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Over the last decade piracy has emerged as a growing field of research covering a wide range of different phenomena, from fashion counterfeits and media piracy, through to 17th century buccaneers and present-day pirates off the coast of Somalia. In many cases piracy can be a metaphor or an analytical perspective to understand conflicts and social change. This article relates this fascination with piracy as a practice and a metaphor to academia and asks what a pirate methodology of knowledge production could be: how, in other words, researchers and educators can be understood as 'pirates' to the corporate university. Drawing on the history of maritime piracy as well as on a discussion on contemporary pirate libraries that disrupt proprietary publishing, the article explores the possibility of a pirate methodology as a way of acting as a researcher and relating to existing norms of knowledge production. The methodology of piratical scholarship involves exploiting the grey zones and loopholes of contemporary academia. It is a tactical intervention that exploits short term opportunities that arise in the machinery of academia to the strategic end of turning a limiting structure into an enabling field of opportunities. We hope that such a concept of pirate methodologies may help us reflect on how sustainable and constructive approaches to knowledge production emerge in the context of a critique of the corporate university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine the academic publishers' practice of selling access to research to the academic institutions that funded it in the first place. They discuss the direct and indirect government funding of academic research. They criticize the high cost of gaining access to research on an individual download basis. They also explore the trend of Open Access scholarly publishing and its financing.

The author reflects regarding the volume 6 of the journal "Culture Unbound." Topics discussed include founding editor Johan Fornäs, managing editor Martin Fredriksson, and associate editor Jenny Johannisson. Also mentioned the history of the journal, internal recognition for the journal, and the workshop entitled "Public Knowledge" which will be held in autumn 2014.

The article focuses on a project between Sweden and Australia titled Culturalisation and Globalisation. The project is a collaboration between the Department of Culture Studies at Linköping University (LiU) in Sweden and the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) at the University of Western Sydney (UWS). The Advanced Cultural Studies of Sweden (ACSIS) initiated the exchange programme, which ran from 2008-2012. Some of the articles resulting from the project are discussed.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the use of cultural research, the effects of new communication forms in people's living condition abroad, and the promotion of social and economic development.

The article presents the journal "Culture Unbound," volume 3, which is considered as an information resource for cultural research. The journal aims to be an active and reflecting part in the world of culture research and aspires to focus on interdisciplinary and geographic diversity of culture. Thematic sections of the journal such as 'Fashion, Market and Materiality, and Creativity Unbound: Policies and Governments and the Creative and Cultural Industries are presented.

The authors disclose the success of the publication in its first and second issues. They reflect on the positive responses and wide contributions they have received from editors. The authors acknowledge the support of the editorial board and cooperating units in furthering the service of the journal. Details related to its first and second write ups are also offered which include cultural research and surveillance.

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses an article on the usefulness of cultural research against the backdrop of culturalization, culture, and the criteria of usefulness and excellence in the academic world.

The author reflects on the research on culture. He argues that cultural research and cultural studies are fields of knowledge marked with lines of division and hostilities. An overview on the culture unbound and its point of connection which is partly inspired by the Swedish tradition of negotiation and mediation are presented. The author suggests that culture can never be completely detached but the present cultural research may distinguish and search the new boundaries and fields of cultural practices and cultural research that the process of culturalization has brought.