Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Compiled by Sonia Tsuruoka
Fading tans and falling temperatures mean it’s that time of year again. As the new academic term approaches, the annual Back to School frenzy has kicked into high-gear, with parents and students of all ages rushing to complete last-minute mall runs and Staples trips in preparation.
Philip Mladenov
Russia has recently blocked the creation of two of the world’s largest marine protected areas at a special meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in Bremerhaven. These marine reserves would have been massive – covering more than 3.5 million square kilometres of the Southern Ocean off the coast of Antarctica.
By Katherine Smits and Stephen Winter
In recent weeks, the Global Indigenous Preparatory Conference for the United Nations High Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly convened in Alta, Norway and released its comprehensive ‘Outcome Document’. The document has met with resounding indifference. That result might have been expected.
By Paul Gready and Brian Phillips
Education and training programmes have become one of the most familiar features of the contemporary global human rights landscape. Their current volume and scope would have been unimaginable even two decades ago. Programmes dedicated to human rights education and training are now delivered by a myriad of actors and are aimed at various audiences.
Practicing yoga is more popular than ever, with plenty of studios to be found across the US. As yoga has now begun to enter school curriculum, some parents and their children are unhappy, feeling that programs such as these are religious.
By Edward Zelinsky
The Multi-State Worker Act (the current version of the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act) would, if enacted into law, prevent states from taxing non-resident telecommuters (like me) on the days such telecommuters work at their out-of-state homes. Can someone who values the states and their autonomy (also like me) favor the Act?
By Kathleen Tam
The 73rd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management is taking place in Orlando this year. The conference provides a forum for sharing research and expertise in all management disciplines through invited and competitive paper sessions, panels, symposia, workshops, speakers, and special programs for doctoral students.
By Kathleen Cavanaugh
Since 2003, Iraq has experienced significant political unrest and the emergence of ethno-religious divisions. That there is a sectarian complexion to emerging socio-political movements in Iraq (religious, ethno-political) is not in question. The ‘fear of sectarianism’ has undoubtedly shaped and formed how protest movements in Iraq (and indeed regionally) are constituted.
By Desmond McNeill
Modern vaccines are among the most powerful tools available to public health. They have saved millions of lives, protected millions more against the ravages of crippling and debilitating disease, and have the capacity to save many more. But like all complex and sophisticated tools, they can be used for different purposes, in different ways, and with various consequences.
Today, debate in the West remains largely focused on energy security and decreased dependence on foreign oil, but in the Middle East, an equally threatening crisis looms in a shortage of food and water. Ahead of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association & CAES Joint Annual Meeting (4-6 August 2013 in Washington, D.C.), we present a […]
By Leonard A. Jason, Amy A. Mericle, Douglas L. Polcin, and William L. White
Drug abuse and addiction are among the costliest of health problems, totaling approximately $428 billion annually. People recovering from substance abuse disorders face many obstacles in our current health care system.
Linda Woodhead
We are living through a very significant historical change: the collapse of the historic churches which have shaped British society and culture. The Church of England, by law established, is no exception. A survey I recently carried out with YouGov for the Westminster Faith Debates (June 2013) shows that in Great Britain as a whole only 11% of young people in their twenties now call themselves CofE or Anglican, compared to nearer half of over-70s. The challenge facing the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is to address this decline. But the initial indications suggest he may be heading in the wrong direction.
By Sam Lebovic
Since its creation in the summer of 1946, the Fulbright program has become the “flagship international educational exchange program” of the US government. Over the past 67 years, almost 320,000 students, scholars and teachers have traveled internationally as part of the program’s vast effort to improve mutual understanding between nations.
By Thorstein Veblen
The dress of women goes even farther than that of men in the way of demonstrating the wearer’s abstinence from productive employment. It needs no argument to enforce the generalisation that the more elegant styles of feminine bonnets go even farther towards making work impossible than does the man’s high hat.
By Robert Goldney
To some this heading may seem unexpected. The term ‘suicide bomber’ has entered our lexicon on the obvious basis that although the prime aim may have been the killing of others, the individual perpetrator dies. Indeed, over the last three decades the media, the general public , and sometimes the scientific community have uncritically used the words ‘suicide bomber’ to describe the deaths of those who kill others, sometimes a few, usually ten to twenty, or in the case of 9/11, about two thousand, while at the same time killing themselves.
By Louis René Beres
We live in an age of glittering data analysis and complex information technologies. While there are obvious benefits to such advancement, not all matters of importance are best understood by science. On some vital matters, there is a corollary and sometimes even complementary need for a deeper –more palpably human – kind of understanding.