I finally got round to reading Huo Da’s ‘The Jade King’ or, in the original Chinese version ‘Funeral of a Muslim’ (穆斯林的葬礼). A best-selling and award-winning novel in China, and based in part on the author’s own experience, it tells the story of three generations of a Muslim […]
I read two interesting books this Summer: George Makdisi’s Rise of Colleges and W. Montgomery Watt’s Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe. Both books contain authoritative accounts about how the scholastic method of inquiry, and most elements of the academic system (but not its organisational system) in the […]
Some background to my new published chapter: I have recently been developing some of the ideas around the notion of ‘Curation’ which I first began to examine in Chapter 7 of my book. During the research for the book, I found that prominent among the students’ methodologies and strategies […]
It is that time of the year when I post a brief summary of some of the non-work-related things I have been reading throughout the past year. Last year’s post is here. I find that when I log and make notes around what I read, I can look […]
Reflecting on reflection Over the past few weeks, I have found myself in the position of writing a beginning and an end to my book. Introductions and Conclusions have always been the hardest thing for me to write. They are often the only parts of a book that […]
When it comes to reformulating/revising/building or cutting up a doctoral dissertation into a more accessible book, how one handles the review of the literature is not so straightforward – so I am finding. The Literature Review chapter of a PhD serves a certain purpose. It situates your research […]
The following is a brief overview of some of the books I have read this year, and what I got from them explained simply. Some of them I have read in their entirety, and for others I engaged substantially with certain chapters only. I am providing this overview […]
