Open Science

Your guide to Open Access publishing and Open Science

Category: Open Science Resources
“Michel Houellebecq. Rester vivant” Exhibition, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, June 26, 2016 | © Courtesy of Jean-Pierre Dalbéra/Flickr.

Michel Houellebecq: The Exploration of Post-Modernity in Contemporary French Literature

The literary oeuvre of Michel Houellebecq, one of the more celebrated French writers, shows affinities with the philosophical discourse on postmodernism and the end of modernity. A Blog Article by Pablo Markin. According to Claire Lozier (2018: 668-669), Houellebecq’s novels, such as Platform published in 2001, have a post-modern dimension to them, as they cross the boundaries between different genres, e.g., travel writing and literary conventions, to produce works of literature with a mass market appeal. As some critics have pointed out, Houellebecq’s text break down the distinctions between rarified literary culture and the textual artifacts of everyday life, such […]

2011 ILA Honoree Nora Dauenhauer, Indigenous Leadership Award, Portland, Oregon, USA, November 2, 2011 | © Courtesy of Sam Beebe/Flickr.

The International Year of Indigenous Languages Puts a Spotlight on the Importance of their Documentation and Preservation

In celebration of the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL) declared by the United Nations (UN) for 2019, De Gruyter Mouton features in monthly free access a raft of its book titles that explore endangered indigenous languages, their documentation challenges and their grammatical features. A Blog Article by Pablo Markin. As Simona Montanari in her article on “Sammarinese, the Endangered Language of the Republic of San Marino: A Preliminary Study of Documentation and Description” in Dialectologia et Geolinguistica demonstrates, indigenous languages tend to be oral, have ancient historical roots and suffer from the consequences of modernization that promotes national languages at the expense […]

St. Athanasius, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, Italy, September 19, 2010 | © Courtesy of Lawrence OP/Flickr.

Patristic Writings, Catholic Church and Theological Concepts from the Theoretical Perspective of Cognitive Linguistics

In the 2018 volume of Open Theology, its special issue on “Cognitive Linguistics and Theology” has explored patristic writings, biblical interpretations and literary texts in light of linguistic theories. A Blog Article by Pablo Markin. In his introduction, John Sanders, who guest-edited this topical issue of Open Theology, has justified the relevance of cognitive linguistics for the discipline of theology, in terms of its contribution to the “understanding of how language works must line up with the findings about how the human mind works from a range of disciplines.” He also adds that Biblical scholars have been productively availing themselves […]

Office Desk Configuration, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, January 16, 2008 | © Courtesy of Vicky Hamilton/Flickr.

Article Review Practices of Open Access Mega-Journals Demonstrate Selectivity, Apply Widely Accepted Quality Criteria

A recent qualitative study by Spezi et al. (2018), published in Open Access in the closed-access Journal of Documentation, argues that, despite the prevalent policy of checking for manuscript academic soundness or rigour only, Open Access mega-journals employ in their article review practices more stringent criteria, such as novelty or originality, that converge with those employed by traditional journals and their peer review routines. A Blog Article by Pablo Markin. To arrive at their findings, Spezi and colleagues (2018) have conducted semi-structured interviews with 31 editorial and management representatives of 16 publishing houses comprising Open Access mega-journals and the rest. […]

Reflections at Art Science Museum, Art Science Museum, Marina Bay, Singapore, November 17, 2012 | © Courtesy of Erwin Soo/Flickr.

Open Access Promotes Scientific Discovery by Overcoming the Copyright Limitations of Conventional Publishing

In the year 2018, Open Access has experienced rising support levels in Europe and elsewhere, due to its positive impact on scientific and knowledge discovery internationally. This is starkly illustrated by its licensing terms in contrast to the public domain restrictions of copyright-protected works. A Blog Article by Pablo Markin. As European science-related institutions, such as the European Research Council, have shown their growing preference for Open Access, e.g., via the Plan S, the primary rationale for this is the positive effect on the discovery of new knowledge that various models of Open Access can be expected to have. Whereas […]

Workers in Arms, Mural, Coit Tower, Sam Francisco, CA, USA, January 6, 2009 | © Courtesy of Thomas Hawk/Flickr.

Marx and Lacan’s Perspectives on Economic Factors, Collective Consciousness and Political Developments in the United States

The article by Claudia Leeb, entitled “Mystified Consciousness: Rethinking the Rise of the Far Right with Marx and Lacan” and published in Open Cultural Studies on November 10, 2018, uses the theory of psychoanalysis to explain why white working-classes in the United States and elsewhere turned to the far right instead of forming an emancipatory proletariat to overthrow capitalism. It argues that not only economic but also psychological factors brought about the rise of the far right. In this way the article enriches the existing Marxist criticism of the fascist and neo-fascist movements with the analysis of subconscious drives that […]