Most of my usual conversation (passing/commenting on links) has moved to twitter, so doing a sunday link post seems almost, well, retro.
Still, things I do for you, gentle readers, will always be en vogue. Because that is how awesome you are. Each and every single one of you.
- Drake Bennett’s Changing History, Boston Globe, Feb 7 2009, puts forth what our new approaches are going to look like: enviormental, pacific, archeoscience, and neurohistory. Without taking away the merit of Mr. Bennett’s piece, it is clear he is no historian. Still, worth your thoughts.
- A couple of posts from the NYRB blog (really, you should just read it regularly): Malise Ruthven on French Talibans and Max Rodenbeck on Jaipur Literary Festival. Our friend William Dalrymple is a man of many victories.
- A history of Tamil cinema from The Hindu.
- Staying in Hindoostan – the Big Picture showed some amazing photos of Republic Day 2010. I think the pink motorcycle crew deserve a beer.
- This Ethan Bronner controversy is silly. NYT is not “objective” when it comes to Israel/Palestine issues, Middle East or the global South in general. Let the man’s son do whatever he wants to do. What difference does it make to us?
- David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson’s site is awesome. Start here.
- Zunguzungu, Things You Can Do With An Umbrella. Ella, ella, ella, eh.
- I have been thinking what the Pakistani equivalent of the Gandhi Rupee would be.
- “…I suddenly realized that I knew the luminance of the moon – 250 c/ft2. Using the Exposure Formula, I placed this luminance on Zone VII; 60 c/ft2 therefore fell on Zone V, and the exposure with the filter factor o 3x was about 1 second at f/32 with ASA 64 film.” Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico.
Dear Dr. Lapata
In an effort to speed up the publication schedule and work through our backlog, we are attempting to collect any remaining permissions from authors who are moving up in line for publication. Our records indicate that we still require permissions for the image(s) contained in your article, “(redacted).” Please return these permissions as quickly as possible or update us as to the status of your attempts to obtain these permissions. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.
Thank you for your interest in The Journal of X, and congratulations again on the acceptance of your essay for publication.
Best regards,
The Journal of X
——
Dear [The Journal of X],
Thank you so much for your note. I was very grateful when you accepted my article for publication in your journal seven (7) years ago. Since that time, approximately five (5) years ago, you forgot that you had accepted the article and re-sent it through your review process, after which you sent me a rejection letter based on the insane rants of an inflamed tea-partier (anachronistic, I know, but it gives you an idea of what I mean). After I brought this imbalanced review to your attention, you rescinded your rejection and re-accepted the article for publication. A year later you sent me a letter similar to the one above. Since I had several years before supplied all the permissions, I grew tired of our little back and forth, stimulating though it had become, and rescinded my acceptance of your re-proferred acceptance. Soon after, I also lost the article in a devastating hard drive crash, and subsequently quit my academic career. Since I no longer had a stake in feverishly publishing my feeble pensées in poorly-run academic journals, I thought no more of the matter, until today.
Best wishes to you and the entire Journal of X family,
Lapata
Seriously.
Last week I gave a small talk to a group of Model UN students at Hildesheim U. Thought I’d archive the presentation – and share it here. Not much going on. My main concern was to show the difference between internal and external public/policy debates*. And maybe also to step away from (inter)national narratives. I didn’t have any pre-written remarks so, you can play karaoke with the slides and just imagine what I said. I am sure long-time readers (and frequent callers) will have no problem. I am a broken record.
*The Kerry slide was a complete dud. I need local political quotes.
Doing some research, I came across an official Pakistan government publication celebrating the 5 year anniversary of its existence. I scanned a few of the adverts in the issue. The paper I am writing concerns the “long history” of Pakistan such that allowed Mortimer Wheeler’s Five Thousand Years of Pakistan: An Archaeological Outline (1950) to become a standard account of pre-Partition “Pakistan”. Here, the ads themselves speak towards the need to assert the primacy of the Pakistani history.
Here are some other, random, images. Enjoy!
With thanks to Francesca Orsini, Alok Rai and his family, and Fran Pritchett, we have a scan of the only photo portrait of Mirza Asadullah Ghalib. Incredible.
