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Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World

Cultural shifts in protest groups

By Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri

Protest and counterculture in America have evolved over time. From the era of civil rights to Black Lives Matter, gatherings of initially small groups growing to become powerful voices of revolution have changed the way we define contemporary cultural movements. In this excerpt from Assembly, authors Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri examine how some minority protest groups have adapted over time to be more inclusive in their organizational models without having a sole defined leader.

To be a great student, you need to be a great student of time management

By Darren A Smith

You might be brilliant. An exceptional student. But if you can’t get your paper in on-time, revise ahead of the exam, or juggle a busy student & home life, then no-one will ever know how you brilliant you are. Time management is the skill that unlocks everything else. If you want to get more done you need to be a great student of time management because this is the key that can open every door.

Nikolai Trubetzkoy’s road to history

By Edwin Battistella

A century ago, the Russian Revolution broke out in November of 1917, followed by a bloody civil war lasting until the early 1920s. Millions of families were displaced, fleeing to Europe and Asia. One of the many emigrant stories was that of Prince Nikolai Trubetzkoy. Trubetzkoy was from a well-known aristocratic family in tsarist Russia, […]

Q&A with editors Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler

By Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler

“Jews are becoming increasingly familiar with the New Testament as a source of Jewish history.” Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler are the editors of the new second edition of The Jewish Annotated New Testament. We caught up with them to discuss and ask questions related to the editing process, biblical studies, and the status and importance of Jewish-Christian relations.

Involving kids in music: a lifelong gift

By Amy Nathan

“My status as a musician hasn’t been a large part of my public identity since the beginning of high school. I took lessons and practiced at home, and that was it. But even that yielded other, more private lessons that my flute seemed to teach me. Those lessons will stay with me for much longer,”

7 questions we should ask about children’s literature

By Philip Nel

White nationalism is on the rise in the US and nativism is in the ascendant across the globe. What role can literature for children play in teaching the next generation to be more empathetic, to respect difference, and to reject hatred?

Why do humans commit extraordinary evil?

By Guenter Lewy

The hideous deeds committed by members of ISIS raise the question why humans alone, among the species, at times engage in mass killings of their own kind. We can find help in understanding this vexing issue by looking at the men who organized and carried out the Nazis’ attempted destruction of the Jewish people known as the Holocaust.

Three top tips for writing sociology essays

By Andrew Balmer and Anne Murcott

Give the reader a guide to your argument. Much as you would give someone directions in how to get to where they’re going, tell your reader what steps you will take, what the key turning points will be, why it is important to take this route and, ultimately, where you will end up. In other words, tell your reader exactly what you will conclude and why, right at the beginning.

Singing resistance on the border

By Derek Xavier García

At an early age, Américo Paredes was preoccupied with the inexorable passing of time, which would leave an imprint in his academic career. Devoting his academic career to preserving and displaying Mexican-American traditions through thorough analysis and recording of folk-songs, it is clear that Paredes kept his focus on beating back the forces of time and amnesia. Indeed, Paredes’ lessons are still very much relevant today.

The trouble with elite cities

By Alessandro Busa

The transformation of the city into a pricey commodity for sale is one of the most profitable ventures in the current phase of capitalism. This is why private players and local governments are eager to invest monumental resources in the production and promotion of this ever more sophisticated, ever more seductive money-making machine: the city.

Challenging ageism through burlesque performance [video]

By Kaitlyn Regehr and Matilda Temperly

Five years ago, Kaitlyn Regehr and Matilda Temperley, documentarian and photographer respectively, set off for Las Vegas to interview members of the League of Exotic Dancers. At the Burlesque Hall of Fame, these legends—thriving sixty years past the supposed prime of burlesque—have created a community in “Old Vegas” where they continue to perform half-century-old routines.

Silas Marner, Threads, and Weaving [an excerpt]

By Juliette Atkinson

Repetition and storytelling are bound in the novel’s representation of weaving, a theme that exemplifies the manner in which Silas Marner deftly moves between fable and realism. Classical mythology and fairy tales are crowded with weavers. Silas’s insect-like activity (he is reduced ‘to the unquestioning activity of a spinning insect’ and ‘seemed to weave, like the spider, from pure impulse, without reflection’ (p. 14)) calls to mind the myth of Arachne, who boldly challenged a goddess to a weaving contest.

The morality of genocide

By Herman T. Salton

Among the thousands of pictures displayed in that monument to human depravity which is the Tuol Sleng Centre outside Phnom Penh —now part of Cambodia’s “dark tourism” circuit—, one stands out. It is the picture of a middle-aged man, eyes wide open, his identity reduced to a plastic sign bearing the inmate number “404” pinned to his collar. The image is conspicuous not because of any sign of violence—unlike other images at the former school turned-into-torture-centre, and then museum—but because of the man’s facial expression.

The traps of social media: to ‘like’ or not to ‘like’

By Gill Grassie

A recent Swiss case reported in the media has raised the spectre of criminal liability and/or defamation for merely ‘liking’ a 3rd party post on Facebook. Whilst this may have been the first time that this specific issue has come up in court it may not be the last! We are all already very aware of the trouble that can result from indulging in posts and tweets on line which may cause offence but until now merely ‘liking’ a post has not, to the author’s knowledge, given rise to any liability.

Healthcare during Harvey

By Kevin Schwechten

As an emergency room doctor, I was boots on the ground! I work at several companies and have several different hospitals I go to, Houston and Beaumont. Just after the storm hit Beaumont, record floods swamped the area. And I drove in to work. Through two feet of water. But after arrival, I manned my post and an extraordinary thing happened. Most of us in my neighborhood are pilots with small planes and it’s a great life.

William Dean Howells and the Gilded Age [excerpt]

By Richard White

Through his writing, novelist and critic William Dean Howells captured the political and social aftermath of the Civil War. Given his limited involvement in politics, Howells’ works focused on the lives of common people over the uncommon, whom he deemed “essentially unattractive and uninteresting.” In the following excerpt from The Republic For Which It Stands, […]

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