POIESIS/Philosophy Online now available
The UH Libraries now have a subscription to the POEISIS (Philosophy Online) database. It provides electronic access to many important philosophy journals and can be used both at the library and remotely from anywhere (with MyUH login). To access the database, go to the database list and click on the title.
(Electronic access to specific journals is based on the library’s current print subscriptions. If you cannot access the journal you want, please contact me at mhenry4(at)uh(dot)edu, and I’ll be happy to help you out.)
UH Philosophy Department lectures
The University of Houston Department of Philosophy is sponsoring several interesting lectures this academic year, including a talk on Monday, October 19, by William Ian Miller of the University of Michigan. The UH Libraries have several books by Prof. Miller available for checkout, including Eye for an Eye, which is also the title of his lecture.
Online programs from PBS and NPR
You can now access free online content from PBS and NPR on a website called Forum Network. The site includes many lecture series supporting public radio and TV programs such as NOVA, FRONTLINE, and even Car Talk. Unsurprisingly, topics lean toward current events and popular history, but you can find religion- and philosophy-related programs, too, especially in the area of ethics.
New databases!
The University of Houston Libraries recently acquired a sizeable collection of databases from ProQuest, including many historical newspapers, the Gerritsen Collection of women’s studies materials, and Early English Books Online. You can always check the new databases list to see what has been added, and if your interest is religious studies, you’ll be pleased to know that Acta Sanctorum and Patrologia Latina will soon appear on it.
Emerging Disciplines Symposium
Here’s an upcoming event at Rice University of possible interest to students and scholars of philosophy and religion:
The Emerging Disciplines Symposium will feature prominent scholars from across academic disciplines who are shaping important new fields of scholarly inquiry. Participants will discuss the research questions that have served as the impetus for their new approaches, the methodological strategies that their emerging field entails, intellectual opportunities and challenges requisite to the emerging field, graduate student engagement, strategies for sustaining new research models, and other related issues.
The speakers represent a broad range of interdisciplinary fields, including music and the mind, neurohistory, deep history, cultural economy, cognitive approaches to art history, digital humanities, and new approaches to Americas studies.
This one-day symposium is sponsored by the Mellon Foundation, the Council on Library and Information Resources, and Rice University’s Humanities Research Center.
The Humanities Research Center has copies of several books written by the participants. Please stop by Herring Hall 306 on the Rice Campus or call 713-348-4227 if you would like to borrow one.
The symposium will be held on Friday, September 18, and is free and open to all, no pre-registration required.
Google Scholar
If you use Google Scholar in your research, here’s a tip: set your preferences to show you what’s available through your library.
Just click on Scholar Preferences, go to the Library Links section, and search for up to three libraries to add to your profile. University of Houston and Houston Public Library are both available. Once you add a library or libraries to your preferences, your search results will include access information from those libraries. (Note that if you’re using a UH Libraries computer, the UH links show up automatically.)
Apps for the faithful
I recently participated in a library project that involved my using an iPod touch for several months. While there was no love loss between me and this gadget, I was impressed and often amused by the many apps (downloadable programs that enable you to play games, access information, or perform various tasks) that have been developed for it, so I was interested in a recent Newsweek article about apps designed for religious believers. It’s always fascinating to see how new technology can be combined with some of our oldest traditions.
Codex Sinaiticus
The Codex Sinaiticus, an ancient Greek Bible, can now be viewed online. It is brought to us by the Codex Sinaiticus Project, an ambitious attempt “to reunite the entire manuscript in digital form and make it accessible to a global audience for the first time.” The viewer takes a little time to figure out, but the quality of the reproduction is remarkable. It will be interesting to see if this and similar projects inspire new scholarship.
Patheos
Here’s an interesting new website to play around with. Patheos describes itself as “the premier online destination to engage in the global dialogue about religion and spirituality and to explore and experience the world’s beliefs.” Among its notable features are a searchable directory of religion-related locations (physical sites, not websites–although Patheos links to lots of those, too) and a “public square” page that describes different religious perspectives on topical issues.
Philosophy and religion webcasts from Rice
The Rice University IT department has an extensive webcast archive of lectures and other programs held on campus over the past several years. By searching for the keywords “religion” or “philosophy” you can find many recordings of possible interest, including lectures by such well-known figures as Diana Eck, Peter Gomes, and Mark C. Taylor.
