Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Denis Sampson
‘Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road.’ It is one of the most celebrated of all fictional beginnings, evoking the essence and tradition of narrative itself, telling a first story to a child, and at the same time the beginning of a very sophisticated kind of biographical fiction, the childhood and youth of an artist.
On February 23rd, Oxford University Press in New York will host four poets reading together on one night. Their poems span a broad range of forms and aesthetics, from collaborative short poems and plainspoken lyrics to a sequence of post-apocalyptic epistles. A wine reception will begin the evening at 6 p.m., with readings from the poets afterward. Oxford University Press associate editor Kristin Maffei will host the event and read a selection from her own poems. If you are a poetry fan/lover please join us. To wet your appetite for the event, we have a few selections of poetry below.
By Robert Kolker
“That’s that,” quoting Ace Rothstein at the end of Casino. I didn’t end the Martin Scorsese chapter on an optimistic note in the fourth edition of A Cinema of Loneliness. There is more than a hint that the Scorsese’s creative energies might be flagging. With this in mind, I went to see Hugo with a lot of skepticism.
It’s Mardi Gras today and revellers may recognize skull and skeleton decorations also used on the Day of the Dead. Santa Muerte is the skeleton saint whose cult has attracted millions of devotees over the past decade. We wanted to ask R. Andrew Chestnut about this folk saint’s impact today.
Now that Series One and Two, plus the Christmas Special, of Downton Abbey have aired in the US and Canada, we’ve decided to compile a reading list for those serious-minded viewers who’d like to learn more about Edwardian England, World War I, life in an aristocratic household, and what lies ahead for the Crawleys and their servants. Warning: Spoilers ahead.
By Andrew Zurcher
The “Februarie” eclogue of Edmund Spenser’s pastoral collection, The Shepheardes Calender, was first published in 1579. It presents a conversation between two shepherds, a brash “Heardmans boye” called Cuddie and an old stick-in-the-mud named Thenot.
By Emily Ardizzone and Anna Wright
2012 will be a momentous year for the UK capital, and the new collections presented in London in this week will no doubt add to the growing feeling of excitement in the run up to the Olympic Games. London’s Fashion Royalty will all be present, from established design houses such as Aquascutum and Paul Smith, to new and emerging talent in the form of the Central St Martins’ Graduate show.
By Gordon Thompson
On a cold winter’s day in early 1962, Brian Epstein and the Beatles huddled together contemplating their failed bid for a Decca recording contract and the bitter aftertaste of rejection that left emptiness in their stomachs. But hunger can feed ambition. Disappointments would ensue, but almost immediately Epstein would be the proverbial right man in the right place at the right time and meet a string of people who were looking for something not quite exactly unlike the Beatles.
The great actor Sir Ian McKellen, who is also well-known as a gay activist, was recently quoted in the press as saying that Shakespeare himself was probably gay. Invited to comment on this, I pointed out that there was nothing new in the idea, which for a long time has been frequently expressed especially because some of his sonnets are clearly addressed to a male.
By Talia Schaffer
Charles Dickens was born 200 years ago this week, but he is very much alive in our culture, having become associated with two ways of seeing the world: “Dickensian” is now shorthand for filthy urban misery, but it is also linked to domestic bliss, the cozy armchair with the rubicund host, the plump goose and the fragrant, steaming punch. The man whose attack on the workhouses has resonated for two centuries is the same man who popularized the modern Christmas.
Dickens dissects the characteristics of familiar types of person such as ‘The Bashful Young Gentleman’, ‘The Literary Young Lady’, and ‘The Couple who Coddle themselves’.
With the bicentenary of Charles Dickens‘ birth on the 7th February, here is an excerpt from one of his most popular novels, Oliver Twist, part of our Oxford World Classics series. The story of Oliver, who suffers a miserable existence in a workhouse and later escapes to London, is an unromantic portrayal of criminals, gangs, and the cruel treatment of orphans in Victorian London. Here we see Oliver in a vulnerable state in the workhouse before he is made aware of what his future holds.
By Jenny Hartley
Dickens loved birthdays and always celebrated his own in style. So, in the face of those who are complaining about being Dickensed-out already, my view is that we can’t party enough.
Not one, but two new blog editors! Alice Northover joined the OUPblog in January 2012 as our New York-based Editor-in-Chief. And now on to a quick self-interview for you blog readers…
Hawk-eyed OUPblog readers may have noticed a few changes recently and it’s high time we came out with them. May I present UK blog editor Nicola Burton, who joined the UK publicity team at Oxford University Press in August 2011. Here’s a quick Q&A for all your readers to get to know her.
On this day in 1922, James Joyce’s Ulysses was first published in its entirety, although the publication history of the book is nearly as complex as the novel itself. Here, we’ve picked one of our favourite extracts from the Oxford World’s Classics edition.