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  • Arts & Humanities

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion

The civil rights movement, religion, and resistance

An excerpt exploring how the Civil Rights Movement might not have been successful without the spiritual empowerment that arose from the culture developed over two centuries of black American Christianity. In other words, religious impulses derived from black religious traditions made the movement move.

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Economic statecraft and the Donald

How will the Trump administration utilize economic statecraft and how will his approach be distinct from previous presidents? To answer these questions, we look to what we know about Trump’s stances and early actions on trade policy, sanctions, and foreign aid. For much of the early history of the republic, economic statecraft was the primary bargaining tool employed.

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Inequality and new forms of slavery

The issues of social justice, poverty, and all the forms of human trafficking, deployment, and oppression that can be grouped under the umbrella concept of “slavery” are problems that sorely affect the world today and urgently need concrete solutions.

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The sound of the police

With dates for both the NPPF Step Two Legal Examination for police sergeants and National Investigators Examination looming closer, we’ve put together a playlist to help get you through your revision. Stuck trying to get your head round a tricky piece of legislation?

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“Don’t cry white boy. You gonna live”

On 20 February 2017, Sidney Poitier—“Sir Sidney” both in the colloquial and in reality (he was knighted in 1974), and just “Sir” in one of his biggest hits, To Sir, With Love (1967)—will turn ninety years old. Even today, Poitier continues a decades long career of collecting accolades for his pioneering role as Hollywood’s first Black movie star.

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New Grub Street and the starving artist

Sitting alone in front of a computer screen, a writer sometimes feels like screaming at the machine to make the words appear. When inspiration finally strikes, the result may be far from satisfying—but when your next meal is at stake, it hardly matters.

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Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics

A basic income for all: crazy or essential?

Shouldn’t society provide a safety net for all in modern society? The radical idea of ensuring a regular stream of cash payments to all members of society, irrespective of their willingness to work, has attracted increasing attention in recent years. ollowing the mobilization of a citizens’ initiative, the world’s first national referendum on basic income was held in Switzerland in 2016.

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The many voices of Dickens

Charles Dickens’s reputation as a novelist and as the creator of Ebenezer Scrooge, one of the most globally recognized Christmas miser figures, has secured him what looks to be a permanent place in the established literary canon. Students, scholars, and fans of Dickens may be surprised to learn that the voice many Victorians knew as “Dickens,” especially at Christmastime, was also the voice of nearly forty other people.

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The real National Treasure: US presidential libraries

I’ve watched the film National Treasure twenty more times than I probably needed to, but I can’t ignore my fascination with the history of the US presidents. In the movie, the directors place a strong emphasis on the importance of historical documents and artifacts, and a working knowledge of the importance and content of these items, to help the main protagonists complete a centuries-long treasure hunt.

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Graphs and paradoxes

A directed graph is a pair where N is any collection or set of objects (the nodes of the graph) and E is a relation on N (the edges). Intuitively speaking, we can think of a directed graph in terms of a dot-and-arrow diagram, where the nodes are represented as dots, and the edges are represented as arrows.

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Immunology in perspective

Among students of science, in contrast to those who do science, the dominant discussion revolves around the degree to which scientific interpretations are subject to extra-curricular influences, specifically, to what extent are facts independent of the larger political context in which science resides.

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The problem with “liberalizing” Islam

Since the advent of the War on Terror, and perhaps now more than ever, calls for a liberal Islam and support for moderate Muslims echo loudly from both the left and right. They come from politicians, the public, as well as scholars.

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Ten facts about the accordion

Whether you dub accordion music annoying or enticing, you cannot deny the instrument’s persistence. The earliest version of the accordion emerged in the early 1800’s and one can still find it on many street corners today. Certain universities, museums, and soloists have assisted in the accordion’s longevity.

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Market solutions for improving treatment of farm animals? A review of At the Fork

How are farm animals treated and should one care? For the record, I am not vegetarian and I follow something similar to a paleo diet high in animal proteins and fats. But whether or not one believes animals have rights, libertarian philosopher Loren Lomasky once gave me the most succinct argument for caring about the welfare, at least some, of animals: “You wouldn’t put your cat in a microwave, would you?”

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