More advice from Savage Minds to grad school applicants…

(More) advice on graduate school applications

from Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology — A Group Blog by Rex

Deadlines for graduate school applications are coming up again. Last year I wrote some quick pointers on applying to graduate school but since then I’ve developed my boiler-plate for our school even more as additional requests for information have entered my mailbox. So here is the latest iteration of my advices for applying to graduate school. Although it is written for where I teach, most of what I say is applicable to anywhere. Good luck!

Not Just Drones: Militants Can Snoop on Most U.S. Warplanes

from Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin

Yesterday, news broke that insurgents used a $25 application available online to hack into US military drone video feeds, and view, copy, and potentially distribute their contents. Hmmmm… Unauthorized copying of audio and video material? Some on Twitter have suggested that we might just send the MPAA or RIAA after them — then, for sure we’ll at last find Bin Laden. But Wired Danger Room’s Noah Shachtman says,

Herbert Brandl at Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman

from Contemporary Art Daily by Forrest

Artist: Herbert Brandl

Venue: Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Innsbruck

Exhibition Title: Spektrolith

Date: November 14, 2009 – January 29, 2010

Special Issue on Michel Foucault by Theory, Culture and Society Journal

You need to have subscription to this great journal to read the articles but I am sure all major university libraries are subscribed to. At the end there is also roundup on art/intellectual/academic links…

[update: all articles downloadable here]

Introduction: Thinking after Michel Foucault

Couze Venn and Tiziana Terranova

Theory Culture Society 2009;26 1-11
http://tcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/6/1

Alternatives to the Prison: Dissemination or Decline of Social Control?

Michel Foucault

Theory Culture Society 2009;26 12-24
http://tcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/6/12

Foucault’s Untimely Struggle: Toward a Form of Spirituality

Paul Rabinow

Theory Culture Society 2009;26 25-44
http://tcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/6/25

Identity, Nature, Life: Three Biopolitical Deconstructions

Judith Revel

Theory Culture Society 2009;26 45-54
http://tcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/6/45

“Wim Wenders closing speech – I’m talking about us, Europeans!

And now there’s a T-shirt to prove it. Hiney shirts at CafePress

Founs in H1N1: It’s Pronounced “Hiney”

Wim Wenders closing speech – I’m talking about us, Europeans!

from LabforCulture Blog

Closing speech by Wim Wenders, President of the European Film Academy, during the European Culture Forum.

The speech was read out by EFA director Ms Döring, and is available for download as a PDF on the European Commission website.

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A few months ago, the European Film Academy organised a think tank dedicated to “THE IMAGE OF EUROPE”.

 

The think tank took place under the patronage of the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, who actually joined us on that occasion and took a very active and very outspoken part in it.

and Erkan’s rounup of interesting things from the web:

17th Annual EU – Turkey Conference of Journalists at Bilgi U.

We cordially invite you to a panel discussion on the future of EU-Turkey relations.

Within the scope of the 17^th Annual EU – Turkey Conference of Journalists, a panel discussion on the future of EU-Turkey relations will take place at İstanbul Bilgi University’s santralistanbul Campus. Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bağış, the Head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Turkey Ambassador Marc Pierini and a group of journalists will participate in the panel where current developments in the EU-Turkey relations will be discussed. The panel will be opened by Prof. Dr. Halil Güven, Rector of İstanbul Bilgi University and moderated by Prof. Ayhan Kaya, Director of BİLGİ’s European Institute.

The journalists invited to the panel include (in alphabetical order): Mehmet Altan (Star-tbc), Murat Belge (Taraf), Florence Biedermann (AFP, France), Abdülhamit Bilici (Zaman / Cihan News Agency),   Mehmet Ali Birand (Posta / Milliyet/ HDN / Kanal D), Cansu Çamlıbel (Hürriyet), Evangelos Demiris (Athens News Agency, Greece), Konstanty Gebert (Gazeta Wyborcza,  Poland), Rolf Gustavsson (Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden), Emil Hurezeanu (Realitatea-Catavencu, Romania), John Peet (The Economist, UK), Leyla Tavşanoğlu (Cumhuriyet-tbc), Michael Thumann (Die Zeit, Germany).

Two universities, two perspectives

Two promotional video spreading in the web, mostly in Facebook. The first one is about Bilgi University, particularly Visual Communication Design program. The second one promotes the library at Koç University. The latter is hosted at the library site and a kitsch product officially owned. The former is a viral one, not officially hosted or acknowledged. It looks like kitsch but offers a very powerful dialogue with prospective students. (By the way it is not a student product, though it looks like that). Unfortunately they are both in Turkish…

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Bilgi U.“, posted with vodpod

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Kütüphane Şarkısı – Video – Alkışlarl…“, posted with vodpod

Burqas and anthropologists

France asks anthropologist for advice on burqa-ban

by Lorenz

France banned burqas in public schools in 2004. Now, a parliamentary commission is investigating a possible ban on burqas in public places and anthropology professor John Bowen was asked to testify on this matter, Student Life and New York Times report.

And older round of anthro news and unrelated images from the web:

Darwin ban is a shame!

Check out the related material below and more… 

Tips from Savage Minds for graduate study applications

Rex from Savage Minds provides tips for applying anthro programs but i guess they are relevant for any social science programs… 

Getting into graduate school in anthropology: What we/I look for in applicants

By Rex on How To

I am serving on the admissions committee of my department again this year, and as usual we are in a position to admit at maximum 20% of the total applicants we receive. I don’t want to reveal the confidential deliberations of the committee, but it has gotten me thinking a lot about how to apply for graduate school, what I look for in an application and how people should prepare theirs. What people look for varies from place to place, and different people will have different priorities than I do, but I offer this to help orient people to an application process that is often confusing and opaque to people who go through it. What, then, do I look for when we admit people to graduate school?………

Bologna Process at Bilgi

What do we do in the campus now?

It is the semester break for students but we work on several bureacratic tasks. I change readings every semester so now i have to work on two syllabi for the courses I will be lecturing in the Spring semester. The classes will begin on 16 Feb. But next course registrations begin, which is a very busy week.

However, we all also work on the Bologna Process adaptation. It is officially announced. Higher Education Council expects a fast adaptation in all Turkish universities. Our syllabi and academic programs have to be in accordance with the Process: 

Acc. to wikipedia: 

The purpose of the Bologna process (or Bologna accords) is to create the European higher education area by making academic degree standards and quality assurance standards more comparable and compatible throughout Europe, in particular under the Lisbon Recognition Convention. It is named after the place it was proposed, the University of Bologna in the Italian city of Bologna, with the signing in 1999 of the Bologna declaration by Ministers of Education from 29 European countries. This was opened up to other countries signatory to the European Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe; further governmental meetings have been held in Prague (2001), Berlin (2003), Bergen (2005) and London in Spring 2007.

……….

With the Bologna process implementation, higher education systems in European countries are to be organized in such a way that:

• it is easy to move from one country to the other (within the European Higher Education Area) – for the purpose of further study or employment;
• the attractiveness of European higher education is increased so many people from non-European countries also come to study and/or work in Europe;
• the European Higher Education Area provides Europe with a broad, high quality and advanced knowledge base, and ensures the further development of Europe as a stable, peaceful and tolerant community benefiting from a cutting edge European Research Area;
• there will also be a greater convergence between the U.S. and Europe as European higher education adopts aspects of the American system.

 

Our system is already based on Western university structures.  However, it is hard to talk of a single European academic structure while American system is quite standardized. Ours is somewhere in between. I do not believe in the short run Bologna process will bring a leap for the European academia but in the long right, it will certainly help… In the mean time, we will have to figure out how to be more "student oriented" according to this logic.

Toby Miller on Trends and Issues in Cultural Studies

Wolf Vostell, Coca-Cola, 1961 FOUND IN LACMA Features First U.S. Exhibition to Examine Art Developed During the Cold War