August 2012

Understanding Olympic design

By Jilly Traganou
After attending the “Because” event at the Wolff Olins office on July 4, I was once again reminded of the big disconnect that lies between designers and their public. Wolff Olins is the firm that designed the London 2012 brand, a multifaceted design campaign that included much more than the London 2012 logo. Readers may remember the numerous complaints that the logo generated. As my research revealed, this was caused partly due to IOC’s restrictions and the corporate unwillingness to allow for the full application of what might be seen as a “no logo” campaign.

Finding the right word

How do you choose the right word? Some just don’t fit what you’re trying to convey, either in the labor of love prose for your creative writing class, or the rogue auto-correct function on your phone. Can you shed lacerations instead of tears? How is the word barren an attack on women? How do writers such as Joshua Ferris, Francine Prose, David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith, and Simon Winchester weigh and inveigh against words?

How and why do myths arise?

It is trite to say that one’s pet subject is interdisciplinary. These days what subject isn’t? The prostate? But myth really is interdisciplinary. For there is no study of myth as myth, the way, by contrast, there is said to be the study of literature as literature or of religion as religion. Myth is studied by other disciplines, above all by sociology, anthropology, psychology, politics, philosophy, literature, and religious studies.

What’s so super about Super PACs?

By Katherine Connor Martin
Back in January we published a short glossary of the jargon of the presidential primaries. Now that the campaign has begun in earnest, here is our brief guide to some of the most perplexing vocabulary of this year’s general election. It may seem like the 2012 US presidential election has stretched on for eons, but it only officially begins with the major parties’ quadrennial nominating conventions, on August 27–30 (Republicans) and September 3–6 (Democrats). How can they be called nominating conventions if we already know who the nominees are?

The Friday before school starts

By Alice M. Hammel and Ryan M. Hourigan
While standing at the local superstore watching my children choose their colorful binders and pencils for the upcoming school year, I saw another family at the end of the aisle. Their two sons had great difficulty accessing the space because of the crowd and they were clearly over-stimulated by the sights and sounds of this tax-free weekend shopping day. One boy began crying and the other soon curled into a ball next to the packets of college-lined paper.

Unfit for the future: The urgent need for moral enhancement

By Julian Savulescu and Ingmar Persson
For the vast majority of our 150,000 years or so on the planet, we lived in small, close-knit groups, working hard with primitive tools to scratch sufficient food and shelter from the land. Sometimes we competed with other small groups for limited resources. Thanks to evolution, we are supremely well adapted to that world, not only physically, but psychologically, socially and through our moral dispositions. But this is no longer the world in which we live.

May the odds be ever in your favor, APSA 2012

On Sunday, 26 August 2012, storm clouds were gathering over political scientists in the United States. The American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting and Exhibition 2012 was due to begin on Wednesday, August 29th, but Hurricane Isaac had other plans. The #APSA2012 hashtag was blazing like District 12′s costumes as academics and exhibitors pulled out. (Oxford University Press will not be attending APSA 2012, but you can order books with the conference discount.)

(Bi)Monthly Etymology Gleanings for July-August 2012

By Anatoly Liberman
Farting and participles (not to be confused with cabbages and kings). Summer is supposed to be a dead season, but I cannot complain: many people have kindly offered their comments and sent questions. Of the topics discussed in July and August, flatulence turned out to be the greatest hit. I have nothing to add to the comments on fart. Apparently, next to the election campaign, the problem of comparable interest was breaking wind in Indo-European.

Presidential nominating conventions matter

By Kate Kenski
In recent years, the value of American presidential nominating conventions has been questioned. Unlike the unscripted days of old, the modern conventions are media events used to broadcast to the nation the merits of the parties’ presidential nominees as the country moves toward the general election campaign. Because of the convention scripting and pageantry akin to a hybrid of the Oscars and a rock concert, some media outlets don’t feel that the conventions are as news worthy as they once were — a view that is unfortunate.

Understanding ‘the body’ in fairy tales

By Scott B. Weingart and Jeana Jorgensen
Computational analysis and feminist theory generally aren’t the first things that come to mind in association with fairy tales. This unlikely pairing, however, can lead to important insights regarding how cultures understand and represent themselves. For example, by looking at how characters are described in European fairy tales, we’ve been able to show how Western culture tends to bias the younger generation, especially the men.

What would the ancient Greeks make of London 2012?

By Nigel Spivey
Overheard somewhere near London’s Green Park tube station, amid a throng of spectators for the 2012 Olympic triathlon: “What would those ancient Greeks make of this?” I had no opportunity there and then to attempt a response, but it still seems worth considering. What indeed? Triathlon, for a start, they should comprehend; an ancient Greek word (meaning ‘triple challenge’), it would seem like some fraction of the ‘Twelve Labours’ (dodekathlon) undertaken by Herakles, and the winner duly heroized.

Knowing it when we see it: ‘Madness’ and crime

By Arlie Loughnan
One of the most high profile court cases concerning ‘madness’ and crime has concluded. In a unanimous decision, the Oslo District Court in Norway has convicted Anders Behring Breivik of the murder of 77 people in the streets of central Oslo and on the island of Utøya in July 2011. Breivik’s conviction was based on a finding that he was sane at the time of the killings. He has been sentenced to 21 years in prison but it is possible that he will be detained beyond that period, under a regime of preventative detention.

The political impossibility of the Ryan-Romney budget

By Andrew J. Polsky
Pain has no political constituency. This fundamental rule of American politics (and democratic systems more generally) points up the difficulty of enacting or sustaining public policies that leave large numbers of citizens worse off. Politicians dread casting votes on legislation that will impose costs on any significant group of constituents, lest the opposition seize on the issue in the next election. Austerity policies typically spell defeat for the political party or coalition that imposes them.

The battle over homework

By Kenneth Barish
For this back-to-school season, I would like to offer some advice about one of the most frequent problems presented to me in over 30 years of clinical practice: battles over homework. I have half-jokingly told many parents that if the schools of New York State no longer required homework, our children’s education would suffer, but as a child psychologist I would be out of business.

Young Goethe

By David Constantine

By David Constantine
Goethe was born almost dead on 28 August 1749. He opened his eyes, he lived, only when the midwife rubbed his heart with wine. Perhaps that uncertain start awoke a determination in him to stay alive as long as possible. There’s a wry saying in German: Alle Menschen müssen sterben — ich auch, vielleicht (All men must die — me too, perhaps). And that’s how Goethe lived, cannily keeping out of the way of death, cramming as much life as he could into the time allowed.

The LPO, Minis, and an Olympic afterglow

By Ron Rodman

This is my last blog on the music and TV broadcasts for the 2012 Olympic games — I promise. But I just saw a new video ad that I must share. In my last blog post, I noted the remarkable feat of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), who, under the baton of Philip Sheppard, recorded the national anthems of all 205 participating nations in the Olympic games in a little under 52 hours of studio time.