Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
India, the world’s largest democracy, is holding its national elections over a six-week period starting 19 April. The elections to the 543-member lower house of the parliament (Lok Sabha) with an electorate, numbering 968 million eligible voters, assumes critical importance as India is going through both internal and external changes that are heavily linked to its rising power aspirations and achievements.
The 2024 OAH Conference on American History begins in New Orleans on 11 April, almost exactly fifteen years after the death of the organization’s first Black president, John Hope Franklin.
Last week, I discussed a few suggestions about the origin of the English word frog. Unfortunately, I made two mistakes in the Greek name of this animal. My negligence is puzzling, because the play by Aristophanes lay open near my computer.
In light of the recent spectacular developments in artificial intelligence (AI), questions are now being asked about whether AI could present a danger to humanity. Can AI take over from us? Is humanity a passing phase in the evolution of intelligence and civilisation? Let’s look at these questions from the long-term evolutionary perspective.
When the Venerable Bede (d. 735) looked out from his Tyneside monastery across the North Sea, over the harbour at Jarrow Slake to which ships brought communications, wares, and human traffic from Europe and the Mediterranean—how then did he picture Rome and the papacy, the city and institution he thought so central to English and even world history? His grasp of its visual culture cannot have been great. We know that Bede never saw Rome (in fact, he never saw any city or town). Our usual reference points of its basilicas, shrines, walls and mosaics—indeed, its sheer urban and suburban mass—cannot have meant much to him.
A person who “thinks disobediently” can be invigorating, maddening, or both. The life and writings of Henry David Thoreau have provoked just such mixed reactions over time, scorned by some; cherished by others. What seems bracingly invigorating can also seem an off-putting mannerism.
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 first time I visited St Petersburg, nearly thirty years ago, I stayed not far from the area in which Dostoevsky set the action of Crime and Punishment. The tenement blocks were, for the most part, those that Dostoevsky himself would have seen—indeed, one friend lived at Grazhdanskaya 19, a possible location for the coffin-like garret inhabited by Raskolnikov, the novel’s homicidal anti-hero.
In early March, the mail brought me the expected complimentary copies of my recent book Origin Uncertain: Unraveling the Mysteries of Etymology, published by Oxford University Press (2024).
Music publishing is an exciting and fast-paced industry touching all our lives, whether as performers, composers, or music lovers listening in the car or in our favorite movies.
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.
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.
In 1932, an African American man named Robert Harris killed his tenant on a makeshift altar in the back of his home in Detroit, Michigan. Harris, who was allegedly part of Detroit’s burgeoning Black Muslim community, described the murder as a human sacrifice to Allah. Harris was put on trial for murder; however, following some bizarre courtroom rants during which he referred to himself as a “king” and the murder as a “crucifixion,” Harris was declared insane and sent to an asylum.
Today, our college and university music students are facing a rapidly changing global market place. There are new technologies, career options, virtual education, and so forth. As educators, we continue to focus on the highest standards of pedagogy. Nevertheless, we need to also expand our curricula to include the necessary preparatory training for skills that will transcend a dizzying rate of change.
Ms. Melissa Mizel found my post for July 29, 2009, on the ethnic slur Sheeny “Jew” and sent me her idea about the etymology of this ugly word.
‘With the passion of a focused mind, I considered how to advance other women so that—the Lord willing—my own desires might prove beneficial for others. […] I established a monastery for girls in the city of Poitiers. After its foundation, I endowed the monastery with however much wealth I had received from the generosity of the king.’