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Academic Insights for the Thinking World
For Beatles fans, it was like watching mortality embrace a loved one. The spring of 1970 brought news of the dissolution of the Beatles and, with the release of Michael Lindsey-Hogg’s Let It Be in May, fans could see the disestablishment for themselves.
The journey of a sand grain tumbling in the wind is a complex one, and while many of the aspects of that journey are understood, there is much, again, that is not. The foundation of what we do know, and of the research desert landscapes that continues today, is entirely the result of the pioneering work of one man (of whom we have already heard)—Ralph Bagnold. Today’s academic textbooks on sand transport often include advice along the lines of ‘for inspiration, read Bagnold (1941)’.
Philip Davis is a professor of English literature at Liverpool University, author of Bernard Malamud: A Writer’s Life, and editor of The Reader. Since it is Jewish Heritage Month here in the United States we asked him to reflect on his own Jewish heritage. Below we learn about serious jokes.
Have you ever wondered where the titles of novels, plays, films and the like come from? Some are obvious, at least after you’ve read the book or seen the movie, as with Star Wars and The English Patient, but many titles are not transparent and leave you wondering just why the author chose them. These are usually allusive, they refer to something in history or literature or they take their wording from a text. These allusions are often quite esoteric, and authors must know that only some of the audience or readership will pick up on them. Presumably they get satisfaction from choosing a title with some kind of hidden significance and some theatregoers or readers probably find gratification in spotting the allusion. Surveys I have conducted over the years reveal that many allusions are lost on university students, so I’ve rounded up some examples I find to be the most “elusive”:
Which is more important: saving the environment or fixing global poverty? Economist Paul Collier argues that we can find a middle ground and do both in his new book The Plundered Planet: Why We Must—and How We Can—Manage Nature for Global Prosperity. A former director of Development Research at the World Bank and author of the widely acclaimed and award winning The Bottom Billion, Collier’s The Plundered Planet continues his life mission of advocating for the world’s poorest billion people.
I would never pretend to be an expert on Lena Horne, but my research prompts me to make a few observations on her career as a singer of popular songs. Perhaps the most striking thing about her stellar career is that Lena Horne, alone among the great singers of her era, never introduced a hit song. The songs she is associated with are the “standards” of what’s been termed The Great American Song Book. In the television obituaries, for example, she was heard singing the classic songs of Cole Porter, Ira and George Gershwin, and Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers. Even her signature song, “Stormy Weather,” was originally written by Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen for Ethel Waters in the 1933 Cotton Club Revue. (Waters, supposedly, always resented the fact that Lena Horne had co-opted “her” song).
Which is more important: saving the environment or fixing global poverty? Economist Paul Collier argues that we can find a middle ground and do both in his new book The Plundered Planet: Why We Must—and How We Can—Manage Nature for Global Prosperity. A former director of Development Research at the World Bank and author of the widely acclaimed and award winning The Bottom Billion, Collier’s The Plundered Planet continues his life mission of advocating for the world’s poorest billion people.
Robert Paarlberg, author of Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, is a leading authority on food policy, and one of the most prominent scholars writing on agricultural issues today. He is B.F. Johnson Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College and Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. Soon after his “Attention Whole Foods Shoppers” article in the May/June 2010 issue of Foreign Policy, Paarlberg was asked to testify in front of the House Committee on Agriculture. Below, he shares his thoughts on this invitation.
Which is more important: saving the environment or fixing global poverty? Economist Paul Collier argues that we can find a middle ground and do both in his new book The Plundered Planet: Why We Must—and How We Can—Manage Nature for Global Prosperity. A former director of Development Research at the World Bank and author of the widely acclaimed and award winning The Bottom Billion, Collier’s The Plundered Planet continues his life mission of advocating for the world’s poorest billion people.
Which is more important: saving the environment or fixing global poverty? Economist Paul Collier argues that we can find a middle ground and do both in his new book The Plundered Planet: Why We Must—and How We Can—Manage Nature for Global Prosperity. A former director of Development Research at the World Bank and author of the widely acclaimed and award winning The Bottom Billion, Collier’s The Plundered Planet continues his life mission of advocating for the world’s poorest billion people.
Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.
Which is more important: saving the environment or fixing global poverty? Economist Paul Collier argues that we can find a middle ground and do both in his new book The Plundered Planet: Why We Must—and How We Can—Manage Nature for Global Prosperity.
In the excerpt below, from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the New American Politics, Pelosi goes under the microscope and is compared to both the Energizer Bunny and the Big Bad Wolf .
“Apathetic,” he scoffs.
“Naïve and romantic,” I counter defensively.
“These songs are so self-absorbed!”
“Those songs were so self-righteous!”
This is Pete Seeger-biographer David Dunaway and I debating the evolution of American folk music from our distinct generational perspectives, and we aren’t, technically, arguing. Beyond the pot-shots, we are engaging in academic discourse born out of the ever-shifting debate over purity, authenticity, and activism in folk music.
In Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, Moye tells the story of the Tuskegee airmen of World War II, a group of African Americans that fought the Axis powers in the skies and racism in their homeland. The following excerpt depicts Charles Alfred Anderson’s fight against discrimination to become a licensed pilot, instructor and eventually, a key figure for the most improbable squad of aviators.
Although some US senators may resist discussion of the new climate and energy bill this week, people around the world continue to live with incessant dangers that disrupt their daily lives and threaten their existence. A recent glacier avalanche in Peru, for example, unleashed a powerful outburst flood that caused significant destruction. It was the same kind of flood that increasingly endangers people living near melting glaciers worldwide, from Switzerland and Norway to Canada and New Zealand, China and Nepal.