Open access: beyond the numbers

Much of the discussion about the merits of Open Access (OA) publishing has centred on the numbers; on whether, when all costs have been taken into account, it is cheaper to publish on an OA basis than in commercially run, subscription journals

Innovation Africa

It is now ten years since the Economist newspaper declared Africa to be “the hopeless continent”. Today, the same magazine offers a different prognosis, building on the World Bank’s prediction of growth rates for sub-Saharan African economies that will be twice those of Europe. This is in the context of a severe and prolonged recession in North America and Europe and a growing realization that the epicentres of development are shifting eastwards, and southwards. Today, I will reflect on what this may mean for some aspects of a small part of innovation. The qualifiers are deliberate; predicting the future in our complex, interconnected world in hubris

A more general treatment of the philosophy of physics and the existence of universes

Natural philosophy necessarily combines the process of scientific observation with an abstract (and usually symbolic) framework, which provides a logical structure to the development of a scientific theory. The metaphysical underpinning of science includes statements about the process of science itself, and the nature of both the philosophical and material objects involved in a scientific investigation. By developing a formalism for an abstract mathematical description of inherently non-mathematical, physical objects, an attempt is made to clarify the mechanisms and implications of the philosophical tool of Ansatz. Outcomes of the analysis include a possible explanation for the philosophical issue of the 'unreasonable effectiveness' of mathematics as raised by Wigner, and an investigation into formal definitions of the terms: principles, evidence, existence and universes that are consistent with the conventions used in physics. It is found that the formalism places restrictions on the mathematical properties of objects that represent the tools and terms mentioned above. This allows one to make testable predictions regarding physics itself (where the nature of the tools of investigation is now entirely abstract) just as scientific theories make predictions about the universe at hand. That is, the mathematical structure of objects defined within the new formalism has philosophical consequences (via logical arguments) that lead to profound insights into the nature of the universe, which may serve to guide the course of future investigations in science and philosophy, and precipitate inspiring new avenues of research

Revalorized Black Embodiment: Dancing with Fanon

This article explores Fanon's thought on dance, beginning with his explicit treatment of it in Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. It then broadens to consider his theorization of Black embodiment in racist and colonized societies, considering how these analyses can be reformulated as a phenomenology of dance. This will suggest possibilities for fruitful encounters between the two domains in which (a) dance can be valorized while (b) opening up sites of resignification and resistance for Black persons and communities-including a revalorization of Black embodiment as a kind of empowering danced experience

Slanted Truths: The Gay Science as Nietzsche's Ars Poetica

This essay derives its focus on poetry from the subtitle of Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft: “la gaya scienza.” Nietzsche appropriated this phrase from the phrase “gai saber” used by the Provençal knight-poets (or troubadours) of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries — the first lyric poets of the European languages — to designate their Ars Poetica or “art of poetry.” I will begin with an exploration of Nietzsche’s treatment of poets and poetry as a subject matter, closely analyzing his six aphorisms which deal explicitly with poets and poetry. Having considered The Gay Science as a text about poetry, I will then briefly explore three further ways in which The Gay Science can be thought of as itself a kind of poetry. The result of these analyses is an understanding of Nietzsche’s own understanding of philosophy (and of the best way to live) as also a form of poetry

Core Aspects of Dance: Schiller and Dewey on Grace

Part of a larger project of constructing a new, historically informed philosophy of dance, built on four phenomenological constructs that I call “Moves,” this essay concerns the third Move, “grace.” The etymology of the word “grace” reveals the entwined meanings of pleasing quality and authoritative power, which may be combined as “beautiful force.” I examine the treatments of grace in German philosopher Friedrich Schiller, who understands it as playful, naive transformation of matter; and in American philosopher John Dewey, for whom it represents rhythmic organism/environment reversal. I conclude by showing how “grace” can be used in analyzing various types of dance, which in turn suggests transformational potential for philosophy, dance, and society as a whole

A Self-Critical Phenomenology of Criticism

Noel Carroll, a central figure in analytic (Anglo-American) philosophy of art, and spouse of renowned dance scholar Sally Banes (who co-authored several of these essays), offers us something remarkable in his new book—namely, a collection of thirty years of his theoretical essays and dance reviews. Carroll wrote some of the pieces while he was a graduate student at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and there have been some dramatic changes since then in both the art world and Carroll’s philosophical views. Thus, he modestly characterizes the book as “an archeological artifact” of a “somewhat confessional” variety (p. 267). Inspired by Carroll, I too will adopt an archeological stance, with a promise that the reader’s patience will be repaid with something surprising at the end of the dig