Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Arthur P. Shimamura
As a child, I encountered the Man of Steel in the Adventures of Superman, the 1950s TV series that I watched as morning reruns a decade later. My Superman was “faster than a speeding bullet” and fought for “truth, justice and the American way.” My 26-year-old son, Thomas, encountered a similarly invincible superhero in Superman: The Movie, the 1978 blockbuster which starred Christopher Reeve.
By Benjamin Soskis
The Civil War anthem “Battle Hymn of the Republic” had long been a favorite of Robert Kennedy’s, but it did not become closely associated with the man—and the hopes many Americans had invested in him—until his death. In planning the requiem high mass held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York the Sunday after his assassination forty five years ago, on 8 June 1968, Ethel Kennedy insisted on deviating from the traditional liturgy and concluding the service with the hymn.
In 479 BCE, ancient city-state rivals, the Spartans and Athenians, joined in alliance against Persia, 50 years before the infamous Peloponnesian War. Together, they took the Oath of Plataea, revealing deep-seated anxieties about how the defeat would be remembered in history… and to whom the credit would fall.
How did the “textbook” Senate of the 1950s — one of compromise and where people worked together to solve the problems America faced — transform into our current one of gridlock, lack of compromise, and partisan warfare? Sean Theriault, author of The Gingrich Senators: The Roots of Partisan Warfare in Congress, traces the roots of this transformation back to one group of senators, who started in the House of Representatives after 1978, which is when Gingrich joined.
For centuries, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World have captivated scholars as some of the most magnificent – and last remaining – representations of classical antiquity. Of those seven, the Hanging Garden of Babylon has particularly intrigued scholars, due in large part to the ambiguity surrounding its physical construction, geographical location, and enduring architectural legacy.
By Daniel Parker
It’s time to dust off your racket and wrestle the tennis balls from your dog’s mouth. Wimbledon 2013 is upon us! Using Oxford Scholarly Editions Online (OSEO) as my experienced, disciplined, but approachable coach, I cast a hawk-eye over OSEO’s collection of Shakespeare texts to look for references to tennis.
By J.M. Roberts and O.A. Westad
Serbia did well in the ‘Balkan Wars’ of 1912–13, in which the young Balkan nations first despoiled the Ottoman empire of most that was left of its European territory and then fell out over the spoils. Serbia might have got more had the Austrians not objected.
The word diaspora, as explained in the Oxford Dictionaries, is most closely associated with the dispersion of the Jews beyond Israel. However, it is also defined as the dispersion or spread of any people from their original homeland. To learn more about diasporas around the world, we asked Kevin Kenny, Professor of History at Boston College and author of Diaspora: A Very Short Introduction to share some of his extensive knowledge.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act in their decision on the United States vs. Windsor. The judges also dismissed the Proposition 8 case (Hollingsworth vs. Perry), clearing the way for same-sex couples in California to marry.
By Ian Lloyd
Recent weeks have seen a plethora of media postings concerning revelations about the US government’s systems for obtaining access to communications data. The passage quoted above would seem to fit well into these but actually comes from 1999 and relates to the disclosure of a massive surveillance operation, known as project ECHELON which allegedly allowed the US security agencies (and also those from the UK and a number of other countries) to monitor the content of all email traffic over the Internet.
When you think of styles that are associated with the clarinet or saxophone you might think of classical, klezmer, or jazz, but these instruments are also well-suited to many world music styles. Ros Stephen explores this concept in the Globetrotters series, with original pieces in styles from across the globe.
By Trevor Herbert
The story of military music in the long nineteenth century is absent from conventional music histories even though it had a vast influence on most aspects of musical life. Bands of music originated in the British military in the eighteenth century among the aristocratic officer class as a form of entertainment and as a means of enhancing the cultural status of that profession, and they retained this function throughout the nineteenth century and beyond.
When talking about spy fiction, people sometimes confuse verisimilitude and reality. Spy novelists who use the words “friends” and “cousins” to describe our American collaborators are engaging in verbal verisimilitude. When John Le Carré tells us in his latest novel A Delicate Truth that the business of secret intelligence is now being privatized, he’s conveying an important reality.
By Robert J. Hume
The same-sex marriage decisions at the Supreme Court on Wednesday represented important wins for same-sex couples, even if the victories were not quite complete. After Wednesday’s rulings, section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act is no longer constitutional.
By Anatoly Liberman
One cannot predict which posts will interest the public and which will leave them indifferent. I hoped that my “revolutionary” hypothesis on the origin of Old Nick would result in a tidal wave (title wave, as some of my students write), but it did not produce as much as a ripple, whereas the fairly trivial essay on the letter y aroused a lively discussion.
Aimé Césaire (1913 – 2008) has left behind an extraordinary dual legacy as eminent poet and political leader. Several critics have claimed to observe a contradiction between the vehement anti-colonial stance expressed in his writings and his political practice. Criticism has focused on his support for the law of “departmentalization” (which incorporated the French Antilles, along with other overseas territories, as administrative “departments” within the French Republic) and his reluctance to lead his country to political independence.