November 2013

The indiscipline of discipline, or, whose ‘English’ is it anyway?

By Susan Bruce
It is a great educational paradox that the nature of one of the UK’s key subjects is both ill-defined and poorly understood. What counts as ‘English’ is contested at all levels, from arguments about the literacy hour at primary level, through the relative importance of English Language and English Literature at GCSE level, to the introduction of a new A Level in Creative Writing, and the ‘confirmatory consultations’ recently conducted over the reform of AL and GCSE English syllabi.

R v Hughes and death while at the wheel

By John Watson
In their judgement in the case of R v Hughes [2013] UKSC 56, the UK Supreme Court has issued guidance which, arguably, negates the offence of s. 3ZB of the Road Traffic Act 1988 of causing death by being unlicensed, uninsured or disqualified from driving. In a case since this judgement the CPS stated they considered this offence as written ‘no longer existed’ due to the Hughes decision.

A journey through 500 years of African American history

By Leslie Asako Gladsjo
This fall, my colleagues and I completed work on Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s documentary series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, which began airing on national PBS in October. In six one-hour episodes, the series traces the history of the African American people, from the 16th century to today.

National Bible Week: Learning with Don Kraus, OUP Bible editor

To celebrate National Bible Week, we sat down with our long-time Bibles editor, Don Kraus, to find out more about his experience with publishing bibles at Oxford University Press.

Raising the Thanksgiving turkey

By Neil Prendergast

By Neil Prendergast
A century ago, the turkey was in truly poor shape. Its numbers had dropped considerably during the late nineteenth century, largely due to overhunting, habitat loss, and disease. In 1920, there were about 3.5 million turkeys in the United States, down from an estimated 10 million when Europeans first arrived in North America.

Penderecki, then and now

By Meghann Wilhoite

Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki (pronunciation here) celebrated his 80th birthday over the weekend. As Tom Service has pointed out in the past, you’ve probably already heard some of Penderecki’s famous pieces from the 1960s, which feature in several films from directors such as David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, and Martin Scorsese.

In memoriam: M. Therese Southgate

Marie Therese Southgate, MD, a senior editor at JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association for nearly five decades, died at her home in Chicago on November 22 after a short illness. She was 85.

The bin of plenty

By Travis McDade
In a desk donated to the Vermont thrift store at which he worked, Tim Bernaby was pleasantly surprised to find several letters and cards written by Robert Frost. He took these missives and sold them for $25,000. When asked about it, he said he found the items not in the desk, but in the trash.

Seven selfies for the serious-minded

By Alice Northover
Self-portraits are as old as their medium, from stone carvings and oil paintings, to the first daguerrotypes and instant Polaroids. Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2013 – selfie – indicates the latest medium: a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.

Place of the Year 2013: Then and Now

Thanksgiving is a time for reflection on the past, present, and future. In our final week of voting for Place of the Year, here’s a look at some of the many changes undergone by the nominees. Which of these will steal the crown from Mars, the 2012 Place of the Year?

Transitional justice and international criminal justice: a fraught relationship?

By Naomi Roht-Arriaza
What is the key, and often fraught, relationship between transitional justice (TJ) and international criminal justice (ICJ)? How, if at all, do the two fields fit together: do they coexist, create synergies, occupy the whole space, or simply inhabit parallel universes?

The unknown financial crisis of 1914

By Richard Roberts
The mounting diplomatic crisis in the last week of July 1914 triggered a major financial crisis in London, the world’s foremost international centre, and around the world. In fact, it was the City’s gravest-ever financial crisis featuring a comprehensive breakdown of its financial markets. But it is virtually unknown.

Buzzword shaming

By Mark Peters
I recently wrote about the proliferation of the lexical formula “X-shaming,” launched by slut-shaming and body-shaming and taken to preposterous extremes by words such as filter-shaming and fedora-shaming. Everywhere you look, someone is talking about shaming. The hyphen is optional, but the topic is increasingly mandatory.

Polling accuracy: a Q&A with Kai Arzheimer and Jocelyn Evans

By R. Michael Alvarez

Polling data is ubiquitous in today’s world, but it is is often difficult to easily understand the accuracy of polls. In a recent paper published in Political Analysis, Kai Arzheimer and Jocelyn Evans developed a new methodology for assessing the accuracy of polls in multiparty and multi-candidate elections.

A conversation with Dr. Andrea Farbman on music therapy

For nearly four decades, Dr. Andrea Farbman has worked in disability and arts advocacy, legislative policy analysis, and non-profit management. Her career with the American Music Therapy Association (National Association for Music Therapy at the time) began in 1988 and this year she is celebrating 25 years with the association.

Nose to nose with Laurence Sterne and Tristram Shandy

By Karen Harvey
Venturing into new areas of research can be exhilarating. But it can be incredibly daunting when the subject boasts a concentration of great scholarship and formidable expertise. In my case, the decision to embark on the subject of Laurence Sterne and Tristram Shandy, meant taking a step not just into a new subject but a new discipline: from history to literature.