebanon. It’s a pretty powerful and intense film, though problematic. One way that it is so is that it is presented as a true story, but doesn’t appear to be so. So I went online to check that out. While doing so I found comments on YouTube preview clips that I wanted to respond to, so I went back after finishing my quick research and wrote them up. I did so, finished what I had to say, clicked on enter and wanted to go on. But by then my entry was too long and it wasn’t accepted.


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Why People Pirate Music

Bonjour CD

Bonjour CD

I regularly record Acousticfrom TV5 Monde on my DVR, and I just finished watching this week’s program with Rachid Taha. I’m a big fan of Taha and on the episode he sang some songs from a new album called Bonjour. They weren’t the best songs he ever recorded, but I liked them and I want the CD. I have all Taha’s records, and I want this one, too.

So I set out looking for it. The first place I looked was iTunes. I’m always ambivalent about albums on iTunes, though I buy most of my music there. I like the instant gratification. I can also find stuff that’s hard to find in stores. As record stores disappear, its not easy to find anything but the biggest hits in retailers like BestBuy, Barnes&Noble or Borders. On the other hand, I like having all that information the downloads don’t provide but that usually comes in a CD: names of composers and lyricists, producers and members of the band, information about where and when something was recorded, anecdotes from the sessions, photographs and all that stuff you usually find in the liner notes that accompany a CD. But it wasn’t in iTunes, anyway. Continue reading