Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
In this OUPblog, Lena Cowen Orlin, author of the “detailed and dazzling” ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’ presents a compelling case that Shakespeare designed his own funerary monument: a memorial less about death than about a life of accomplishment.
Simon Huxtable explores the history of Russian journalism in the Soviet Union and asks how, or whether, it compares to the situation of Russian journalists after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
Sophie Grace Chappell is Professor of Philosophy at the Open University, UK, and her new book “Epiphanies: An Ethics of Experience” has just been published by OUP. In this interview, Sophie speaks with OUP Philosophy editor Peter Momtchiloff on exploring the concept and experience of epiphanies.
In this OUPblog, Lena Cowen Orlin, author of the “detailed and dazzling” ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’ explores why Shakespeare left Anne Hathaway his “second-best” bed – and what this tells us about their relationship.
How does a country choose what to commemorate? What elevated the victory of 18 June 1815 over other great British victories in the previous quarter century of war?
How does the formal originality of Jacob’s Room, its dark tenor, fit into the arc of Woolf’s career? I found unexpected and illuminating answers to this question in an all-Beethoven concert at Carnegie Hall.
In this OUPblog post, Lena Cowen Orlin, author of the “detailed and dazzling” ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’ asks: just when was Shakespeare’s birthday?
At this fearful time in American democracy, the best way to starve anti-democratic forces of their energy is to change the subject away from conservative religion and demand investment in civic education, democratic localism, and human rights.
In this OUPblog post, Lena Cowen Orlin, author of the “detailed and dazzling” ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’ asks, was Shakespeare raised Catholic, and what role did his father, John, play.
Never more than during the COVID-19 pandemic, the public has been reminded of the importance of science and the need to trust scientific advice and model-based public health policy. The delicate triangulation among scientific experts, policymakers, and the public, which is so central to fight misinformation and mistrust, has shone a light on a well-entrenched “view from nowhere” that science is often identified with. Why trust experts and their model-based policy anyway?
“Why, within the world of the novel, is Jacob unknowable? He is the hero of a Shakespeare play.” Emily Kopley uses Virginia Woolf’s letters with her brother to examine her first experimental novel, “Jacob’s Room”.
In this OUPblog post, Lena Cowen Orlin, author of the “detailed and dazzling” ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’ asks: just when was Shakespeare’s birthday?
How well do you know Mary Shelley? Take this short quiz to find out and put your knowledge to the test.
To help curate your summer playlist and reading list, here are 10 songs and Oxford World’s Classics we recommend you add to your rotation:
The word privilege is a lightning rod in United States culture. For some, it indexes systemic inequities shaped by race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality, while for others, it represents a “woke” vocabulary used to enforce political correctness. Perhaps unsurprisingly, accusations of privilege have reached the classical music world.
Hymn tunes of Ralph Vaughan Williams find consensus: undisputed quality. The foremost English composer of his generation is credited with composing, adapting, or arranging more than 80 tunes set to important hymns of our faith.