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Awards for Exposing Government Secrets

by Don Ritchie It is richly ironic that during the same week the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting was awarded to Susan Schmidt, James V. Grimaldi, and R. Jeffrey Smith of the Washington Post, for their coverage of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, news reports also revealed that the FBI has been seeking to comb […]

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Roger Gottlieb interview at American Prospect

Roger Gottlieb, author of A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future, was interviewed by The American Prospect this week. Gottlieb argues that in recent years religious groups have begun to recognize the moral obbligation of preserving God’s creation and taken up a host of environmental causes. How do you respond (or how would […]

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Serial Blogging: “Copycat” – Part 6

This Friday on Serial Blogging, we’re proud to present the finale of Jeffery Deaver‘s “Copycat,” which was first published in A New Omnibus of Crime. Read from the beginning of the story by clicking here!

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What is “American” in American art?
Thoughts on the Whitney Biennial

by Barbara Novak The Whitney Biennial has been notably challenged lately for including European artists in a show at a Museum of American Art. But such critiques misunderstand the nature of the question “What is American in American Art?” “American” is not a nationally distilled “ingredient” injected into our art by virtue of birth or […]

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Watchin’ the Bird

by Brian Priestley It was a strange experience, watching a recent television documentary on Charlie Parker and the music I immersed myself in for nearly two years. Originally, I hoped my book would be finished in time for the 50th anniversary last year of its subject’s premature death. Instead, the U.S. release of my Chasin’ […]

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Serial Blogging: “Copycat” – Part 2

In our second Serial Blogging post, part two of “Copycat” by famed mystery writer Jeffery Deaver. The story was first published in A New Omnibus of Crime. Read last week’s installment by clicking here!

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Congressional Lobbying Scandals:
A Top Ten List

As calls for “lobbying reform” resound through the halls of Congress this spring, we do well to remember this piece of wisdom from Ecclesiastes: there is nothing new under the sun. Influence peddling, lobbying scandals, and the reporters and newspapers that expose them, have been a part of American political life since the beginning. We […]

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Serial Blogging: “Copycat” – Part 1

OUP Blog does fiction – Classic stories in serialized form In our inaugural Serial Blogging posts, we present a story by famed mystery writer, Jeffery Deaver, whose 1997 novel The Bone Collector was made into a movie starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. Our story, “Copycat,” was first published in A New Omnibus of Crime. […]

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Octavia Butler

Butler, Octavia (b. 22 June 1947 – d. 24 February 2006), science-fiction author. Butler was one of the most thoughtful and imaginative authors of her time. One of the few black writers in the science-fiction field, she took full advantage of the speculative freedom that the genre allows writers to explore her interest in sociology, […]

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Black rat, roasted

After our brief Q&A session with Lizzie Collingham last week, I wanted to provide another taste of the delicious and fascinating recipes woven into her new book, Curry. Having already given out Collingham’s favorite recipe from the book, green coriander chutney, I’m strangely delighted to post the much more esoteric dish that she mentioned last […]

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Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King (27 Apr. 1927–30 January 2006) was born in Heiberger, near Marion, Alabama, the second of three children of Obadiah Scott and Bernice McMurry, who farmed their own land. Although Coretta and her siblings worked in the garden and fields, hoeing and picking cotton, the Scotts were relatively well off. Her father was […]

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