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The Scholarly Letter

A weekly letter for scholars, para-academics, and curious minds who care about the integrity of thought, the future of scholarship, and the deeper meaning of intellectual work.

Written by

The Critic and The Tatler

Featured Posts

Essay

May 22, 2025

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28 min read

The Tech-bro-ification of Research

And with them, what cultural and ideological imports are we quietly welcoming into how we conduct our research, how we produce knowledge, and how we relate to knowledge itself?

The Digest

Visualising, Violating, and Humanizing Scholarship

Sep 18, 2025

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13 min read

Visualising, Violating, and Humanizing Scholarship

Three weeks ago, COPE published new guidance for how to handle retractions of published articles - highlighting just how pressing the problem is becoming.

Essay

Aug 14, 2025

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22 min read

On Successful Scholarship

“The job of the scholar is to contribute to society, and if they are not doing so, they are not successful.” And here, we will agree but with one vital amendment.

Essay

Apr 20, 2025

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21 min read

The Scholar Manifesto

We produce and discard knowledge like the way clothes get produced, consumed, and discarded in fast fashion.

Non/Critical Scholarship, Laundering Reputation, and Modest, Wise Female Scholars

Such material would have been unusual for these publications, given that only five women in the entire country would have the training and expertise to understand it at the time it was published.

Essay

Mar 5, 2026

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21 min read

On The Academic Ivory Tower

"I'm not at all afraid of the term 'ivory tower'".

The Digest

Feb 26, 2026

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14 min read

Academicus Otiosus: The Lazy Academic

The concern is not about the value of applied knowledge, which is self-evident. The risk lies in treating contributions to “how” knowledge as interchangeable with contributions to “what” knowledge.

Essay

Feb 19, 2026

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11 min read

A Scholarly Love Letter

Tick tock tick tock, we were moving on a timeline. The hands on the clock for seduction, I was told, had to be turned to the time of production.

The Digest

On Intellectual Vandalism, A-verage Students, and An Unusually Competent Scholar

Feb 12, 2026

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16 min read

On Intellectual Vandalism, A-verage Students, and An Unusually Competent Scholar

That would not only be an act of intellectual vandalism ... it would also have damaging consequences for the whole country.

Essay

Anti-University: Scholarship Before, Within, and Beyond The University

Feb 5, 2026

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22 min read

Anti-University: Scholarship Before, Within, and Beyond The University

Private universities now receive government funding, public universities prize industry partnerships, and liberal arts colleges emphasise the development of graduates capable of contributing to a nation's economic prosperity and security.

The Digest

Scholarship with Impact, Identity, and Disagreement

Jan 29, 2026

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14 min read

Scholarship with Impact, Identity, and Disagreement

One such partnership is the Raytheon–UMass Lowell Research Institute, established in 2014 to cement a multimillion-dollar collaboration between the company and the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

The Digest

Research and Scholarship: Simple, Independent, Humble

Jan 15, 2026

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12 min read

Research and Scholarship: Simple, Independent, Humble

In doing so he provides the reader with rich contextual information about how an academic of his time viewed problem-solving - a cornerstone of research - without speaking of research itself.

Essay

On Publishing At Least One Paper This Year

Jan 8, 2026

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15 min read

On Publishing At Least One Paper This Year

After all, has not our understanding of the pinnacle of academic excellence become entirely about getting single-authored journal articles in ‘top-tier’ journals?

...

Featured Posts

The Tech-bro-ification of Research

Visualising, Violating, and Humanizing Scholarship

On Successful Scholarship

The Scholar Manifesto

Archive

Non/Critical Scholarship, Laundering Reputation, and Modest, Wise Female Scholars

On The Academic Ivory Tower

Academicus Otiosus: The Lazy Academic

A Scholarly Love Letter

On Intellectual Vandalism, A-verage Students, and An Unusually Competent Scholar

Anti-University: Scholarship Before, Within, and Beyond The University

Scholarship with Impact, Identity, and Disagreement

Research and Scholarship: Simple, Independent, Humble

On Publishing At Least One Paper This Year

The Scholarly Letter

Account

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