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Academic Insights for the Thinking World

Alice Mustian’s scandalous backyard performance

The year 1614 was an eventful one for the London theatre world. Shakespeare’s Globe playhouse, rebuilt after having burned to the ground during an ill-fated performance of Henry VIII, was reopening its doors.

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How well do you know fantasy literature?

Are you an avid fantasy fiction reader, or are you new to the world of dragons, mythic quests and magical worlds? Either way, test your knowledge of this most varied of genres with our quick fantasy literature quiz!

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Book cover of how to do research

7 ways to deal with the rejection of your manuscript submission

Publication in peer-reviewed journals is an integral part of academic life, but however successful you are in your research career, you’re likely to receive a lot more rejections than acceptances of your submitted manuscript. Here are 7 suggestions on how to cope, understand, and learn from manuscript rejection.

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Title cover of "American Tyrannies in the Long Age of Napoleon" by Elizabeth Duquette, part of the Oxford Studies in American Literary History series published by Oxford University Press

Napoleon’s cinematic empire: a fascination with film

Given his decided penchant for spectacle—he crowned himself emperor, after all—there is no reason to be surprised that Napoleon’s empire soon included the cinema, a medium his visual ubiquity made ripe for conquest. To prepare for our newest Napoleon, it is worth looking back on some of his prior celluloid incarnations, some great and others less so.

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The Hsu-Tang Library

On the launching of a new library of classical Chinese literature

250 years ago, Ji Yun compiled one of the world’s largest premodern encyclopedias for the Chinese court. This fall Oxford University Press launches the first endowed bilingual translation library of Classical Chinese Literature thanks to a generous gift by Ji Yun’s descendant, Agnes Hsin-mei Hsu-Tang and her husband Oscar Tang.

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Title cover of "Shakespeare without a Life" by Margreta de Grazia, published by Oxford University Press

On Shakespeare’s “illiteracy”

This year marks 400 years since the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio, but why was he singled out for his lack of knowledge about classics, as well as his “illiteracy”?

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