Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Cecilia Sun
Brian Eno turns 66 today. It has become a cliché to start every profile of Eno by noting the eclecticism and longevity of his musical career. After all, here is a man who made his performance debut smashing a piece of wood against an open piano frame (La Monte Young, X (Any Integer) for Henry Flynt) and went on to produce award-winning albums for chart-topping bands.
By Adam Grossman
It is rare for a seventh round National Football League (NFL) draft pick to be at the center of the sports world. Then again, Michael Sam is not an average draft pick. Sam is trying to become the first openly gay player to compete for a NFL team.
By Kate Farquhar-Thomson
Every year since I can remember, I find myself in England’s famous book town for the excellent Hay Festival. Now in its 27th year the eponymous book festival can be found nestling under canvass for 11 days in the Black Mountains of the Brecon Beacons National Park.
By Victoria Davis
This year, in honor of World Art Day, Oxford invited photographers of all levels to submit their best street photography. Thank you to all of you who submitted! We received many thought-provoking, original entries, and are now happy to announce the winners.
By Philip V. Bohlman
4–10 May 2014. The annual Eurovision week offers Europeans a chance to put aside their differences and celebrate, nation against nation, the many ways in which music unites them. Each nation has the same opportunity—a “Eurosong” of exactly three minutes, performed by no more than six musicians or dancers, in the language of their choice, national or international—to represent Europe for a year.
By Tony Harcup
Journalists are heroes to some and scumbags to others but the truth is that most are somewhere in the middle, trying to do as good a job as they can, often in difficult circumstances. That, at least, is the view of Tony Harcup, author of A Dictionary of Journalism. We asked him to tell us about some of the good – and not so good – things that journalists do.
Today, 11 May, marks the anniversary of the founding of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927. It wouldn’t be until 1928 until the award selection and nomination process was established, but this elite group of actors, directors, writers, technicians, and producers were leaders in the early film industry.
By Mark Lawrence Schrad
If Ukraine is a volatile tinderbox of political instability, the situation in its Russian-speaking east is even more dangerous: a tinderbox drenched in vodka.
By William Allan
One of the most striking aspects of classical literature is its highly developed sense of genre. Of course, a literary work’s genre remains an important factor today: we too distinguish broad categories of poetry, prose, and drama, but also sub-genres (especially within the novel, now the most popular literary form) such as crime, romantic or historical fiction. And we do the same in other creative media, such as film, with thrillers, horrors, westerns, and so on. But classical authors were arguably even more aware than writers of genre fiction are today what forms and conventions applied to the genre they were writing in.
By Christopher Wiley
The 8th May marks the seventieth anniversary of the death of Dame Ethel Smyth, the pioneering composer and writer, at her home in Hook Heath, near Woking. In the course of her long and varied career, she composed six operas and an array of chamber, orchestral, and vocal works, challenging traditional notions of the place of women within music composition.
By Kirsty Doole
As Mother’s Day approaches in the United States, we decided to reflect on some of the mothers to be found between the pages of some of our classic books.
By Matthew Flinders
First it was football, now its politics. The transfer window seems to have opened and all the main political parties have recruited hard-hitting spin-doctors – or should I say ‘election gurus’ – in the hope of transforming their performance in the 2015 General Election. While some bemoan the influence of foreign hands on British politics and others ask why we aren’t producing our own world-class spin-doctors I can’t help but feel that the future of British politics looks bleak. The future is likely to be dominated by too much shouting, not enough listening.
In his study, sociologist David Yamane found an interesting correlation between the type of catechetical sessions used in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults process (which an adult who wants to enter the Catholic Church undergoes) and the socioeconomic standing (SES).
Soul’s latest incarnation comes in the guise of St. Paul and the Broken Bones. St. Paul is not really a saint. He is Paul Janeway of a new band that is hot on the rise. When you listen to him sing it evokes memories of a time past.
By J. C. McKeown
The National September 11 Memorial Museum will be opened in a few weeks. On the otherwise starkly bare wall at the entrance is a 60-foot-long inscription in 15-inch letters made from steel salvaged from the twin towers: NO DAY SHALL ERASE YOU FROM THE MEMORY OF TIME. This noble sentiment is a quotation from Virgil’s Aeneid, one of mankind’s highest literary achievements, but its appropriateness has been questioned.
New York City, five boroughs boasting nine million people occupying an ever-expanding concrete jungle. The industrial hand has touched almost every inch of the city, leaving even the parks over manicured and uncomfortably structured.