In light of Aaron Swartz‘s alleged JSTOR data theft, Maria Bustillos wonders whether his actions even constitute a crime. George Monbiot goes even further, alleging that academic publishers “make Murdoch look like a socialist.”
Theft and Academic Publishing
OH, THE WORDS
2012 is off to a good start for DIAGRAM. In February, their fourth print anthology will be released. Their next issue will be an “ALL-ESSAY SPECTACULAR” (caps their own), and they’ve just released their latest issue on their site.
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“A quiet hero of contemporary literature”
At The Paris Review, a remembrance of Evan S. Connell, whose work has been cited as an influence by Jonathan Franzen, Lydia Davis and Zadie Smith.
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Hitchens on Cancer
Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair on his cancer diagnosis: “To the dumb question ‘Why me?’ the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?”
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An Excess of Symmetry
“What a perfect couple, two halves of the same little orange.” Guernica Magazine has a fantastic flash fiction piece by Andrés Neuman in anticipation of his upcoming collection of stories, The Things We Don’t Do.
A Monument to Suffering and Courage
Everyone is talking about Nobel Prize winning Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich. Allow Jonathon Sturgeon at Flavorwire to explain why he believes Alexievich’s victory is a step in the right direction for the Prize.
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The Stories We Tell
Of more than 23,000 front-page articles that appeared in The New York Times between 1939 and 1945, only 26 were about the Holocaust. Watch a powerful 18-minute mini-documentary about “how and why the genocide of Jews was neglected and euphemised by the Times, and by extension, the American people.” Pair with our piece about the German traditions of the Denkmahl and Mahnmahl, two different kinds of memorials with subtle, yet important distinctions.
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