Let’s Talk about Archives. Archival Gordian Knot in the Soviet Ukrainian-Polish Scholarly Collaboration (the 1950s-1960s)

The article explores an unknown aspect of Soviet Ukrainian-Polish scholarly rela-tions: the collaboration between historians on issues pertaining to archives during the Thaw (1950s-1960s). At the core of this academic collaboration was the desire of Polish scholars to access the former Polish archives, the main bone of contention be-tween the PRL and the USSR. In this paper, I will reveal the mechanism of the Krem-lin’s control over the archives, as well as the politics of access to them by Poles, which provoked multiple crises at the highest levels. The Soviet politics of scholarship, and particularly of the most ideologized social science, history, differed from that of other countries and other forms of state politics in its tight control and censorship. However, despite the tight control and numerous obstacles, Soviet authorities failed to impose their rules on Polish scholars. Ukrainian historians played an important role as they could procure the necessary archival inventories and provide their Polish colleagues with access to the archives. The foregoing produced results quite opposite to Mos-cow’s expectations, fostering the creation of an informal collaborative network.

The Fish Model: When Do Researchers Collaborate Online?

The questions of whether and how doctoral students are motivated for enhanced research collaboration deserve thorough consideration. Even though collaboration in general and its mediated forms, such as computer-supported cooperative work and collaborative learning (CSCW and CSCL), are prominent research topics, only a little is known about the methods necessary to design various activities to support research collaboration. With the upcoming generation of tools such as Mendeley, Conference Chair, ResearchGate, or Communote, scholars suspect that web 2.0 services play a decisive role in enabling and enhancing research collaboration. However, there is almost no data available on the extent to which researchers adopt these technologies, and how they do so. Therefore, the authors first present an overview of the current usage of web 2.0 among doctoral researchers in their daily academic routines, based on a survey (n = 140) conducted in the German Federal State of Saxony. It confirms a wide and often specified usage of web 2.0 services for research collaboration. For theoretical analysis, the authors propose a conceptual framework that reflects the requirements of scientific participation and scholarly collaboration within an average international doctoral programme adopting current digital technologies. The aim of this framework is to understand, support, and enhance research collaboration among doctoral researchers. Our fish model highlights the mutual relationship between the following dichotomous factors: (a) tasks/time factors; (b) beliefs/activities; (c) support/context; and (d) incentives/ethical issues. Our results indicate a significant relationship in terms of research collaboration. This relationship has particularly been identified between two dichotomous factors: beliefs/activities and incentives/ethics.

Increasing student involvement in research: a collaborative approach between faculty and students

Baccalaureate nursing curriculum generally include a research or evidence-based practice course, but students may have little opportunity for specific application of the research process during their nursing education. Using Modeling and Role-modeling as a theoretical framework, a scholarly collaboration between faculty and student was developed to promote a unique and engaging undergraduate research endeavor. Faculty researchers developed an exploratory community-based research study to survey the local population about the immediate and lingering physical, financial, psychological, and emotional effects of Hurricane Harvey on the community. The project allowed students to gain invaluable knowledge about the research process, time management techniques, application of theory to the practice setting, community health assessment, collaboration among team members, and achieve student learning outcomes. Student participation in this research project provided necessary collaboration and leadership experiences that will benefit students during school and in their professional practice.

Acknowledgements

The quality of our Journal depends on scholarly collaboration between the two groups of scholars, the authors and the anonymous peer-reviewers of their work. We thank both groups for their interest in and support of our Journal. We are especially grateful to the peer-reviewers listed below, who reviewed submissions to the current issue (Volume 4 Issue 2), for their time and commitment to excellent scholarship.

Nature as a Motif in Arabic Andalusian Poetry and English Romanticism

This paper examines some tenets in the Andalusian and Romantic poetry and shows how poets such as Ibrahim Ibn Khafāja (1058-1138) and William Wordsworth (1770 –1850) used nature as a motif in their poetry. Relying on a historical approach, this paper links smaller features such as themes and literary devices in the Andalusian and Romantic poetry with larger features, including genre, traditions, and cultural system. I argue that the emphasis on both the larger and smaller features of poetry creates what Franco Moretti calls “distant reading.” Comparing and contrasting Ibn Khafāja’s “the Mountain” and Wordsworth’s “the Daffodils,” for instance, introduces nature as a recurrent theme in both Andalusian and Romantic literary traditions, reinforcing Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s description of poetry as a common possession of humanity” (Goethe 229). In addition to that, comparing the images and themes in both the Andalusian and Romantic poetry not only shows internally linked meanings, but it creates what Cesar Domínguez, et al, call “a space for polyglottism, multidisciplinarity, scholarly collaboration” (75). Reading these works and movements closely and distantly serves as a cross-cultural dialogue between the Arabic and English poetic conventions. While Ibn Khafāja and Wordsworth lived in different places and times, wrote in different languages, and did not have the same socio-political circumstances, their poems show the richness and multiplicity of the historical experience of world literature.

Realist avenues to global International Relations

Realism has long been criticized by global IR, but the former can contribute to the latter and thereby improve explanations of international relations. Global IR criticizes that realism supposedly applies universally, sidelines non-Western perspectives, and misunderstands much of foreign policy, grand strategy, and international affairs. Reviewing global IR’s case against realism, however, exposes avenues for realism to complement global IR. Realism can contribute to a more global understanding of international relations through its most recent variant: neoclassical realism (NCR). This newest realism allows for contextualization and historicization of drivers of state behavior. It can embrace and has already been engaging global questions and cases; global thought and concepts; and global perspectives and scholarship. Mapping 149 NCR publications produced by 96 scholars reveals a slow shift in knowledge production away from North America toward Europe and to a lesser extent Asia and Africa. Creative research designs and scholarly collaboration can put realism in fruitful conversation with global IR. This has implications for theory building and inclusive knowledge production in realism, global IR, and the wider discipline. Only when we discover new avenues for realists to travel can they contribute to a more global IR. In turn, when global IR scholars engage realism, they may be better able to address the Western versus non-Western dichotomies they challenge.