Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Trevor Naylor
The written word has always played its part in the spreading of revolutionary ideas and in the recording of historical events. Until the Internet, this was done principally by the bookshops of the world, nowhere more so than across the countries of Asia and the Middle East, where the humble corner bookshop sells not just books, but newspapers, magazines, stationery, and all manner of things to keep its daily customers up to date.
Earlier this year, Oxford University Press (OUP) published The Throne of Adulis by G.W. Bowersock, as part of Oxford’s Emblems of Antiquity Series, commissioned by the editor Stefan Vranka from the New York office. It was especially thrilling that Professor Bowersock agreed to write a volume, as it represents a homecoming of sorts for the noted classics scholar, who began his career with OUP in 1965 with the monograph Augustus and the Greek World.
What is a student to do with a list of citations? Are an author’s sources merely proof or can they be something more? We often discuss the challenges of the research process with students, scholars, and librarians.
By Robert Goldney
To some this heading may seem unexpected. The term ‘suicide bomber’ has entered our lexicon on the obvious basis that although the prime aim may have been the killing of others, the individual perpetrator dies. Indeed, over the last three decades the media, the general public , and sometimes the scientific community have uncritically used the words ‘suicide bomber’ to describe the deaths of those who kill others, sometimes a few, usually ten to twenty, or in the case of 9/11, about two thousand, while at the same time killing themselves.
We don’t often discuss book awards on the OUPblog, but this year the inaugural British Academy Medals were awarded to three authors and their titles published by Oxford University Press: Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan, edited by Noel Malcolm; The Organisation of Mind by Tim Shallice and Rick Cooper; and The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean by David Abulafia (USA only).
By Max Sinsheimer
Recently I was chatting with a regular at my gym, an Irish man named Stephen, when he asked me what I do for a living. I told him I am an editor in the reference department at Oxford University Press, and he excitedly launched into a description of the draft manuscript he had just completed, a novel about his wild (and illicit) youth spent between Galway and the Canary Islands.
By Christopher Hilliard
It’s the most famous own goal in English legal history. In London’s Old Bailey, late in 1960, Penguin Books is being prosecuted for publishing an obscene book – an unexpurgated edition of D. H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The prosecution asks the jury whether Lady Chatterley’s Lover was “a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read.”
How well do you know Liverpool University Press and Stanford University Press, the newest members of the UPSO family? Why not take our quiz to test your knowledge?
By Matthew Flinders
When reading this week’s coverage of the independent report into the regulation of Morecambe University Hospital Trust by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), I could not help but reflect upon the links between this terrible episode in public sector management and Stanley Cohen’s famous work on moral panics and folk devils.
By Ian Lloyd
Recent weeks have seen a plethora of media postings concerning revelations about the US government’s systems for obtaining access to communications data. The passage quoted above would seem to fit well into these but actually comes from 1999 and relates to the disclosure of a massive surveillance operation, known as project ECHELON which allegedly allowed the US security agencies (and also those from the UK and a number of other countries) to monitor the content of all email traffic over the Internet.
Raymond Wacks
Do celebrities forfeit their right to privacy? Pop stars, stars of screen, radio, television, sport and the catwalk—are regarded as fair game by the paparazzi. Members of the British Royal family, most conspicuously, and tragically, the Princess of Wales have long been preyed upon by the media. More recently, photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge, taken surreptitiously while she was sunbathing at a private villa in Provence, were published online.
By Christopher Kuner
The recent revelations concerning widespread US government access to electronic communications data (including the PRISM system apparently run by the National Security Agency) leave many questions unanswered, and new facts are constantly emerging. Thoughtful commentators should be hesitant to make detailed pronouncements before it is clear what is actually going on.
By Linda Bauld
For the past 25 years, the World Health Organisation and its partners have marked World No Tobacco Day. This day provides an opportunity to assess the impact of the world’s leading cause of preventable death – responsible for one in ten deaths globally – and to advocate for effective action to end tobacco smoking. This year, the WHO has selected the theme of banning tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship.
The build-up to Baz Luhrmann’s frenetic, chromatic interpretation of The Great Gatsby was a wild ride for those of us who live and breathe F. Scott Fitzgerald daily. One minute you’re grading end-of-the semester papers, the next you’re fielding phone calls from NPR or the Associated Press.
By Karen Dill-Shackleford
Mike was a doctoral student profoundly appreciated and esteemed by faculty, peers, staff, and all who came in contact with him. As is typical in our community, Mike was already a successful mid-career professional. He worked in the tech world and brought his expertise to us. He didn’t have a background in research psychology, but in the last year of his doctoral program, his work was published on nine occasions.
By Maureen Duffy
Journalists want to report the news not be the news. But in the case of Ann Curry, the former Today show co-host who was pushed into stepping down from the co-anchor slot last June, she has become the news. New York Times reporter Brian Stelter’s recent feature article about morning television and the toxic culture at NBC’s Today show provides more than enough information to conclude that Ann Curry was a target of workplace mobbing.