Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Anne Ziebart
As a marketer you spend a lot of time hidden behind your screen. At least it feels like that sometimes. Conferences and the occasional external meeting offer a welcome excuse to step into the picture and finally meet the people you market to. So I was excited when there was talk of setting up regionally focussed “library advisory councils”, and a German-speaking was one under consideration.
By Miriam Higgins
My friends always ask me: what do you do all day?!
Well, every day Bethan, new manager Guy, and I make sure orders for music are present and correct to be sent around the world. We also update the website, look at which titles need re-engraving next, work with our agents (who are worldwide), and answer customer enquiries either over the phone or by email.
Today is National Libraries Day in the United Kingdom, and hundreds of activities and events are taking place in public libraries of all shapes and sizes — from the multi-million pound Library of Birmingham, to the tiniest local libraries run by volunteers — in order to celebrate our wonderful librarians, and the libraries they run. To celebrate National Libraries Day, we asked a few of our staff what they love about public libraries.
By Subrata Dasgupta
Politically, socially, and culturally, the 1960s were tumultuous times. But tucked away amidst the folds of the Cold War, civil rights activism, anti-war demonstrations, the feminist movement, revolts of students and workers, flower power, sit-ins, Marxist and Maoist revolutions – almost unnoticed — a new science was born in university campuses across North America, Britain, Europe and even, albeit tentatively, certain non-Western parts of the world.
By Amos N. Guiora
As has been repeatedly and thoroughly documented, Russian President Vladimir Putin is, for lack of a better word, a homophobe. Putin’s incessant drum beating targeting homosexuals and lesbians led President Obama, Chancellor Merkel, and President Hollande to publicly announce they will not attend next month’s Winter Olympics in Sochi.
By Steven Grosby
Nationalism and nations have understandably been associated with the most illiberal treatment of human beings. History is replete with well-known examples of the murder of innocents in the cause of some nation. It continues today, for example, in Syria, Kurdistan, the Kashmir, and other places.
By Gil Troy
When running for president in 2008, Barack Obama infuriated both Bill and Hillary Clinton by saying he dreamed of being a transformational leader like Ronald Reagan – and unlike Bill Clinton. Insulted by this challenge to their legacy, the Clintons accused their opponent of endorsing Reagan’s policies, when Obama was assessing impact not ideology.
How do we see poverty? Most people envision global poverty as dirty shacks, hungry children, a lack of schools, and rampant disease. But as Gary A. Haugen, founder and president of International Justice Mission, explains there is another phenomenon hidden beneath the surface. Rather than catastrophic forms of violence in civil war, unrest, or even genocide, insidious forms of violence in everyday life make the poor even more vulnerable.
By Michael D. Matthews
I am posting this article on February 6th. My father was born on this date in 1914, just months before the outbreak of World War I. In many ways the state of the world 100 years ago was not so different from today. Political instability plagued Europe, social change driven by advances in technology was sweeping the world, and yet most people felt a sense of security that the world as they knew it was stable.
By Gordon R. Thompson
When Pan Am flight 101, the “Jet Clipper Defiance,” touched down at the recently renamed John F. Kennedy Airport on 7 February 1964, the grieving angst that had gripped the Western world lifted, if just a little. What emerged from the darkness of the Boeing 707’s doorway was something so joyful, so deliciously irreverent that we forgot for a moment the tensions of the Berlin wall, the Cuban missile crisis, and the assassination of a young president. The sigh that North America released felt so deep that it sounded as one big exuberant scream of delight.
By Simon Eliot
Oxford was finally linked to the rail network in June 1844. Within a decade or so the railway had become part of the way in which Oxford University Press at all levels conducted its business and its pleasure. One such pleasure was a wayzgoose.
By Barbara Malt
Dogs are the noses of modern society. They not only track the scent of prey across a meadow but find lost children, sniff out bombs and drugs, and conduct medical diagnosis. Pigs are good, too; we rely on them to hunt down rare and expensive truffles. Domestic cats can turn in an impressive performance, pawing out the last crumb of tuna sandwich at the bottom of a workbag. But humans?
By Philip Murphy
In November 2013, the Commonwealth was preparing for a highly controversial Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka, which the Canadian prime minister had already threatened to boycott on the grounds of the abysmal human rights record of the host state. In an article I published at the time, I touched on the contrast between the pre-eminent position the Queen had obtained within the Commonwealth since the 1990s, and the organization’s own lackluster performance over that period:
By Anna-Lise Santella
It may be the middle of winter, but April Fool’s Day is only two months away, and that means it’s time to start planning your entry for the Second Annual Grove Music Spoof Article Contest! Spoof articles have been part of Grove’s history for several decades—it seems that our authors have always had an inclination toward humor.
By Anatoly Liberman
Respectability in etymology is determined by age: the older, the better. The verb to bicker has been known since the fourteenth century, while the verb to bitch “complain; spoil” is a nineteenth-century invention. On the other hand, the noun bitch occurred already in Old English, so that it is not quite clear which of the two words—bitch or bicker—should be awarded the first place.
The poet Ovid plays a central role in Roman literary history and culture. Best known for his Metamorphoses, a 15-book mythological epic, and his collections of love poetry, particularly Amores and Ars Amatoria, Ovid’s poetry has greatly influenced Western art, and his works remain some of the most important sources of classical mythology.