* A good ancient/medieval Carnivalesque is up at "Food History". The posts on Joan of Arc, on the Peasants' Revolt, and on scythes were the ones I found most interesting.
* China Mieville gives his list of reasons why Tolkien rocks; it's all the more interesting since Mieville has not hesitated to criticize Tolkien on particular points in the past. It's a very Mieville-like list, but, of course, that's in Tolkien, too, which is part of the wonder of Tolkien's accomplishment.
* Edward Feser has two posts on Aristotelianism and early modern empiricism: one on Hume and the other on empiricism generally.
* Michael Liccione argues that atheistic arguments are at root moral in character. A very interesting argument. As I note in the comments, I'm inclined to think that actually it's not morality but final causality that is the issue; but in practice, since moral reasoning is an area where everyone deals with final causes on a regular basis, this will mean that often the arguments do take on a moral tone, although they don't have to do so.
* Gina Khan has an interesting reflection on being a secular Muslim, including some brief discussion of the increasingly common phenomenon of 'reformed Islam'. It will be interesting to see how the New Ijtihad movement pans out; in essence, it is a rebirth (in new form) of the tradition of philosophical Islam, and I suspect that its future depends crucially on recognizing itself as such. Here and there (for instance, here and there in the writings of Muqtedar Khan) one finds recognition of this, but it really does seem a matter of 'here and there' to this point. Irshad Manji recently noted the publication of a new book on the subject of reformed Islam, Critical Thinkers for Islamic Reform.
* Sherry's hundred hymns list continues:
#92 On Jordan's Stormy Banks
#91 Man of Sorrows, What a Name
#90 From Depths of Woe
#89 Saviour Like a Shepherd Lead Us
#88 All Things Bright and Beautiful
#87 Lift High the Cross
#86 Fairest Lord Jesus
#85 I Surrender All
#84 All the Way My Savior Leads Me
#83 O Worship the King
#82 God of Grace and God of Glory
* A graphic novel version of James Joyce's Ulysses. (ht)
* Janet Stemwedel recently heard a very...unusual...paper at a philosophy conference.
* Kevin Edgecomb has up a translation of a Jewish lament on the Fall of Constantinople, basically a cento of prophetic passages.
