I'm pleased to announce that Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon today launched into its second issue. If you visit the journal at present, you may think that the issue is very small -- and you'd be correct. The journal has now moved to a rolling format, however. Articles will be added as and when they pass peer-review, copy-editing, typesetting and proofreading, rather than waiting until a whole batch have all been through this process.

'Thomas Pynchon & the Dark Passages of History', Textual Practice, 26, 5, pp. 973-978 A review of David Cowart's Thomas Pynchon & the Dark Passages of History and Simon de Bourcier's Pynchon and Relativity . You can read the piece over at Textual Practice or you can view a preprint. Publication: 'Thomas Pynchon &

Today, the Guardian published the following 140-character short story by Jeffrey Archer. This evening, I have sent the following to the Guardian books editor. I would like to note that Jeffrey Archer, although a convicted perjurer, is also a litigious being.

Let me start by stating upfront how much I wanted to dislike this book. I caution students against biographical readings all the time. The author on whom I've done most of my research work, Thomas Pynchon, deliberately obfuscates attempts to read in this way through extreme privacy. I didn't like Max's style from the off (the dropping of the preposition after the verb "write" in its epistolary sense is an Americanism that I still can't forgive).

There is a proud tradition in many fields of the humanities of critical thinking. Linked to the Enlightenment Humanist tradition, this critique achieves its positivity (better citizens, better societies) through negation: we criticize and think critically because only in negating those wrong aspects of the world can we hope to put things aright.

Pleased to say that I'll be speaking at Westminster University on Wednesday 28 November, 4.00pm – 5.15pm in Wells Street, room 106. If you'd like to attend, please email Christopher Daley. The paper is entitled "'Opening children's eyes': Overloaded Forms and the Didactic Function". Please also see the programme for the rest of the series.

[View the story "Weird Council: #mieville2012" on Storify] Weird Council: #mieville2012 Storified by Martin Eve · Sun, Sep 16 2012 02:22:19 @thecityhermit Not true! (that's my own monograph). Edited collection on China Mieville will come out in 2013 #mieville2012Caroline Edwards Attempting to Storify all tweets from #mieville2012. Page keeps crashing!

The predominant intellectual trend of the past 200 years (or longer, actually) has been to relativize and historicize. Although it's possible to read this in a contradictory sense (historicizing is an anti-relativising move), these are also two sides of the same coin. In each case, the mask of universality is removed and that which seemed transcendental is shown as local and contingent; Marx, Freud, Einstein.

Yesterday, the 10th September 2012, I passed my Ph.D. Viva, straight-out, no corrections. It was an amazing experience. I'd been incredibly nervous for the preceding two weeks; lack of sleep, tension headaches and the rest. As the day approached this only got worse.

in my Ph.D. viva. By the time you read this, I will be... was originally published by Martin Paul Eve at Martin Paul Eve on September 10, 2012.

As is now common knowledge, the Finch report has recommended the Gold Open Access route and the government policy implementation has followed the advice that all publications from RCUK must be published in Open Access destinations (or in Institutional Repositories after a short embargo period). This includes the AHRC . It's important to ask, then: where are the OA venues for the humanities disciplines?