Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe returned home from the Far East, where he had been for a month, on 22 January 2016. Mugabe was chipper and appeared physically fit, as he shook hands and exchanged greetings with a long queue of government officials, service chiefs and other ruling party dignitaries who converged on the Harare International Airport to welcome him home.
Of all the things we could possibly care about, why should we care about the reception of Plato? Wars rage round the world. The planet is in the process of environmental meltdown. Many remain mired in poverty, oppression, and disease. Surely this is a most obscure, not to say obscurantist, pursuit. But perhaps we are too hasty.
Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) remains one of the most influential music teachers to have ever assigned counterpoint exercises. She was largely responsible for the training that made composers as diverse as Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, and Elliott Carter sound the way they do—each inherently unique, each an easily identifiable Boulanger pupil. And of those living composers championed by Boulanger, Igor Stravinsky held pride of place.
England’s first and most surprising elephant was given to Henry III in 1235 by the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, probably to mark his betrothal to Henry’s sister Isabella. Frederick had elephants to spare – he took several on his journeys round Europe along with lions, leopards, dromedaries, camels, falcons and bearded owls. This was an African elephant (recognized by its big ears).
Last week, in discussing the antiquated idiom hang out the broom, I mentioned kick the bucket and will now return to it. In the entry bucket2, the OED, usually reticent about the origin of such phrases, mentioned what Murray considered might be the most plausible idea. I am writing this essay for two reasons.
Europe’s economy has barely grown since the financial crisis broke in 2007. And unemployment, especially among the young, has soared in most countries. Eastern and Southern Europe, the least affluent regions, have suffered the most. Today, in the most affected countries, around one in two young adults seeking a job is not able to find one. If there is one recipe for social and political trouble in the years ahead, this is surely it.
Beginning over two thousand years ago, the ancient Greeks and Romans innovated a surprising array of concepts that we take for granted today. It’s hard to imagine where we’d be without the Greek alphabet, Euclid’s geometric concepts, Roman concrete, and more.
First established in 1926 by historian Carter G. Woodson with the support of the Association for the Study for Negro Life, Negro History Week took place on the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, two men whose actions greatly influenced the black population in America.
The tragedy of children poisoned by lead-contaminated water in Flint, Michigan is not an isolated incident. More than 11 counties in New Jersey have children with higher lead levels than those of Flint. Since 2008, drastic cuts in funding for public health programs across the board have slashed programs to educate parents and pediatricians to test young kids for lead poisoning or test water for its residues.
During the search for scents of anger and aggression in human beings, several English idioms come to mind relating aggression to odors: ‘To be incensed’ describes somebody feeling angry with the related meaning of the word incense, a substance that produces a strong smell when burned.
How does one grapple with music research in the digital age? What are the changes and challenges therein? On 23 June 2015, a group of distinguished academics and editors came together for a panel discussion on “Referencing music in the twenty-first century: Encyclopedias of the past, present, and future” at a conference organized by the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centers (IAML) and the International Musicological Society (IMS).
The International Space Station was originally conceived as our base camp to the stars – the first step in a long journey of human civilisation exploring new planets, asteroids, and galaxies, and perhaps even helping us to meet other forms of life in the universe along the way. The International Space Station is an incredible feat in human engineering, politics, and bravery.
It is a disconcerting experience to watch Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering’s documentary The Hunting Ground or to read Jon Krakauer’s Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town and then walk into a classroom filled with college students. Both The Hunting Ground and Missoula take up the problem of sexual violence on college campuses.
In 2015, more people fled from persecution, war, human rights violations, discrimination, and other hardship than at any other time since World War II. UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, estimates that worldwide more than 60 million people, or one in every 122, have been forced to flee their homes.
I always see some shocked faces when I tell a classroom of college students that there is nothing wrong with beginning a sentence with the word and (or for that matter, the words but, because, or however). I encourage them to not to take my word for it but to look it up, so I refer them to Ernest Gowers’ 1965 revision of Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage.
Political philosophy explores questions relating to the best organization of our collective political and economic institutions and policies. As such, one might expect that detailed discussion of policy issues would be commonplace in political philosophy. Just the opposite, however, is usually the case.