Woohoo, free scholar access to African digital library!

February 22nd, 2008 • chatter

I was checking some stuff on JSTOR tonight for my mid term that I’ll be writing this weekend only to find out something pretty awesome: they’re offering free access to Aluka until late March! That’s pretty sweet unfettered access to an entire library dedicated to Africa. This comes at a good time since I’m basing part of my ANT4930 mid term on Moroccan Islam (mostly because I still have my library books from my last paper about Moroccan Islam). And now that my girlfriend isn’t leaving town for the weekend, I’ve got to make sure that I actually set aside time to get this thing done. I just wish my professor would answer my email so I can get this thing rolling and get it over with already!

I’ve majorly slacked on most of my feeds this week but didn’t pass up this nice insight from Gideon about new atheists and their age old rhetoric. As an academic non-theist, I like the point he’s making. All the hub bub people like Dawkins or Hitchens make, they’re beating a dead horse. A very dead horse. Many young atheists clamor to these guys as if they’re saying something new but really, people have been saying it for centuries but now it’s new again. I’m sure some atheists that’ll read this will wonder how I can say I’m an atheist, which I never do, and then decry all the new atheist punters. They’ll say something new and groundbreaking right around the same time that Christianity does or Islam does, which is to say more than likely never. While I wholly agree with what Dawkins or anyone else says about religion, I’m not out there solely to drum up controversy or pound the pavement against religionists like they seem to be. I caught some flak a few months ago for saying Muslims should be respected — especially the radical fundie ones — while saying I’m non-theistic and it’s some how the antithesis of atheism to respect religious people. I must not have gotten the memo from the non-believers HQ on that one. It’s easy to be respectful to believers and non-believers alike, they’re people just like you and me. I just some people just don’t see it that way. I guess being a non-believer in the religious studies kind of puts on you on the fringe of a number of social orders since it’s easy to give the incorrect perception of your position.

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