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Academic Insights for the Thinking World

Title cover of "A Suspicious Science: The Use of Psychology" by Rami Gabriel, published by Oxford University Press

Making psychology a reflexive human science

It’s up to cognitive psychology to figure out a way to explain how the mind works that takes into account its purpose and surroundings. The best approach would be to combine scientific and philosophical ideas, while also considering history and culture.

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Title cover for "Would you say that a(n actual) banana duct-taped to a wall may be protected by copyright? And would you consider a claim that the author of said duct-taped banana copied the work of another artist who had also duct-taped a (plastic) banana to a green cardboard an infringement of the copyright owned by said artist?"

Building copyright: an absurdist work in progress

Would you say that a(n actual) banana duct-taped to a wall may be protected by copyright? And would you consider a claim that the author of said duct-taped banana copied the work of another artist who had also duct-taped a (plastic) banana to a green cardboard an infringement of the copyright owned by said artist?

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Title cover of "Dangerous Crooked Scoundrels: Insulting the President from Washington to Trump" by Edwin L. Battistella, published by Oxford University Press

Is it a noun or an adjective?

The distinction between nouns and adjectives seems like it should be straightforward, but it’s not. Grammar is not as simple as your grade-school teacher presented it.

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Title cover for "Camus's The Plague: Philosophical Perspectives" edited by Peg Brand Weiser, published by Oxford University Press

Pandemic? What pandemic?

Three months after the official US government “end” of three years of monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic that took over 1.1 million American lives, we are back to “new normal.”

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The Oxford Comment podcast

The revelation of the Book of Mormon at 200 [podcast]

On today’s episode, we’re joined by two preeminent scholars on the history and theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to discuss with us the legacy of Joseph Smith’s Gold Plates as well as the state of academic scholarship surrounding The Book of Mormon.

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Title cover for "The Opening of the Protestant: Mind How Anglo-American Protestants Embraced Religious Liberty" by Mark Valeri, published by Oxford University Press

The contested nature of religious liberty in today’s America

Several decisions recently made by the United States Supreme Court, along with an escalation in Christian Nationalist rhetoric among right-wing American politicians, have brought the issue of religious liberty to the surface in today’s media. Much of the commentary has focused on a paradox: the concept of religious liberty has increasingly been used to suppress […]

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