Winter etymology gleanings
Both “thank” and “give” deserve our attention! And it is those two outwardly unexciting words that I’ll offer today as part of our etymological feast.
City spaces, pace bias, and the production of disability
How does our body shape our experience of living in a city? In this OUPblog, Quill R Kukla focuses on one fascinating dimension along which bodies are included in or excluded from spaces, namely pace.
COVID-19 and mental health: where do we go from here? [podcast]
The effects of COVID-19 reach far beyond mortality, triggering widespread economic and sociopolitical consequences. It is unsurprising to learn, after everything that has transpired in the past two years, that COVID-19 has also had a detrimental effect on our mental health.
Homi K. Bhabha on V.S. Naipaul: in conversation with William Ghosh
“Literature, we’re told, is the immortality of speech, but in fact reputations fade quickly.” In this OUPblog, read foundational figure in postcolonial theory, Homi K. Bhabha, in conversation with William Ghosh, author of V.S. Naipaul, Caribbean Writing, and Caribbean Thought (Oxford 2020).
How research abstracts succeed and fail
The abstract of a research article has a simple remit: to faithfully summarize the reported research. After the title, it’s the most read section of the article. Crucially, it makes the case to the reader for reading the article in full. Alas, not all abstracts succeed.
Mapping international law
The map highlights some fascinating examples of international law in action; examples across the globe examining how the law can, or cannot, be enforced across sovereign states.
From Halloween to Thanksgiving
Both “thank” and “give” deserve our attention! And it is those two outwardly unexciting words that I’ll offer today as part of our etymological feast.
The society of Holocaust victims: what was life inside a Nazi camp like?
To mark the 80th anniversary of the first transport to Theresienstadt on 24 November 1941, scholar Anna Hájková explores the social relations that formed within Nazi camps.
Voicing 1960s femininity: not just a “girl singer” [playlist]
“The disc charts cannot stand many girls, no matter how gorgeous they look,” claimed Beatles manager Brian Epstein in A Cellarful of Noise, his memoir of the 1960s. He was explaining why he’d only ever represented one female performer—Cilla Black. His justification falls back on the then-conventional wisdom that girl singers were an anomaly, were each other’s competitors, and that there wasn’t an audience for their work.
20 people you didn’t know were Prohibitionists
The full story of prohibition—one you’ve probably never been told—is perhaps one of the most broad-based and successful transnational social movements of the modern era. Discover 20 key figures from history that you didn’t know were prohibitionists.
The sky’s the limit
English (uncharacteristically) has two, if not even three, words for the sphere above us: sky, heaven, and firmament.
The musical genius of Tommy Tune: “old plus old equals new”
From the beginning, Tommy Tune was pulled as if by centrifugal force toward dance and the Broadway musical. He was taking dancing lessons by the age of five, but his early ambition to be a ballet dancer was abandoned when he shot up in height during his teenage years. He later joked about his extreme height, saying, “Sometimes, instead of thinking of myself as six-foot-six, I tell myself I’m only five-foot-eighteen.”
Why increasing deglobalization is putting vulnerable populations at risk
The record of globalization is decidedly mixed. Whereas proponents tend to associate globalization with beneficial developments such as the expansion of democracy and improved access to goods and services, critics highlight the human costs: rising inequality and political and economic exploitation.
Fake news, misinformation, and disinformation: journalism today?
[Reading list] Fake, false, inaccurate, misleading, and deceptive. This rhetoric is all too familiar to the news consuming public today. But what is fake news and how does it differ from misinformation and disinformation?
Police-free schools: the new frontier in ending the school-to-prison pipeline
There is no research-based evidence that demonstrates that police improve safety in schools. As opposed to promoting safety, school police target students of color and those with disabilities, which starts them on the road to prison.
Many words for a small world and a little-known centennial
What do we call the world in which we live? The specifically Germanic noun “world” is perhaps the most puzzling word known in this area.