Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
If a theater noob polled a group of theater fans on what classic musicals she must see to jumpstart her theater education, you would be hard pressed to find a fan without The Phantom of the Opera on their list. The show, which opened at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London on 9 October 1986, has left an undeniable impact on London’s West End, Broadway, and theater in general.
As I write, a committee is meeting to decide which two names to submit to the British prime minister for the post of archbishop of Canterbury. Whoever gets the job, a major issue that he will have to deal with is that of gay marriage, which the British government has pledged to introduce, and which the Church of England, along with most other religious confessions inBritain, opposes. The current debate about gay marriage forces all religions, as well as the government and the general public, to re-examine both their views on homosexuality, and their definitions of exactly what marriage is.
By Emily Ardizzone
Karl Lagerfeld: a name synonymous with high fashion and discerning taste, a name that also sends shivers down the spines of those that fall victim to his quick wit and cutting criticism. In the midst of Fashion Week chaos, Lagerfeld celebrated his 79th birthday on September 10th. As he nears the end of his seventieth decade, 2013 will be a year to remember for one of the most iconic and important men in contemporary fashion.
The New York office’s 13th floor conference room — a quiet, large space with no outside light — functions surprisingly well as miniature studio. Within a few hours of the film crew arriving, the office chairs and table have been removed, a green screen unfurled, camera, lights, and mic all assembled, and the Publisher of Scholarly and Online Reference is sitting in the spotlight, prepped for his interview.
By Christopher Cannon
The editing of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the form in which we now read it took many decades of work by a number of different scholars, but there is as yet no readily available edition that takes account of all the different versions in which the Canterbury Tales survives. Some of this is purely pragmatic. There are over 80 surviving manuscripts from before 1500 containing all or some parts of the Tales (55 of these are complete texts or were meant to be).
By Katherine Connor Martin
Back in January we published a short glossary of the jargon of the presidential primaries. Now that the campaign has begun in earnest, here is our brief guide to some of the most perplexing vocabulary of this year’s general election. It may seem like the 2012 US presidential election has stretched on for eons, but it only officially begins with the major parties’ quadrennial nominating conventions, on August 27–30 (Republicans) and September 3–6 (Democrats). How can they be called nominating conventions if we already know who the nominees are?
You may not have known it, but July was a pretty stressful month for the composers of this world. Or at least several thousand of them. The life of Sibelius, one of the leading music notation software programs, has seemingly come under threat of dissipation as Avid (who owns the software) has recently shut down Sibelius’ UK office, simultaneously laying off the software’s core development team.
Happy Birthday Enid Blyton! This giant of children’s literature was born on 11 August 1897. To celebrate, here is an edited extract from the Enid Blyton entry by David Rudd in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature edited by Jack Zipes (© Oxford University Press 2006).
By Philip Carter
Where do you stand on Friday’s opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympic Games? Delighted, inspired, a little bit baffled? There’s a possibility, we realize, that not all of the show’s 1 billion-strong audience will have caught every reference. So here’s the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography guide to some of those who made it possible.
By Mark Clague
The Fourth of July, aka “Independence Day” (the annual federal holiday in the United States marking the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence from Britain), is cause for national celebration and certainly the celebration of nationalism. Fireworks, orchestral concerts, parades, 5-K runs, carnivals, family picnics, and political speeches are common holiday happenings. Many are accompanied by music, especially by a haphazard class of folk tunes known as patriotic song that often defy historical logic, but nevertheless have become potent cultural symbols.
We’ve all had the experience: you’re listening to the radio on your morning commute or walking through the mall one Saturday afternoon when a tune catches your ear. There’s something familiar about it, but upon further listening you know that it’s a new song. What about it sounds the same as the song already in your head?
The U.S. Census first collected data on librarians in 1880, a year after the launch of the American Library Association. They only counted 636 librarians nationwide. Indeed, one respondent stated that he was the ‘Librarian of Congress.’ The number of librarians grew over the next 100 years however.
The prevailing wisdom of most African Americanists, is that due to the distinctive history and acculturation of Africans in the British colonies in North America, African-American literature is most meaningfully assessed in the context of multiple geographical, oral, and literary heritages.
Today we’ll look at the jazz roots of hip hop by examining the charismatic stage presence and dapper style of the great Cab Calloway. As a pioneer of the genre, Calloway was described by President Bill Clinton as a ‘true legend among the musicians of this century’ – and his legacy lives on today.
Today, we’ll look at one of the literary forerunners of the hip hop revolution; Iceberg Slim. Slim’s works are marked by a criticism of American justice, devotion to the politics of the Black Panthers, frank language, and a combination of violence and sexuality. They remain influential to this day.
Today, we’ll look at a towering figure in 1970s soul music and a forebear of modern hip hop and rap; Isaac Hayes. His classic 1969 record, the sumptuous, deep-grooving ‘Hot Buttered Soul’, made Hayes a star and cemented his image in the minds of a generation of young African Americans.