Janteloven
Having long been impressed by great and world-renowned Scandinavian professionals, I have only lately met a number of Scandinavians as colleagues in my academic career. When having lived and worked in...
View ArticleAvicenna’s Systematic Reviews
That great medieval polymath and philosopher Ibn Sina (d. 1037), or Avicenna as he is known in the West, might in fact be regarded as father (or inventor) of medical systematic reviews [1], nowadays...
View ArticleAn Iranian Blend
Up to the so-called Sunni Revival long after the conquest of much of the Islamic World, and foremost Iran, by the Seljuqs in the first half of the 11th century, the religious denomination of Iranians...
View ArticleStrong Beliefs
When recently reading with growing interest Patricia Crone’s latest book about The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran – Rural Revolt and Local Zoroastrianism (Cambridge University Press,...
View ArticleA Rather Grim Outlook
Tromsø University and in particular its Center of Advanced Studies in Linguistics (CASTL), which celebrates its excellence and tenth anniversary, hosts this autumn semester Noam Chomsky who gave a...
View ArticlePillar of Defense
Noam Chomsky, who had been visiting Tromsø University in September this year, managed a couple of weeks ago to enter Gaza, where he attended a linguistic conference at the Islamic University, for the...
View ArticleMaster John and Brother James
I have to admit that, after the media hype about Reza Aslan’s Jesus biography (in particular after he was interviewed by Fox News’ Lauren Green), only then I became curious of Zealot – The life and...
View ArticleCondi Caught Up By the Past
Former key figures of G.W. Bush’s administration are well advised to carefully take possible so far unatoned war crimes into account when going public. Condoleezza Rice had apparently noticed that it...
View ArticleThe Making of Norman Finkelstein
A couple of years ago, I have seen American Radical with much sympathy for Norman Finkelstein. It was after I had followed in full the fateful “debate” with Alan Dershowitz at “DemocracyNow!” about the...
View ArticleMartin Luther and Islam
Germany is celebrating 500 years of Reformation of Christianity these days. On 31 October 1517 it is said that monk Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to Wittenberg’s church calling for some change....
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