Music we’re thankful for in 2013
With Thanksgiving as a time of the year to reflect on what brings us joy and …, we thought it would be a good time to reflect on the music that we’re thankful for having in our lives.
A call to the goddess
In the first book of The Iliad, Homer calls for a muse to help him recount the story of Achilles, the epic Greek hero of the Trojan War. The poet begins his account nine years after the start of Trojan war, with the capture of two maidens, Chryseis by Agamemnon, the commander of the Achaean Army, and Briseis by the hero Achilles.
The usable past: an interview with Robert P. Wettemann Jr.
By Caitlin Tyler-Richards
In celebration of Veterans Day, we’re pleased to share a conversation between OHR managing editor Troy Reeves and Dr. Robert P. Wettemann Jr., director of the U.S. Air Force Academy Center for Oral History.
A spooky Halloween playlist
No other holiday has mood swings quite like Halloween. Running the gamut from horror to kitsch to comedy, the holiday is as variable as the types of costumes donned by schoolchildren on the day itself. This Halloween, we have put together a collection of songs collected from the staff at Oxford University Press that reflects that intrinsic variability.
Celebrating World Anaesthesia Day
World Anaesthesia Day commemorates the first successful demonstration of ether anaesthesia on 16 October 1846, which took place at the Massachusetts General Hospital, home of the Harvard School of Medicine. This ranks as one of the most significant events in the history of medicine and the discovery made it possible for patients to obtain the benefits of surgical treatment without the pain associated with an operation.
The sounds of American counterculture and citizenship
We’re told many stories about the 1960s, typically clichéd tales of excess and revolution. But there’s more to the popular music of the 1960s. There are many ways in which rock music has shaped our ideas of individual freedom and collective belonging. Rock became a way for participants in American culture and counterculture to think about what it meant to be an American citizen, a world citizen, a citizen-consumer, or a citizen-soldier.
CSI: Oral History
By Caitlin Tyler-Richards
In our first podcast of the season, managing editor Troy Reeves speaks with the newest addition to the Oral History Review (OHR) editorial staff, David J. Caruso. As you will learn, David wears a number of hats in the oral history community.
An interview with Sara Japhet
Biblical scholar Sara Japhet has been a leading authority on the two books of Chronicles since the publication of her landmark works The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought (Hebrew 1977; English translation 1989), followed by I and II Chronicles: A Commentary in 1993.
Songs of summer, OUP style
Compiled by Natasha Zaman
It’s finally summer — the perfect time to spend with family and friends, enjoy the weather, gardens and parks, and to create fond memories. What better way to create those summer memories than have our favorite songs playing in the background?
Understanding history through biography
At the April 2013 Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Susan Ware, General Editor of the American National Biography, discussed her first year in charge of the site and her vision for its future. Ware argues that one of the best ways to understand history is through the lives of history’s major and minor players.
A sweet, sweet song of salvation: the stars of Jesus rock
The Jesus People movement emerged in the 1960s within the hippie counterculture as the Flower Children rubbed shoulders with America’s pervasive evangelical subculture. While the first major pockets of the movement appeared in California, smaller groups of “Jesus freaks” popped up—seemingly spontaneously—across the country in the late Sixties.
Seven things you didn’t know about “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” the iconic hit featured on the Beatles’ much-celebrated 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, is probably among one of the most mesmerizing and musically inventive Billboard-toppers of all time.
20 of the most iconic songs in industrial music
Curated from the pages of Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music, this playlist spans over 30 years, offering a chronological tour of industrial music. From its politically charged beginnings in noisy performance art and process-based tape meddling, it moved into 1980s flirtations with rock to its more recent aggressive, synth-driven goth-tinged dance stylings.
Paul Ortiz on oral history
By Caitlin Tyler-Richards
As regular readers might have guessed, the Oral History Review staff has spent the last few months obsessing over oral history’s bright, digital future. However, now that special issue 40.1, Oral History in the Digital Age, is out, we’re taking a break — just a break! — to recall the oral history projects that run on something other than tagging and metadata. To that end, we were lucky enough to catch up with Professor Paul Ortiz, director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP) at the University of Florida.
Coronation Music
Sunday 2 June marks the 60th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey in London. It also therefore follows that it is the anniversary of the works which were first performed at the coronation, including William Walton’s Orb and Sceptre March and Coronation Te Deum, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s O taste and see and Old Hundredth Psalm Tune (All people that on earth do dwell).
Hyperconnectivity and governance
Professor Ian Goldin talks to Matthew Flatman of Pod Academy about the dilemmas our hyper-connected world faces. There are many benefits, but also many drawbacks, to our growing globalization and interconnectedness. How can we tackle these issues at a local, regional, national, and global level?