Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Loukas Balafoutas
Have you ever wondered if your car mechanic is charging you too much? Or been worried about taking your laptop to a computer specialist, because that might cost you almost as much as a new computer? Have you ever suspected that your taxi is driving you in circles when you were visiting a tourist destination?
By Elijah Siegler
Last night at the Oscars, the Academy awarded a golden statuette to a film about a flawed hero who we the audience empathize with, who departs their normal life, enters a strange world, but returns triumphantly. Did I just describe Best Picture Winner Argo?
By Maisy Wong
There are many policies around the world designed to encourage ethnic desegregation in housing markets. In Chicago, the Gautreaux Project (the predecessor of the Moving To Opportunity program) offered rent subsidies to African American residents of public housing who wanted to move to desegregated areas. Germany, the United Kingdom, and Netherlands, impose strict restrictions on where refugee immigrants can settle. Many countries also have “integration maintenance programs” or “neighborhood stabilization programs” to encourage desegregation. These policies are often controversial as they are alleged to favor some ethnic groups at the expense of others. Regardless of the motivation behind these policies, knowing the welfare effects is important because these desegregation policies affect the location choices of many individuals.
By Caitlin Tyler-Richards
This week, in the spirit of our upcoming special issue on oral history’s evolving technologies, we want to (re)introduce everyone to the website Oral History in the Digital Age, a substantial collaboration between several institutions to “put museums, libraries, and oral historians in a position to address collectively issues of video, digitization, preservation, and intellectual property.
By Irina A. Telyukova
In the United States, around 25% of households tend have a substantial amount of expensive credit card debt that they carry over multiple months or even years, while also holding significant liquid assets, i.e. balances in checking and savings accounts.
By Simone Frizell Reiter
According to Statistics Norway, around 10,000 children under the age of 18 experience divorce every year. These numbers do not take into account non-married couples that split up. Therefore, in reality far more children experience parental separation.
By Caitlin Tyler-Richards
In November 2012, a thread appeared on the H-Net Oral history listserv with the enticing subject line “experimental uses of oral history.” Amid assorted student projects and artistic explorations, two projects in particular caught my eye: the VOCES Oral History Project and the Freedom Mosaic. As we work towards our upcoming special issue on Oral History in the Digital Age, I’ve been mulling over oral historians negotiate online spaces.
By Candida Saunders
What is a false allegation of rape? At first, this might appear to be a daft question. Reflecting the general tendency to think of the truth or otherwise of allegations in reductive terms of being either true or false, the meaning of “false allegation” is commonly taken to be self-evident. A false allegation of rape is an allegation that is false; the rape alleged did not, in fact, occur. In the abstract, this seems a perfectly logical and sensible approach.
By Chandra Ford
February 7th will mark the thirteenth National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. Despite the fact that blacks make up only 14% of the US population, the CDC reports that blacks accounted for 44% of all newly reported HIV infections in 2009, the HIV infection rate among Latinos was nearly three times as high as that of whites, and 1 in 4 persons living with HIV/AIDS in the USA is an older adult (50+ years old).
By Christopher Kuner
Tension between different regulatory systems has long existed in certain areas (think of the disagreements between EU and US competition regulators regarding the aborted GE-Honeywell merger in the early 2000s). A similar power struggle is currently underway between different legal regimes regulating the collection, processing, and transfer of personal data.
By John Knowles
If you become wealthier tomorrow, say through winning the lottery, would you spend more or less working than you do now? Standard economic models predict you would work less. In fact a substantial segment of American society has indeed become wealthier over the last 40 years — married men.
By Hope Michelson
Walmart now has stores in more than fifteen developing countries in Central and South America, Asia and Africa. A glimpse at the scale of operations: Nicaragua, with a population of approximately six million, currently has 78 Walmart retail outlets with more on the way. That’s one store for every 75,000 Nicaraguans; in the United States there’s a Walmart store for every 69,000 people.
By Siegfried Weyerer
Depression in old age occurs frequently, places a severe burden on patients and relatives, and increases the utilization of medical services and health care costs. Although the association between age and depression has received considerable attention, very little is known about the incidence of depression among those 75 years of age and older.
By Troy Reeves
In our second blog post of 2013, I, Troy Reeves, Managing Editor, have taken over, while our social media coordinator and blog contributor Caitlin Tyler-Richards get some well deserved time away from the office. This guarantees the reader of two things: (1) This post will be wordy, nearing on inscrutable; and (2) far less funny.
By Bryan Fanning and Denis Dillon
The Tottenham riots in the London Borough of Haringey took place in August 2011. We examined three responses to them: reports by North London Citizens, an alliance of 40 mostly faith community institutions including schools, the Tottenham Community Panel established by Haringey Council, and the Riots, Communities and Victims Panel established by Parliament.
Happy New Year, everyone! The Oral History Review is ringing in 2013 with a second oral history podcast. This week, managing editor Troy Reeves speaks with Roger Davis Gatchet about his Oral History Review article, “‘I’ve Got Some Antique in Me’: The Discourse of Authenticity and Identity in the African American Blues Community in Austin, Texas.” (Vol 39, issue 2). And if that isn’t enough to entice you, there’s also (what Troy assures me is) a really hilarious Weird Al Yankovic joke.