Ten fun facts about Claudio Monteverdi
Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi died 370 years ago today, so what better way to remember him than with the following fun facts.
American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature 2013 wrap up
We had a great time in Baltimore this past weekend at the 2013 American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature conference. In addition to searching for the best crab cake in Baltimore, one of our favorite parts was seeing our authors and having them show off their books.
A Q&A with Ingi Iusmen on international adoption
In recognition of Adoption Month, we interviewed two scholars, Peter Hayes and Ingi Iusmen, about intercountry adoption (ICA) to raise awareness of some of the complexities presented by intercountry adoption. Today, we present a brief Q&A with Dr. Ingi Iusmen, Lecturer in Governance and Policy at the University of Southampton.
Plato’s mistake
By Norman Solomon
It started innocently enough at a lunch-time event with some friends at the Randolph Hotel in the centre of Oxford. ‘The trouble with Islam …’ began some self-opinioned pundit, and I knew where he was going.
Music we’re thankful for in 2013
With Thanksgiving as a time of the year to reflect on what brings us joy and …, we thought it would be a good time to reflect on the music that we’re thankful for having in our lives.
The Richardsons: the worst of times at Oxford University Press?
By John Feather
From 1715 to 1758, Stephen and Zaccheus Richardson were successively the ‘Warehouse Keepers’ for Oxford University Press. The seemingly innocuous title conceals more than it reveals and yet is telling. In William Laud’s original vision of a university press at Oxford in the 1630s at the heart of the enterprise was to be an individual known as the ‘Architypographus’.
A Q&A with Peter Hayes on international adoption
In recognition of Adoption Month, we interviewed two scholars, Peter Hayes and Ingi Iusmen, about intercountry adoption (ICA) to raise awareness of some of the complexities presented by intercountry adoption. Today, we present a brief Q&A with Peter Hayes, Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Sunderland.
The Crab Nebula
By Professor Sir Francis Graham-Smith
The Crab Nebula and the pulsar at its centre are endlessly fascinating. The pulsar is a neutron star, with the same mass as our Sun but only the size of a city.
Etymology gleanings for November 2013
By Anatoly Liberman
Brave and its aftermath.
During the month of November, the main event in the uneventful life of the Oxford Etymologist (in this roundabout way I refer to myself) has been the controversy around the origin of bravus, the etymon of bravo ~ brave.
Thanksgiving? The deprivations and atrocities that followed
By Stephen L. Pevar
Every schoolchild is taught that the holiday of Thanksgiving commemorates the feast the Pilgrims arranged to thank the Indians for their friendship, for sharing their land, and for showing them how to grow, harvest, and store food. Accounts say that the generosity of the Indians saved the colonists from starvation during the harsh New England winter of 1620.
The gamelan and Indonesian music in America
Earlier this month I collaborated with the Indonesian Embassy and the Smithsonian Institute to organize a four-day festival of Indonesian performing arts in Washington, DC. Hundreds of performers of gamelan descended on the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler galleries.
Five important facts about the Indian economy
By Chetan Ghate
India’s remarkable economic growth in the last three decades has made it one of the fastest growing economies in the world. While India’s economic growth has been impressive, rapid growth has been accompanied by a slow decline in poverty, persistently high inflation, jobless growth, widening regional disparities, continuing socio-political instability, and vulnerability to balance of payment crises.
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.