Arts & Humanities

An Oxford Companion to James Bond

By Daniel ‘Pussy Galore’ Parker and Gabby ‘Odd Job’ Fletcher

By Daniel ‘Pussy Galore’ Parker and Gabby ‘Odd Job’ Fletcher
‘Ah’, he says stroking a white fluffy cat, ‘we’ve been expecting you’. Leave Ms Moneypenny with a peck on the cheek, stash your Walther PPK in your back pocket and jump into our Aston Martin so you can join us as we speed through an A to Z of Bond fun, fact, and fiction. We have stories about Roger Moore’s penchant for love-making, tales of fictional islands, and even anecdotes about crocodile jumping. We’ve devoured OUP’s online reference works to bring you a delicious helping of double 0 heaven. Welcome to the world of Bond, James Bond

The “Choice” Bazaar

Daniel Callahan
Some years ago I wrote a book on abortion that espoused women’s legal right to choose abortion, which was later cited in Roe v. Wade. It should have made me popular with feminists, but it did not and for one reason: I also argued that abortion is an ethical choice, and that not all abortions would necessarily be good choices. Trained as a philosopher, I pointed out that a traditional part of morality is deciding how to make good choices in the shaping of one’s life.

Music events to see in New Orleans 1-4 November

By John Swenson
Greetings to all of you in New Orleans for the AMS/SEM/SMT conference. I’ve been writing about the music of New Orleans dating back to the mid-1970s and am still making discoveries to this day. The city is a seemingly bottomless well of creative musicians, with more arriving every day from around the world seeking the muse that inspires this magic, spiritual sound. Here are a few suggestions about where you might want to go over the next few days to hear this aural cornucopia in person. These recommendations are really just the tip of the iceberg, but they reflect what I am likely to be hearing myself.

Solo or duet? Married couples in the American National Biography

By Susan Ware
What are the chances, I wondered, of having separate entries for a married couple in the American National Biography Online (ANB)? I’m still new to my job as the general editor of the ANB, but it struck me as intriguing that the very first update released on my watch will contain one such couple: country music singers Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. Joined together in marriage and music, they both led fascinating lives that earned them inclusion – separately — in the ANB.

An etymologist among the gods

By Anatoly Liberman
Etymology, a subject rarely studied on our campuses, enjoys the respect of many people, even though they persist in calling it entomology. Human beings always want to know the origin of things, but sometimes etymology is made to carry double, like the horse in O. Henry’s story “The Roads We Take.” For instance, it is sometimes said that etymology helps us to use words correctly. Alas, it very seldom does so. If someone asks us about the meaning of the adjective debonair and is not only informed that a debonair man is genial, suave, and so forth but also that the adjective goes back to the French phrase de bon aire “of good disposition (nature),” this may help.

Is the George Washington Bridge a work of art?

By David Blockley
Happy 81st Birthday, George Washington Bridge! The French architect Le Corbusier reportedly said you are “the most beautiful bridge in the world” – you “gleam in the sky like a reversed arch.” But are you really a work of art? The designer Othmar H. Ammann certainly was conscious of the need to make beautiful bridges.

Changing evangelical responses to homosexuality

By Scott Schieman
Although popular culture war depictions have often presented evangelical elites as intransigent in their opposition to homosexuality, authors of a new study published by Sociology of Religion find that during the last several decades, evangelical elites have actually been subtly but significantly changing their moral reasoning about homosexuality. Based on content analysis of the popular evangelical magazine Christianity Today, authors Jeremy N. Thomas and Daniel V. A. Olson identify the shifts that compose this change.

James Bond: the spy we love

By Cornelia Haase
Premiering today, 23 October 2012, Skyfall is the 23rd film in the highly successful James Bond film series. It has been 50 years since the release of the first Bond film, Dr. No, in 1962. Over the decades, there have been many Bond adventures and we have seen six different actors portraying the MI6 agent, as well as many Bond villains, and the famous Bond girls who don’t seem to be able to resist Bond’s charms.

Sounds of the swing era

By Catherine Tackley

The sound of a big band in full flight must surely rank as one of the defining timbres of twentieth century music. It continues to be preserved by, among many others, Wynton Marsalis’ Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, remixed by DJs and artists like Matthew Herbert, re-popularised by stars including Michael Bublé, rejuvenated for a new teen audience by West Coast composer Gordon Goodwin

Nucleic Acids Research and Open Access

By Richard Roberts
In 2004, when the internet was pervading every aspect of science, the Executive Editors of Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) made the momentous decision to convert the journal from a traditional subscription based journal to one in which the content was freely available to everyone, with the costs of publication paid by the authors. There was great trepidation, by the editors and Oxford University Press, that authors would refuse to do this and instead would choose to publish elsewhere.

The unshackled cultivation of Rimbaud

By Martin Sorrell
Among the enfants terribles of literature, Rimbaud holds a pre-eminent place. But he’s been made famous against his will. If he had his way, everything he wrote — save perhaps his factual letters from Africa and elsewhere about trade and the dodgy deals he was trying to clinch – would have been destroyed. All the astonishing poetry that has made him an icon burnt on a bonfire of vanities, but fortunately it was saved.

To fix a broken planet

By Louis René Beres
Whatever our faith-based differences concerning immortality, death has an unassailable biological purpose — to make species survival possible. Nonetheless, we humans need not always hasten the indispensable process with utterly enthusiastic explosions of crime, war, terrorism, and genocide.

The birth of disco

By Denny Hilton

By Denny Hilton
On this day in 1959, a nightclub opened its doors in the quiet city of Aachen, West Germany, and a small revolution in music took place. The Scotch-Club was similar to many restaurant-cum-dancehalls of the time, with one exception: rather than hire a live band to provide the entertainment, its owner decided instead to install a record player…

The top ten dramatizations of Moby-Dick

By George Cotkin

By George Cotkin
Moby-Dick draws readers into it. And many of its more creative readers have sought to capture its grandeur on film and stage. From the first film in 1926 to the present, these attempts have taken liberties with the novel, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. But that is the challenge that Moby-Dick offers its readers, a text that is deep and wide, an ocean of issues and concerns that we must all, in some fashion, navigate

Lofty musing: Has it only been 467 years?

By Meghann Wilhoite

Imagine yourself in a lofty cathedral, silver voices echoing off of vaulted stone, with a slight chill in the close air. Are you there? Ok, now you’re ready for the music of English composer John Taverner. Touted as the most influential composer of his time, Taverner (c.1490-1545) was and continues to be admired for his skill in the creation of polyphonic (‘many-voiced’) music — that is, independent musical lines that layer on top of each other in a way that sounds harmonious; the lines fit together without losing any of their individuality.

The rise of the academic novel

By Jeffrey J. Williams
The academic novel is usually considered a quaint genre, depicting the insular world of academe and directed toward a coterie audience. But it has become a major genre in contemporary American fiction and glimpses an important dimension of American life. In the past twenty years, many prominent American novelists have contributed their entries, including Paul Auster, Ann Beattie, T. C. Boyle, Michael Chabon, and Percival Everett.