Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World

January 2020

Women on the front lines: Military service, combat and gender

The 1990s saw women beginning to fill a wider range of roles in the military, with many countries relaxing their bans on women serving in combat roles. As a result, women are able to fly combat aircraft, serve in artillery units, staff missile emplacements, serve as combat medics, and fill various other roles that involve potential combat exposure. Additionally, many more women are assigned to combat-support roles located on the front line. Yet most research on women involved in military life still concerns itself with the wives of enlisted men, women in civilian posts within the military, women that were sexually assaulted in the military, or women in non-combat-related military service. It is thus patently obvious that women combatants and veterans who fulfill assignments in conflict zones deserve closer attention.

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Etymology gleanings for December 2019

Once again, my thanks are to everybody who read this blog in 2019 and commented on its fifty two posts. However, I still have to wave a friendly goodbye to the ghost of the year gone by and do some gleaning on the frozen field of December.

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A Job I Never Expected

In her late eighties, my mother begins to lose her grip. Checks bounce. Bills are misplaced and go unpaid. Bottles of Grey Goose vodka appear more frequently in her recycling bin. Afraid for her safety, friends begin putting her in a cab after they finish playing bridge. Soon she is dropped from the group.

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Codes and Ciphers

My book group recently read a 2017 mystery called The Lost Book of the Grail by Charlie Lovett. In the novel, an English bibliophile and an American digitizer track down a mysterious book thought to lead to the Holy Grail. The chief clue: a secret message hidden in the rare books collection of the fictional Barchester Cathedral Library.

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Test how well you know police shows [quiz]

Are you currently studying for a legal exam? Do you need a revision break?  Are you a fan of policing-based television series and movies? In celebration of National Trivia Day (United States) test your knowledge of police themed television series and films with our trivia quiz. Covering character relationships, places of work, and police rank… […]

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Top Eight Developments in International Law 2019

For those who support and believe in the power of international law to effect positive change in the world, 2019 was difficult. There were however a number of important bright sparks, in the form of efforts to negotiate treaties on the protection of marine biodiversity, business and human rights, and the elimination of work place […]

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