Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
An Introduction to a New Monthly Feature By Nicole Rafter My original interest in crime films led me to introduce courses that examined the dynamic interplay of art and life in crime films at Northeastern University, and it eventually resulted in my book Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society (Oxford University Press, 2d.ed. […]
Today, we’ll look at one of the literary forerunners of the hip hop revolution; Iceberg Slim. Slim’s works are marked by a criticism of American justice, devotion to the politics of the Black Panthers, frank language, and a combination of violence and sexuality. They remain influential to this day.
Today, we’ll look at a towering figure in 1970s soul music and a forebear of modern hip hop and rap; Isaac Hayes. His classic 1969 record, the sumptuous, deep-grooving ‘Hot Buttered Soul’, made Hayes a star and cemented his image in the minds of a generation of young African Americans.
While working on my etymological database, I looked through countless old journals and magazines. I especially enjoyed reading the reviews of etymological dictionaries published in their pages. Some were shockingly abrasive, even virulent; others delightfully chatty and unabashedly superficial.
Here is a discussion of the music, biography and inspirations of the one-and-only James Brown; the legendary African American soul and funk singer – who has been invariably called the ‘Godfather of Soul’, ‘Soul Brother Number One’, ‘Mr. Dynamite’, and the ‘Hardest Working Man in Show Business’.
Last year the Kansas State Board of Education adopted a new science curriculum that taught “intelligent design” as an alternative to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Last week the voters of Kansas threw out the board members that had pushed for this new unscientific approach to teaching science, virtually assuring that intelligent design will be stricken […]
By Cass Sunstein What happens when people deliberate with one another? Do they arrive at the truth? Do they go toward the middle? Can we predict the effects of deliberation? A few months ago, I tried to find out, collaborating with David Schkade (of the University of San Diego) and Reid Hastie (of the University […]
Frederick G. Kilgour, author of The Evolution of the Book (Oxford University Press | 1998) passed away on Monday, July 31st at his home in Chapel Hill, N.C.
In the mid-1970s the cultural shockwave known as hip hop emerged from the economic paralysis of New York City, especially the neglected neighborhoods in the Bronx. However, while hip hop music was born in New York, it speaks to a long line of black American and African diasporic cultural traditions.
By Anatoly Liberman If you have ever written a grant proposal, the form you filled out must have had a question about your methodology. Among the many useless words invented to add ceremony or to the bureaucratic procedure, methodology occupies a place of honor. It is a synonym of method(s) but pretends to have a […]
Philip Jenkins, whose latest book The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South will be out in , has an article on the rapidly changing global face of Christianity in the most recent issue of The Christian Century. Here are some of the highlights: Fifty years ago, Americans might have dismissed […]
By Brian Fagan When I sat down to compile my latest book From Stonehenge to Samarkand, I found my greatest inspiration in the writings of a virtually forgotten English writer, Rose Macaulay. Her classic book, Pleasure of Ruins, first appeared in the 1950s and was reprinted with evocative photographs by Reny Beloff a decade later. […]
Lawrence E. Harrison directed the USAID missions in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Haiti and Nicaragua between 1961 and 1985. He also co-edited, with Samuel Huntington, Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress. In this podcast, Harrison discusses his latest book The Central Liberal Truth. Click here to listen to the podcast (Lawrence_Harrison_podcast_MD1.mp3)
By Glenn LaFantasie Authors prepare themselves for negative reviews of their books, but when critics have bad things to say about one’s writing there is no girding of the loins that really seems to work. An unfavorable review hurts, no matter what authors say to the contrary. Some writers, though, dismiss critics and criticism more […]
By Charlayne Hunter-Gault The first time I went to Ethiopia was in 1990, and I was filled with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. My excitement was sparked by the prospect of visiting one of the oldest countries in the world, and as I entered the hotel where I was to stay, I was greeted […]
By Anatoly Liberman The Old Germanic word for “army” sounded approximately like harjaz. Its Modern German continuation is Heer, and nearly the same word is used in Icelandic, Norwegian, and Danish (army is a borrowing from French; the idea of this word is “armed force”). English has lost harjaz, but it is astounding how many […]