Arnab Chakladar (Carleton): Language, Nation and the Question of Indian Literature. From Outlook, special issues on sex in India and on aromas in India. Shikha Dalmia on the tragic truth about India's caste system: Untouchables cling to it because they have few other choices. Siddhartha Deb on how India's elite is blinded by a cultish belief in progress. A review of Talking Back: The Idea of Civilization in the Indian Nationalist Discourse by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya. What next for Nagaland? After more than 60 years of bloodshed, recent moves suggest that the Nagas are inching towards a possible breakthrough. Fifty years after the liberation of Goa from Portuguese rule, the loss of regional identity and culture figures repeatedly in its introspection. The victims of the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat are still to get justice but are determined to continue the fight. From Tehelka, the 14th century cathedral in Paris has been in the safe hands of Joachim Irudayanathan for seven years; Adeline Bertin meets the Indian who holds the keys to Notre Dame; and no #@&%? Please, we’re Indian. Such a fall: Mumbai University, once an iconic institution, has lost its way.

A new issue of Strategic Studies Quarterly is out. From Peace, all his life Gene Sharp has studied ways of fighting effectively without violence — now that he is regarded, at 83, as the brains behind the Arab Spring, people are taking his strategies seriously (and more). Mission from God: Josh Kron on the upstart Christian sect driving Invisible Children and changing Africa. From Foreign Policy, a look at the top 10 trends in global freedom. The return of sovereignty: Michael Ignatieff reviews Sovereign Equality and Moral Disagreement by Brad R. Roth. From Vice, Swedish feminists are so bored they’re telling men how to sit on the bus; and should being a racist dick on the Internet be illegal? A review of Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe by Jean-Laurent Rosenthal and R. Bin Wong. A review of Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600-1850 by Prasannan Parthasarathi. The living word: Peter Ludlow on how the meanings of the words we use are constantly changing, even as we speak. Conor Friedersdorf on why Tom Friedman is America's perfect centrist pundit.

Peter Tiersma (Loyola) and Lawrence M. Solan (Brooklyn): The Language of Crime. From the International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory, Kristine Levan (Plymouth State), Katherine Polzer (TCU), and Steven Downing (UOIT): Media and Prison Sexual Assault: How We Got to the “Don’t Drop the Soap” Culture. From In-Spire, Stephen Riley (Sheffield Hallam): Hegel and the Normative Foundations of Criminal Justice. From Tikkun, a series of articles on restorative justice, including Mikhail Lyubansky on how super is Superhero Justice? From The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik on the scandal of America’s teeming prisons. From Governing, how game theory is reinventing crime fighting: Elected officials across the nation from both political parties have begun to examine ways to replace a tough corrections policy with a smart one. A review of The Collapse of American Criminal Justice by William Stuntz. The Gray Box: An investigative look at solitary confinement. The end of the for-profit prison era? A nationwide campaign to stem investments in private corrections companies is gathering steam.

Donna L Akers (Nebraska): Decolonizing the Master Narrative: Treaties and Other American Myths. Gambling on nation-building: Tribes are at last becoming sovereign in more than theory, with mixed results. Jefferson’s Women: Sexual enlightenment and racism in the life of a secular hero. Contrary to popular opinion, publicly-funded assistance for the poor has been practiced in America from colonial days. Philippe Fournier (Montreal): Welfare and Foreign Aid Practices in the Contemporary United States: A Governmental Study. Gordon Wood reviews Law in American History, Volume I: From the Colonial Years Through the Civil War by G. Edward White. A review of The Evolution of a Nation: How Geography and Law Shaped the American States by Daniel Berkowitz and Karen B. Clay. American inheritance, Harvard pulpit: Douglass Shand-Tucci on Boston Brahmin liberalism. From History Now, a special issue on American Reform Movements. From Cardus, a review of Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting by W. Scott Poole.

A new issue of Disability Studies Quarterly is out. Sabine Weber (Dusseldorf): Corporate Participation in the Democratic Process in the United States and Germany. From The Philosopher’s Stone, Philip Green on religious freedom (and part 2). From Slate, Will Saletan and Ross Douthat discuss Douthat’s new book on faith in American society, Bad Religion. From dictatorship to democracy: A look at the role ex-Nazis played in early West Germany. Turned off from politics? That’s exactly what the politicians want. From Wired, Bruce Sterling on the New Aesthetic. What do debutante balls, the Japanese tea ceremony, Ponzi schemes and doubting clergy all have in common? Daniel Dennett on the social cell. Indignadas and Indignados of the World, Unite: Eric Toussaint on the international context of global outrage (in 5 parts). What do social movements accomplish and how? Humanizing the social sciences: A review of Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist: How to Explain the World Without Becoming a Bore by Peter L. Berger. It’s been one of the enduring mysteries of the massive 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico: Where did all the goop go?

Steven Fink (Wisconsin): For the Best of All Listeners: American Islamic Hip Hop as Reminder. From the International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanity Studies, Sirin Akbulut Demirci (Uludag): Franz Liszt in Ottoman Empire. From Mythological Studies Journal, Kathleen Asbo (SSU): The Lyre and the Drum: Dionysus and Apollo Throughout Music History. A review of Making Noise: From Babel to the Big Bang and Beyond by Hillel Schwartz. The first chapter from Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music by Jennifer C. Lena. Contemporary Christian music is more than "ear candy," worship leaders say. Orchestras (and audiences) get more Asian-American every year — will it be enough? Rock, pop, white power: How music influences support for ethnic groups. The Radical Reggae Moment: A review of The Natural Mystics: Marley, Tosh, and Wailer by Colin Grant. What riot? Alessandro G. Moliterno on punk rock politics, fascism, and Rock Against Racism. A look at why violins cost more than other instruments. A study finds violinists can’t tell the difference between Stradivarius violins and new ones.

Ori J. Herstein (Cornell): Defending the Right to Do Wrong. Francesco Orsi (Tartu): Sidgwick and the Morality of Purity. Ezio Di Nucci (Duisburg-Essen): Self-Sacrifice and the Trolley Problem. From Emergent Australasian Philosophers, Michael Lopresto (Adelaide): The Ethics of Belief; and Samuel Green (Monash): Morality is not Good. Michael Ruse on a Darwinian approach to moral philosophy. From The Philosopher, a review of The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life. A review of of A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living by Luc Ferry. From The Philosophers' Magazine, a review of The Ethical Project by Philip Kitcher; a review of Ethics for a Broken World: Imagining Philosophy after Catastrophe by Tim Mulgan; and a mountain worth climbing? Adam Ferner on what the critics say about On What Matters by Derek Parfit. A review of Ethics and Public Policy: A Philosophical Inquiry by Jonathan Wolff. Mark Vernon on Alasdair MacIntyre and the return of virtue ethics. An interview with NYU’s Japa Pallikkathayil on morality and politics. If nature doesn’t give any morally satisfying answer to the question “what is the purpose, function, or end of a human life?” does that mean that only tradition can do so?

A new issue of the New School Economic Review is out. A review of Power, Inc: The Epic Rivalry Between Big Business and Government — and the Reckoning That Lies Ahead by David Rothkopf. From Foreign Policy, supercitizens and semistates: David Rothkopf on the global elites that really run the world (and more). 5-star hotels in 1-star countries: Enjoy your stay at the Serena Hotels, where plush lodgings meet deadly warzones. From Transcript, a special issue on Malta. Non-Monogamy: A surprising perspective from a Muslim matchmaking service. A review of The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics by Thomas Edsall (and more). Simon Blackburn reviews Beyond Human Nature: How Culture and Experience Shape Our Lives by Jesse Prinz. From Governing, when teams leave, what do you do with the stadium? Hemispheric Strangers: Despite many similarities between Canada and Brazil, their relationship has a long way to go. Outlook meets a few eunuchs who have tried to assimilate and lead normal lives despite being perceived as “anomalous”.

David L Eng (Penn), Teemu Ruskola (Emory) and Shuang Shen (Penn State): China and the Human. From the Journal of Democracy, Larry Diamond (Stanford): China and East Asian Democracy: The Coming Wave; and Yun-han Chu (NTU): China and East Asian Democracy: The Taiwan Factor. The Chinese state at work: Christopher Kutarna on the One-Child Policy in restrospect. How does China enforce its One-Baby Policy? For Twin Cities-based Chinese artist Meng Tang, the personal is political. China’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo asks what a TV miniseries can teach us about the direction of the new China. Is China still a developing country? From LRB, Perry Anderson reviews books on China. David Warsh on translating the Chinese experience: It’s time to sort through the steadily accumulating shelf of books. Richard Wolin on a recent trip to China: “This place is more American than America”. From Migration Information Source, a special issue on migration in the modern Chinese world. Atlas Obscura visits Hong Kong cage homes: Appalling and degrading form of low-income housing in one of Asia's richest cities. What's in a surname? New study explores what the evolution of names reveals about China.

From Symmetry, a look at ten things you may not know about the Higgs boson. What happened before the Big Bang? Ross Andersen on the new philosophy of cosmology. Cosmologists try to explain a universe springing from nothing. Fields apart: A review of The Infinity Puzzle: Physics on the Fringe by Margaret Wertheim (and more). Bryan Gaensler takes a whirlwind tour of the fastest objects in the universe. Physics has taught us to be very cautious about our naive certainties (“that’s the way it is!”), everyday intuitions (“it must be that way!”), and commonsensical rejections (“that’s impossible!”), so when physicists come up with incredible results, what should we believe? From planets to universes: A lecture given by Martin Rees at Stephen Hawking's 70th birthday symposium (and part 2). Philip Plait on a superbly informative beginner’s guide to the galaxy. How do you show everything that has ever happened? A visualisation from the Chronozoom project takes the biggest of big data — the universe itself — and makes it manageable. A box of universe: Watch the cosmos evolve in a cube one billion light-years wide.