Pay attention to your children
You’ve probably been ignoring your children. This isn’t simply you not paying attention to them because you’re distracted or need to do something.
Why decolonization and inclusion matter in linguistics
As sociolinguists, we have centered social justice in our research, teaching, and administrative work for many years. But as with many other academics, this issue took on renewed collective urgency for us in the context of the events of 2020, from toxic politics and policies at the federal level, to state-sanctioned anti-Black violence and the ensuing racial reckoning, to the Covid-19 pandemic and the many inequities it exposed and heightened.
The origins of the war in Ukraine [timeline]
The fall of the Soviet Union meant independence for Ukraine, and radically altered the shape and power structures of Eastern Europe. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was the culmination of a number of growing fissures and collisions in the region—between Russia and Ukraine, but also between Europe and Russia, and Russia and the United States. Michael Kimmage, a historian and former diplomat who served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State where he handled the Russia/Ukraine portfolio, looks at the origins of this conflict dating back to 24 August 1991.
Homer’s Penelope and the myth of the ‘model military wife’
Ostensibly a tale of the adventures of a soldier, Homer’s ancient Greek epic Odyssey also has at its heart the remarkable story of Odysseus’ waiting wife Penelope, who is renowned for her patience and her fidelity.
Policy meets politics on the frontiers of world urbanization
At a time when funding for urban infrastructure and the promotion of an overarching global goal—the hard-won SDG 11—have catapulted cities up the international policy agenda, it’s hard to believe that urban issues could ever have been considered marginal.
Analysis of the Nuclear Risk Reduction Agenda
In a context of intensifying great power competition and deep divergences of view between nuclear and non-nuclear powers on the urgency of nuclear abolition, ‘nuclear risk reduction’ has gained renewed attention as a pragmatic framework for managing and reducing nuclear dangers.
The third sister: beauty, and why the aesthetic matters
In the current critical/political atmosphere, the “aesthetic” has come to be regarded as the province of dandies and their descendants, not to do with the enormous difficulties of the here and now.
Election plays and the culture of elections and electioneering in the days of Dunny-on-the-Wold
England’s pre-Reform elections are memorably satirized in the historical sitcom, Blackadder the Third. Also glancing at late 1980s politics, the series begins with the rigged by-election for a fictional rotten borough—Dunny-on-the-Wold—taking centre stage.
Less-than-universal basic income
Ten years ago, almost no one in the United States had heard of Universal Basic Income (UBI). Today, chances are that the average college graduate has not only heard of the idea, but probably holds a very strong opinion about it.
How can business leaders add value with intuition in the age of AI? [Long Read]
In a speech to the Economic Club of Washington in 2018, Jeff Bezos described how Amazon made sense of the challenge of if and how to design and implement a loyalty scheme for its customers. This was a highly consequential decision for the business; for some time, Amazon had been searching for an answer to the question: “what would loyalty program for Amazon look like?”
A junior software engineer came up with the idea of fast, free shipping. But a big problem was that shipping is expensive. Also, customers like free shipping, so much so that the big eaters at Amazon’s “buffet” would take advantage by free shipping low-cost items which would not be good for Amazon’s bottom-line. When the Amazon finance team modelled the idea of fast, free shipping the results “didn’t look pretty.” In fact, they were nothing short of “horrifying.”
10 things direct reports must do to get the most out of their 1:1 meetings
1:1s are crucial in promoting positive outcomes in the workplace. It is essential that direct reports have a strategic approach to these meetings to make sure they receive the help they need to grow in their career.
Remembering the legacy of Henry Kissinger [reading list]
As a key architect of US foreign policy during the Nixon and Ford administrations, Henry Kissinger left an indelible mark on international relations.
A spotlight on Native American language and religion [podcast]
On today’s episode of The Oxford Comment, the last for 2023, inspired by the themes in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon”, and in celebration of National Native American Heritage Month in the United States, we spotlight two aspects of Native American culture that transcend tribe and nation and have been the recent focus of OUP scholars: language and religious beliefs.
Five unexpected things about medical debt
100 million Americans hold medical debt which causes people to forgo or be denied necessary medical care. Luke Messac, a historian and physician, looks at five unexpected things about medical debt.
Seven predictions for the biggest management trends in the next few years
What do you think will be the next big management trend? We asked Academy of Management Annual Meeting attendees for their predictions.
Why global museums amassed the ancestral dead, starting in Peru
It is a time of worldwide reckoning for museums that display or contain ancestral dead. But the specific story of the collection of Andean ancestors charts a different origin for this global process, and it asks us to think with more nuance regarding what to do with the museums it created.