Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
The high society of Stuart England found Frances Coke Villiers, Viscountess Purbeck (1602-1645) an exasperating woman. She lived at a time when women were expected to be obedient, silent, and chaste, but Frances displayed none of these qualities. The following extract looks Frances’ affair with Sir Robert Howard.
At the 2014 OHA Annual Meeting, the African American Oral History Program at Story For All received the prestigious Vox Populi Award, one of the highest honors in the oral history world.
In 2015, the United Nations agreed upon Sustainable Development Goals which set seventeen ambitious targets for the next two decades focusing on tackling poverty, reducing disease, protecting the environment, and driving forward an international community based on sustained commitments to – and improvements in – education, health, human rights, and equity.
One hundred thirty years after the birth of Moishe Shagall, as he was known in his small Hasidic neighborhood on the outskirts of Vitebsk, and thirty-two years after the death of Marc Chagall, as he came to be known in the modern art world, we are starting to understand his vision.
Every three years, the international music therapy community gathers at the World Congress of Music Therapy. This meeting of students, clinicians, educators, and scholars offers opportunities to examine culturally embedded assumptions about the nature of “music” and “health”; to learn how the relationship between music and health differs across cultures; and to directly connect with colleagues from across the globe.
Emmanuel Macron has completely upended French politics. Just over a year after founding a new centrist political party, En Marche (“On the move”), the former investment banker and Minister of Economy and Finance was elected president of France on 7 May by an overwhelming majority.
In one form or another, executive orders have long been issued by the highest office in the land to implement policy or highlight priorities. In theory, an executive order is not new law, yet a controversial aspect is the power of an individual to control the laws of the land with the stroke of a pen and the net effect may be an actual change in law.
Since the end of the Second World War, the European project has met with difficulties and even crises. Its momentum has, however, been strong enough to fend off these turbulent undercurrents, and it has developed incrementally in the decades since. Supported by its two pillars, The Council of Europe and the European Union, it is a Europe built on law, and the project is progressively taking on the contours of a new legal system.
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, has asked on Twitter for advice about the use of his fortune for philanthropy. My advice is that Mr. Bezos should pay some tax. Contemporary attention to philanthropy is largely attributable to the admirable work of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, Jr. The Giving Pledge, Buffett and Gates have commendably encouraged rich individuals in the US and abroad to devote much of their wealth to charity.
Where can you share space with royalty, science rock stars such as Stephen Hawking, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Peter Cox, real rock stars like Brian May of Queen, moon walkers and other astronauts and Nobel Laureates? The Starmus Festival. The stream of achievements proved as intense and dense as expected given the star-line-up, and yet certain aspects of the proceedings proved transcendent
Dawn Bartram is Library Development Area Supervisor, Skills and Learning, at Wakefield Libraries in the UK, and was the winner of our CILIP competition. Here Dawn expands on her winning entry, and talks us through the benefits and approach to setting up a library outreach programme in order to spread the word about the online resources available at your local library.
It is now beyond doubt that climate change is real. It is already happening, and human beings are largely responsible for it. The pending break of a massive iceberg from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf is the latest reminder of this reality, and its potentially dire consequences. As if to drive home the urgency of the climate challenge, the cracking of Larsen C accelerated just as President Trump announced his decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement.
Recently a team of astronomers from India have reported discovery of a large number of extremely rare kind of galaxies called “giant radio galaxies” (GRGs), using a nearly 20 year old radio survey. GRGs are the largest galaxies known in the Universe, which are visible only to radio telescopes. These extremely active form of galaxies harbor a super massive black hole ‘central-engine’ at the nucleus
The US territory of Puerto Rico is currently experiencing its most severe and prolonged economic downturn since the Great Depression (1929–33). Between 2006 and 2016, the island’s economy (measured as Gross National Product in constant 1954 prices) shrank by 15.2%, while total employment fell by 28.6%. The elimination of federal tax exemptions under Section 936 of the Internal Revenue Code in 2006 dealt a serious blow to the island’s manufacturing industry.
Watching Game of Thrones, and devouring the novels, made me a better medievalist. As fans of the show and novels know well, George R. R. Martin’s imaginary world offers a vibrant account of life and death, of royal power and magic, of political infighting, arranged marriages, sex, love, and despair. It is not an accurate depiction of medieval Europe, but why should it be?
The modern day pipa has gone through many transformations since being introduced during the Han dynasty and Koryŏ period. The instrument was integrated into three distinct cultures. It can be made of several different materials.