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Essay

On The Academic Ivory Tower

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'".

Essay

A Scholarly Love Letter

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.

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.

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?

Essay

The Year of The Scholar

Dec 18, 2025

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29 min read

The Year of The Scholar

Indulging in a future in which the practices of scholarship had been fostered under a different culture and a different set of conditions, his fiction playfully – yet definitively – set forth the kind of scholarly future we are setting ourselves up to work towards.

Essay

Scholars Pay Themselves
LockSimple

Nov 20, 2025

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23 min read

Scholars Pay Themselves

Rather than waiting around for university employment to permit them to be scholars, relying on universities as middlemen who decide how much their scholarship is worth, scholars can directly turn their expertise and skills into livelihood.

Essay

Destruction of Knowledge
LockSimple

Oct 23, 2025

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18 min read

Destruction of Knowledge

We need to publish special issues, and we need to ensure that these special issues get submissions

Essay

On Making Research Pay For Itself
LockSimple

Sep 11, 2025

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22 min read

On Making Research Pay For Itself

Governments award money (take), research is produced (make), which - unless a patent facilitates private ownership for a short time - becomes part of the scientific commons (waste).

Essay

Kidnapping Scholarship: Reckoning, Regulating, and Reimagining Plagiarism
LockSimple

Aug 28, 2025

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16 min read

Kidnapping Scholarship: Reckoning, Regulating, and Reimagining Plagiarism

“All over the country, meanwhile, students were and still are being upbraided, reprimanded, given F’s on papers, flunked in courses, and expelled from universities for doing this plagiarism thing, this indefinable thing.”

Essay

On Successful Scholarship

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

Doughnut Shaped Scholarship
LockSimple

Jul 31, 2025

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28 min read

Doughnut Shaped Scholarship

And yet, this framing of quality science has rarely been taken up in earnest, particularly in how science is evaluated or valued in broader society. The dominant understanding of “quality” science – especially in public and policy discourse – is

Essay

On Scholar-Led Knowledge Creation
LockSimple

Jul 17, 2025

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29 min read

On Scholar-Led Knowledge Creation

I wonder, will you be content to donate your labor to subsidize the salary of a Revenue Acceleration Manager?

Essay

On Not Leaving Academia, But Standing Outside It
LockSimple

Jul 3, 2025

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19 min read

On Not Leaving Academia, But Standing Outside It

They are a mode of academic conversation – a practice of exchanging ideas and reflections – but they enjoy the benefit of being unbounded by the constraints of the academic journal article.

Essay

On The Inability to Let Go of The Scholar
LockSimple

Jun 19, 2025

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23 min read

On The Inability to Let Go of The Scholar

For was it not academia that had given me the space-time to pursue my scholarly becoming? Academia had given me the opportunity to make this transformation happen.

Essay

On Breaking Up With Academia
LockSimple

Jun 5, 2025

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19 min read

On Breaking Up With Academia

One that once claimed to ‘pursue and venerate knowledge and learning as a manifestation of faith in what it means to be a human being.’

Essay

The Tech-bro-ification of Research

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?

Essay

The Tyranny Of Written Knowledge
LockSimple

May 4, 2025

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23 min read

The Tyranny Of Written Knowledge

With the ever-growing emphasis on communicating knowledge through written publications, we are increasingly experiencing a transactional relationship with knowledge: one that prioritises storage, circulation, and standardisation.

Essay

The Scholar Manifesto

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.

Essay

The Value of Useless Knowledge
LockSimple

Apr 6, 2025

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10 min read

The Value of Useless Knowledge

And trusting that curiosity will lead somewhere meaningful.

Essay

Science Has Left Earth
LockSimple

Mar 30, 2025

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11 min read

Science Has Left Earth

The sciences have taken their cue from the art of making and fabricating, but they no...

Essay

Research Like a Dog
LockSimple

Mar 16, 2025

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11 min read

Research Like a Dog

Behold, then, the work of a lifetime. First of all my inquiries into the question...

Essay

Science Has an Imagination Problem
LockSimple

Mar 2, 2025

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8 min read

Science Has an Imagination Problem

We continue to be haunted by the ghosts of scientific past.

Essay

In Science We Trust. In Crypto... We’ll See
LockSimple

Feb 16, 2025

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9 min read

In Science We Trust. In Crypto... We’ll See

Funding science with crypto? What could go wrong.

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