Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
This has been such a fun week with the launch of our new blog design that it is hard to believe Friday is already here. Below are some links to get you just a little bit closer to the weekend. Enjoy!
Tariq Ramadan is a very public figure, named one of Time magazine’s most important innovators of the twenty-first century, he is among the leading Islamic thinkers in the West. But he has also been a lightening rod for controversy. In his new book, What I Believe, he attempts to set the record straight, laying out the basic ideas he stands for in clear and accessible prose.
Five days a week Charles Hodgson produces Podictionary – the podcast for word lovers, Thursday episodes here at OUPblog.
Anthony Trollope’s Palliser novels offer many fascinating parallels with today’s political scene, none more so than the fifth novel in the sequence, The Prime Minister. Nicholas Shrimpton, of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, will be editing the new edition of the novel for Oxford World’s Classics (out next year). His profile of Trollope’s fictional hero, Plantagenet Palliser, finds some uncanny resemblances between fiction and reality.
The number of people in the English speaking world who distinguish in pronunciation between witch and which, wine and whine, wen and when is relatively small, and those who make this distinction do not say w-hitch, w-hine, and w-hen, but rather hwitch, hwine, and hwen. What follows is a breathtaking story of the hw-sound and the wh-spelling.
We are so excited to welcome you to the 2010 redesign of the OUPblog. A lot of thought and love has gone into creating a fresh home for our friends and authors who contribute to the site. We hope you will appreciate the ability to see more content on the homepage as well as the easy access to our video and twitter offerings.
Dr Jon Lawrence, author of Electing Our Masters, on the spirit of the hustings in this year’s general election campaign.
Edward Zigler is a developmental scientist and a pioneer and leader in the field of applied developmental psychology. He served on the committee that planned Head Start and was the federal official responsible for the program during the Nixon administration. Sally J. Styfco is a writer and social policy analyst specializing in issues pertaining to children and families. Together they wrote, The Hidden History Of Head Start, which looks at this remarkable social program that has served 25 million children and their families since it was established 44 years ago. We get an insider’s view of the program’s decades of services and an idea of what the future may hold.
Elvin Lim looks at the implications of the charges against Goldman Sachs.
Oxford University Press joins a large community of friends, colleagues, performers, and students in mourning the passing of Shirlee Emmons Baldwin, one of the most beloved and strongest voices in the education, nurturing, and career development of singers. Having been trained as a classical singer myself, it was with great pride that I “inherited” Shirlee’s three titles when I began work at the Press—Power Performance for Singers (1998), Prescriptions for Choral Excellence (with Constance Chase; 2006), and Researching the Song (with Wilbur Watkins Lewis; also 2006). Through these books and others, and in the hearts of all those she touched, Shirlee’s voice will continue to resound and enlighten.
Grace Labatt helps us travel well in 2010.
An excerpt from Social Injustice and Public Health.
What Kirsty has been reading.
An interview with R. Larry Todd author of Fanny Hensel.
Donald Ritchie looks at common misperceptions about Roosevelt and Congress.
The podictionary word of the week is “pent up”.