Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Robert St. Amant
What does a computer scientist do? You might expect that we spend a lot of our time programming, and this sometimes happens, for some of us. When I spend a few weeks or even months building a software system, the effort can be enormously fun and satisfying. But most of the time, what I actually do is a bit different. Here’s an example from my past work, related to the idea of computational thinking.
By Robert St. Amant
It’s widely held that computer programming is the new literacy. (Disagreement can be found, even among computing professionals, but it’s not nearly as common.) It’s an effective analogy. We all agree that everyone should be literate, and we might see a natural association between writing letters for people to read and writing programs for computers to carry out.
It’s been an eventful week in Oxford spires (although I write this from the New York office which contains no spires). We had a kerfuffle over the OED and we’re gearing up for the Place of the Year extravaganza next week. So what have we learned in between?
To my knowledge, Price’s Boston address remained inconclusive until I visited Special Collections at the University of Arkansas Mullins Library this past January to find new leads for the Price biography I am co-authoring with Samantha Ege, the Lord Crewe Junior Research Fellow in Music at Lincoln College, Oxford. The recovery of this information fills a void in a life story for which “the necessary evidence to write a detailed biography,” as preeminent Price scholar Rae Linda Brown once put it, “is surprisingly scant.”
Beethoven wrote an enormous quantity of music: nine symphonies, some fifty sonatas, seven concertos, sixteen string quartets, more than a hundred songs…the list goes on and on. It is almost inevitable that certain of these works have been relatively neglected by performers and the listening public alike. Here are a few overlooked gems.
Pacifism, in its most recognisable form, is an absolute, principled condemnation of war. Military abolitionism is the view that institutions devoted to war are not justified in existing. Most pacifists are also military abolitionists. This is unsurprising. After all, if you think that going to war is always wrong, then you’ll likely think that having […]
“Entrepreneurship.” It’s such a troublesome word, partly because it’s been overused and misapplied such that it’s become a buzz-word – which is never conducive to clarity of meaning or purpose. But it’s also a difficult word to get our hands around because it has many different meanings and can play out in so many ways. So what is it about entrepreneurship that I feel is so important for us in classical music to embrace? I can remember quite clearly the moment when I began the path towards entrepreneurship: that moment when you realize you have to change the way you’ve been thinking about things and the way you’ve been approaching a problem.
This year, Russia was chosen as one of the nominees for Oxford University Press’s Place of the Year. Russia dominated the news cycle throughout the year—from investigations on their interference in the 2016 US elections to Kremlin’s interventions in Ukraine and Syria. The following excerpt from Russia: What Everyone Needs to Know provides an overview of President Vladimir Putin and his meteoric rise to power.
More than 25 years ago, it was found that human embryos of about three days old cultured in the lab, showed chromosomal abnormalities in more than half of them. Many of these abnormalities were not coming from the sperm or the egg, but occurred after the embryo has cleaved two times, obtaining four cells, or three times, reaching the eight-cell stage.
With the exception of Kid A/Amnesiac, Radiohead has reinvented itself sonically on every album since OK Computer. Saying that a new release represents a departure from their previous style is therefore paradoxical—the only possible departure would be non-departure.
The Oxford Philosophy team is excited to see you in San Francisco for the upcoming 2016 American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Meeting. We have some suggestions on sights to see during your time in California as well as our favorite sessions for the conference. We recommend visiting the following sights and attractions while in San Francisco.
Can solidarity exist? Or is it just a fantasy, a pious dream of the soft of heart and weak of brain? Gross inequality, greed and prejudice: these manifestations of selfishness which stalk our world may seem to invite our condemnation and to call for an alternative – but what if they are part of the natural order?
The Oxford Philosophy Team will be starting off the New Year in Washington D.C.! We’re excited to see you at the upcoming 2016 American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting. We have some suggestions on sights to see during your time in Washington as well as our favorite sessions for the conference.
Spanning the Atlantic from New York to Oxford, the Global Online Product Marketing team is a motley bunch with a love for all things digital. Custodians of a diverse portfolio of online offerings, they definitely know what’s what on the web. Read on for some literary and digital favourites from the team, and a glimpse into the minds of our online gurus here at Oxford University Press.
It’s that time of year again! Summer concerts are warming up and festivals are in full swing. Cities around the world are putting on some of the best shows for locals and tourists to enjoy. Check out what concerts Oxford University Press employees love attending every year. You just might stumble upon your new favorite band.
They don’t like to admit it, but a lot of politicians have a “woman problem”. The phrase has become common parlance in British politics. David Cameron is widely considered to have a “woman problem” after patronising comments such as “calm down, dear”, and a raft of austerity policies made in the absence of women that have disproportionately hurt women voters.