Author Archives: Fred Rowland

“Wittenberg” at the Arden Theatre

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Just heard some very good things about the play Wittenberg at the Arden Theatre playing through March 16. It features Dr. Faustus, Martin Luther, and Hamlet in October 1517, sort of a romp through the Protestant Reformation, evidently. “Finally – a decent Protestant Reformation comedy! [David] Davalos’ wordplay, plus his riffs on religion vs. philosophy, made me hanker for a script. The dialogue sometimes flies by, given director J. R. Sullivan’s effective lickety-split pacing in several scenes, and it’s obvious that Wittenberg would be as much fun to read as this production is to see.” –Philadelphia Inquirer [Read review] ————————————————————————————————————– Subject Guides Classics // Islamic Studies // Jewish Studies // Philosophy // Religion ————————————————————————————————————–

Pre-Modern Studies Colloquium at Temple

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The Pre-Modern Studies Colloquium at Temple just released its new web site: http://www.temple.edu/humanities/premodern/. roundtable.jpg“We hope that this website can serve as a useful addition to the growing interest and resources in Premodern studies at Temple University. Like the appearance of the grail to the fellowship of King Arthur’s Round Table (pictured to the left), a website can serve to instruct, guide, direct, and, most importantly, inspire, the study of premodernity from an interdisciplinary perspective.” Participating departments include Art History, Classics, Philosophy, and Religion. Check it out. Also have a look at this, The Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, included in Oxford Reference Online. ————————————————————————————————————– Subject Guides Classics // Islamic Studies // Jewish Studies // Philosophy // Religion ————————————————————————————————————–

Before Zeus

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An interesting article in NYT Science on pre-Zeus worship site on Mount Lykaion in Greece: An Altar Beyond Olympus for a Deity Predating Zeus. Here’s a book from the library’s collection on pre-Hellenic Greek myths: Lost goddesses of early Greece : a collection of pre-Hellenic myths / Charlene Spretnak. ————————————————————————————————————– Subject Guides Classics // Islamic Studies // Jewish Studies // Philosophy // Religion ————————————————————————————————————–

Recent Lit Reviews in Web of Science

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You might find some of these recent literature reviews interesting. I get them through an RSS Feed. Let me know if you’d like me to help you set one up. Reflections on the field: Primatology, popular science and the politics of personhood Full Names: Rees, Amanda SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE 37 (6): 881-907 DEC 2007 The gospel of science and American evangelism in late Ottoman Beirut Elshakry, Marwa PAST & PRESENT (196): 173-214 AUG 2007 Meta-scientific eliminativism: A reconsideration of Chomsky’s review of Skinner’s verbal behavior Collins, John BRITISH JOURNAL FOR THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 58 (4): 625-658 DEC 2007 Rock on art: petroglyph sites in the United Arab Emirates Ziolkowski, Michele C. ARABIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND EPIGRAPHY 18 (2): 208-238 NOV 2007 ————————————————————————————————————– Subject Guides Classics // Islamic Studies // Jewish Studies // Philosophy // Religion ————————————————————————————————————–

Try out EBSCO Religion & Philosophy Collection

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EBSCO, one of our largest database vendors, has given us free access to its Religion & Philosophy Collection, a subset of the large multidisciplinary database Academic Search Premier. This is how EBSCO describes the Religion & Philosophy Collection: “The Religion & Philosophy Collection is a comprehensive database covering such topics as world religions, major denominations, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy and the history of philosophy. This database offers more than 300 full text journals, including more than 250 peer-reviewed titles, making it an essential tool for researchers and students of theology and philosophical studies. In addition to the full text, indexing and abstracts are provided for all journals in the database.” ————————————————————————————————————– Subject Guides Classics // Islamic Studies // Jewish Studies // Philosophy // Religion ————————————————————————————————————–

Oxford Scholarship Online Trial

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The library now has a trial for Oxford Scholarship Online, a platform for searching, browsing, reading, and printing chapters from Oxford scholarly books. Each book has abstracts at the title and the chapter level and you can search across books and collections. Faculty can link to individual chapters making it ideal for classroom use. Essentially, Oxford has turned these books into an article database. The trial lasts until February 22, 2008. Give it a try. Let me know what you think. Fred ————————————————————————————————————– Subject Guides Classics // Islamic Studies // Jewish Studies // Philosophy // Religion ————————————————————————————————————–

“Freedom: A Conversation with Talal Asad”

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talal-asad.jpgWed., Feb. 13, 2:30 pm Paley Library Lecture Hall “Freedom: A Conversation with Talal Asad” Please join Temple University Libraries, CHAT, and the General Education Program in welcoming Talal Asad. An anthropologist at the City University of New York, Prof. Asad has made important theoretical contributions to Post-Colonialism, Christianity, Islam, and Ritual Studies. Further information: dwatt7@temple.edu.

Where is this journal indexed? Try Ulrich’s

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Sometimes you hear about a really good journal but don’t know where it’s “indexed”, meaning you don’t know in which database you can search for the journal’s articles. You can usually find this information in Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory, a huge database that provides comprehensive information on thousands of journals. Take The British Journal for the History of Philosophy, for instance. Do a search for it in Ulrich’s (be careful, this is a fussy database, stay away from the Title (Exact) search) and bring up the record. Under the “Basic Description” tab you’ll find things like the title, the publisher, the language, ISSN, whether it’s refereed, indexed, etc. Click on the “Abstracting / Indexing & Article Access” tab and you find out where the journal is indexed and where you can find full-text online (often two very different things). Here’s what you’ll find as far as abstracting and indexing (“abstracting” is just indexing with an abstract): America: History and Life (1993-) British Humanities Index (1997-) EBSCOhost + Academic Search Alumni Edition: indexed, 1998-03-01 – P12M + Academic Search Complete: indexed, 1998-03-01 – P12M + Academic Search Elite: indexed, 1998-03-01 – P12M + Academic Search Premier: indexed, 1998-03-01 – P12M + Academic Source Premier: indexed, 1998-03-01 – P12M + Advanced Placement Source: indexed, 1998-03-01 – P12M + EBSCOhost MegaFILE: indexed, 1998-03-01 – P12M + Humanities International Complete: indexed, 1998-03-01 – present + Religion and Philosophy Collection: indexed, 1998-03-01 – P12M + TOC Premier: indexed, 1998-03-01 – present F R A N C I S H.W. Wilson + Humanities Abstracts: indexed, 2004-02 – present + Humanities Full Text: indexed, 2004-02 – present + Humanities Full Text (Athens Authorization): indexed, 2004-02 – present + Humanities Index: indexed, 2004-02 – present + Wilson OmniFile Full Text Mega Edition: indexed, 2004-02 – present + Wilson OmniFile Full Text Mega Edition (Athens Authorization): indexed, 2004-02 – present + Wilson OmniFile V: Full Text Edition: indexed, 2004-02 – present + Wilson OmniFile V: Full Text Edition (Athens Authorization): indexed, 2004-02 – present Historical Abstracts (1993-) Humanities Index (Feb.2004-) Humanities International Index (Mar.1998-) Index Islamicus OCLC + Electronic Collections Online: indexed, 2000 – 2007 (volume:8;issue:1-volume:15;issue:3) Philosopher’s Index Repertoire Bibliographique de la Philosophie Swets Information Services + SwetsWise All Titles: indexed, 1997 – present (volume:5;issue:2-volume:15;issue:3) Thomson Gale (Gale Group) + Expanded Academic ASAP (with Ingenta): indexed, 2000-03-01 – present + InfoTrac OneFile (with Ingenta): indexed, 2000-03-01 – present + Ingenta: indexed, 2000-03 – present All those databases are going to index some portion (see dates next to the entries) of The British Journal for the History of Philosophy and some will probably provide some full-text access as well. Another thing to watch out for is whether the indexing is cover to cover or selective. Many specialized disciplinary databases will only selectively index articles relevant to their discipline if the journal falls outside their core journals. This journal will be most completely indexed (from volume 1, issue 1 to present) in a philosophy database. You see that there are no dates next to the entry for The Philosopher’s Index, meaning that the whole journal run in indexed. ————————————————————————————————————– Subject Guides Classics // Islamic Studies // Jewish Studies // Philosophy // Religion ————————————————————————————————————–

“Secrets of the Parthenon” on NOVA

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“NOVA is excited to partner with organizations and individuals that share our passion for scientific discovery as we spread the word about upcoming shows. On January 29, we invite you to join us for the premiere of Secrets of the Parthenon For 25 centuries, this ancient temple has been shot at, set on fire, rocked by earthquakes, looted for its sculptures, almost destroyed by explosion, and disfigured by well-meaning renovations. It has gone from temple, to church, to mosque, to munitions dump. Now, a multi-decade, multi-million-dollar restoration effort is revealing architectural subtleties that at first glance seem impossible given the techniques of the day. Join NOVA as we unravel the architectural and engineering mysteries of this celebrated structure in “Secrets of the Parthenon.” The show will premiere Tuesday, January 29 at 8pm ET/PT on most PBS stations. To confirm when it will be airing near you, check your local listings at:” –WGBH Boston Here’s an article from the database Oxford Reference Online on the Parthenon. ————————————————————————————————————– Subject Guides Classics // Islamic Studies // Jewish Studies // Philosophy // Religion ————————————————————————————————————–

“Temple University receives gifts to support interfaith dialogue and Islamic studies”

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Story in Temple Today about the Religion Department receiving funding for interfaith dialogue and Islamic studies, two very important subjects here at Temple. “The first gift, for $1.5 million, will honor two scholars by creating the Leonard and Arlene Swidler Chair of Interreligious Dialogue at Temple. Leonard Swidler has been a Temple professor since 1966 and is a leading expert in ecumenism; Arlene Swidler has taught courses in the fields of literature, women’s studies and religion at a half-dozen universities, including Temple. The second gift from Halloran, for $300,000, is a challenge grant toward raising a total of $1.5 million to create a chair in Islamic studies.” ————————————————————————————————————– Subject Guides Classics // Islamic Studies // Jewish Studies // Philosophy // Religion ————————————————————————————————————–