Booze! – Episode 1 – The Oxford Comment
In the premiere episode of The Oxford Comment, Lauren and Michelle talk to Benjamin Carp about the drinking habits of the Founding Fathers and visit brewmaster Garrett Oliver at the Brooklyn Brewery.
Corporate science: The good, the bad, and those in between
By Roderick D. Buchanan
The corporate corruption of science is a familiar theme to anyone whose reading stretches beyond celebrity tattle-tale. The well-documented venality of Big Tobacco and Big Pharma have become cautionary fairy tales for modern times.
When the Stasi Came for the Doctor
Gary Bruce is Associate Professor of History at the University of Waterloo. His newest book is The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi. The book is based on previously classified documents and interviews with former secret police officers and ordinary citizens and is the first comprehensive history of East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi, at the grassroots level. In the excerpt below Bruce looks at how the Stasi impacted one ordinary man’s life.
For The Love Of Bob Marley
Something about summertime makes Bob Marley music pop up everywhere, but I recently realized I don’t actually know very much about Marley. The following is from The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin.
Suffering for Suffrage, 90 Years Since
I have a younger brother, so as a little girl, I was the boss. The authority I exerted was based on age and size, so it never occurred to me that gender could be an influencing factor. I think it was actually School House Rock or Mary Poppins that taught me women had to fight […]
Lives of the Artists
By Alana Salguero, Grove Art Editorial Assistant
From van Gogh and his notorious left ear to Salvador Dalí with his legendary moustache, the art world boasts a colorful cast of characters whose unorthodox behavior has generated as much public interest as its artistic oeuvre. It appears that creativity often begets eccentricity (or vice versa, the age old chicken-and-egg conundrum), blurring the boundaries between art, performance, and life.
The State of ‘Judenpolitik’ Before the Beginning of the War
Peter Longerich is Professor of Modern German History at Royal Holloway University of London and founder of the College’s Holocaust Research Centre. His book, Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, shows the steps taken by the Nazis that would ultimately lead to the Final Solution. He argues that anti-Semitism was not a mere by-product of Nazi political mobilization or an attempt to deflect the attention of the masses. Rather, from 1933 onwards, anti-Jewish policy was a central tenet of the Nazi movement’s attempts to implement, disseminate, and secure National Socialist rule. In the excerpt below Longerich analyzes the state of Jewish citizens of Germany right before the start of the war.
Gypsy Rose Lee Vindicated by Catalina Ban on Bull Fighting
By Noralee Frankel
In late July, Catalonia a region in Spain outlawed bull fighting. The vote in parliament was spurred by a petition signed by 180,000 people. The burlesque queen and author, Gypsy Rose Lee would have been pleased. What has a famous strip tease artist have to do with bull fighting? In 1950, Gypsy Rose Lee was blacklisted from radio and television, not for sexuality, but for her liberal politics. She had been a very successful moderator of two silly game shows, all the rage in the fifties. Unable to work on the new media, she left for Europe where she performed her strip tease.
What has become of genius?
By Andrew Robinson
“In the early 21st century, talent appears to be on the increase, genius on the decrease. More scientists, writers, composers, and artists than ever before earn a living from their creative output. During the 20th century, performance standards and records continually improved in all fields—from music and singing to chess and sports. But where is the Darwin or the Einstein, the Mozart or the Beethoven, the Chekhov or the Shaw, the Cézanne or the Picasso or the Cartier-Bresson of today?”
The Deep Politics of the 14th Amendment
By Elvin Lim
In 2004, the Republican’s hot button political issue du jour was same-sex marriage. 11 states approved ballot measures that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Last week, a federal judge struck down California’s Proposition 8 (passed in 2008) because it “fails to advance any rational basis for singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.” However, Republicans politicians are not taking the bait to revisit this hot button political issue, despite Rush Limbaugh’s encouragement.
Struggling for the American Soul at Ground Zero
By Edward E. Curtis IV
Like Gettysburg, the National Mall, and other historic sites, Ground Zero is a place whose symbolic importance extends well beyond local zoning disputes and real estate deals. The recent controversy over a proposal to build a Muslim community center two blocks away from the former World Trade Center shows it clearly: the geography of Lower Manhattan has become a sacred ground on which religious and political battles of national importance are being waged.
Remembering Hiroshima
Today, it is 65 years since the United States first dropped the nuclear weapon “Little Boy” on Hiroshima. Soon after, on August 9th, 1945, the United States released “Fat Man” over Nagasaki. The aftermath, of course, was predictably horrific.
Special Envoys in the Middle East, Thousands of Years Ago
By Amanda H. Podany
In President Obama’s speech last December when he received the Nobel Prize, he observed that, “War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease—the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.” This comment almost seems to need no supporting evidence; it’s just common knowledge and common sense. And, for the most part, it’s true. That point, though, about war being the way that ancient civilizations “settled their differences”—that isn’t in fact the whole story. Ancient kings could, and did, send their armies into battle against one another. But some of them also talked to one another, wrote letters, sent ambassadors back and forth between their capitals, and drew up peace treaties. Sometimes, as a result, they avoided war and benefited from peaceful alliances, often for decades at a time.
Norman Names
I couldn’t help noticing this story, which states that many of the names still popular in English-speaking countries originate from the Normans, who won control of England in 1066. Meanwhile, names that were popular in England at the time – such as Aethelred, Eadric, and Leofric – have disappeared. With that in mind, I turned to Babies’ Names, by Patrick Hanks and Kate Hardcastle, to find out more about Norman names.
On the Practitioners of Science
“Physics is rather hard to blog, so I’ll write instead about the practitioners of science – what are they like? Are there certain personality types that do science? Does the science from different countries end up being different?”
God’s Polity: Faith and Power
Bernard Lewis is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Easter Studies Emeritus at Princeton University. His new book, Faith and Power: Religion and Politics in the Middle East, illuminates the role of religion in the Middle East, revealing how it has shaped society for good and for ill. In the excerpt below, which looks at Islamic government, we learn about the long history of religion intertwining with governmental authority.