The AA talking cure

By Owen Flanagan

80 years ago, in the summer of 1935, Bill Wilson, a stockbroker from NYC, and Dr. Bob Smith, a surgeon from Akron Ohio, both formerly hopeless alcoholics, shared their “experience, strength, and hope” with each other in Dr. Bob’s living room, and Alcoholic’s Anonymous was born. Today, 2 million people in 170 countries continue to do exactly what Bill W. and Dr. Bob did. Formerly hopeless drunks sit in church basements and in clubhouses, and share their stories with each other, not with ministers, addiction experts or psychiatrists, but with fellow alcoholics.

The symbolism of sweetness

By Darra Goldstein

Given the evolutionary origin of religion among humans, it is no surprise that symbolism would also be attributed to sweet foods. Across many cultures, sweetness prevails as a positive symbol, representing joyous occasions and victories. In recognition of these sweet symbols, we’ve compiled our favorites from The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets into a gallery we hope you’ll enjoy perusing as much as we enjoyed creating it.

How much do you know about the history of myth? [quiz]

By Robert A. Segal

Myths have been applied to the arts and sciences for thousands of years and been used in seminal works by prominent figures such as Sigmund Freud, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Roland Barthes. How much do you know about the history of myth? Test your knowledge in the following quiz, based on Robert Segal’s Myth: A Very Short Introduction.

Portrait of a lady – Episode 25 – The Oxford Comment

By Susan Doran

Much mystery surrounds Elizabeth I, the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. It’s said that the beloved Queen, for centuries immortalized in private letters and state papers, portraits and poetry, remains more myth than memory in the canon of British history. How, then, can we begin to uncover the personal and political dimensions that made up Elizabeth’s life? And what is it like—as writers, students, and scholars of history—to attempt to understand a legend of the royal kind?

A rare treat in Berlioz’s The Trojans

By David Ostwald

The San Francisco Opera has undertaken the enormous challenge of mounting Berlioz’s The Trojans. It consists of two complete operas, The Capture of Troy and The Trojans at Carthage. They are being performed together, which is most unusual, but is how Berlioz envisioned it. The forces involved are enormous. In this production there are 72 instrumentalists in the pit and 23 backstage including 4 trumpets.

Genomically speaking

By Dawn Field

Today, the amount of global genetic data is doubling on the order of every seven months. This time span has shortened significantly over the past years as the field of genomics continues to mature. A recent study showed genomics is starting to compete with the data outputs of digital giants like Twitter and YouTube.

Playing God, Chapter 1

By Anatoly Liberman

While dealing with the etymology of the adjective bad, I realized that an essay on good would be vapid. The picture in Germanic and Slavic with respect to good is trivial, while the word’s ties outside those two groups are bound to remain unclear. Especially troublesome is Greek agathós “good,” from which we have the given name Agatha.

The public life of Charles Dickens

Our Oxford World’s Classics reading group, in its third season, has chosen Dickens’s Great Expectations for discussion. In addition to analyzing that a work for its literary depth, it is just as important to consider an author’s life and the context in which the work was written.

Neighbourhood leadership in the wake of the Baltimore riots

By Robin Hambleton

Having visited several American cities in recent weeks and talked to public servants, business leaders, community activists, and academics about current urban stresses and strains, it is difficult not to conclude that they face deeply troubling challenges. The riots in West Baltimore in April and May 2015 are only the most recent in a long line of outbreaks of urban violence suggesting that all is not well.

A fist-full of dollar bills

By Richard S. Grossman

The next time you are slipping the valet a couple of folded dollar bills, take a good look at those George Washingtons. You might never see them again. Every few years, there is a renewed push for the United States to replace the dollar bill with its shiny cousin, the one dollar coin.

Celebrating 50 years of the Voting Rights Act

By Emily Indig

On 6 August 2015, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) will be turning 50 years old. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson approved this groundbreaking legislation to eliminate discriminatory barriers to voting. The Civil Rights Movement played a notable role in pushing the VRA to become law. In honor of the law’s birthday, Oxford University Press has put together a quiz to test how much you know about its background, including a major factor in its success, Section 5.

“Deflategate” and the “Father of Football”

By Julie Des Jardins

The Wells Report besmirched the reputation of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, concluding that the NFL ‘golden boy’ was likely aware that he was playing with under-inflated footballs in the 2015 AFL conference game against the Indianapolis Colts. If the report is to be believed, even Brady has stooped to less-than-savory methods to win a game of football. There are a range of opinions about Brady’s innocence, offered by nearly every sports commentator and former football player.

The Beatles, the Watts Riots, and America in transition, August 1965

By Gordon R. Thompson

Fifty years ago during their North American tour, The Beatles played to the largest audience in their career against the backdrop of a nation shattering along economic, ethnic, and political lines. Although on the surface the events of August 1965 would seem unconnected, they nevertheless illustrate how the world was changing and how music reflected that chaotic cultural evolution.

The role of cross-examination in international arbitration

By Kaj Hobér and Howard S. Sussman

Knowing when and how to cross-examine is an essential part of properly representing clients in international arbitrations. Many cases have been won by good cross-examinations and lost by bad cross-examinations, and that is just as true in international arbitrations as it is in any other dispute resolution procedure in which counsel are permitted to cross-examine witnesses.

Medicare and end-of-life medical care

By Edward A. Zelinsky

Medicare recently announced that it will pay for end-of-life counseling as a legitimate medical service. This announcement provoked little controversy. Several groups, including the National Right to Life Committee, expressed concern that such counseling could coerce elderly individuals to terminate medical treatment they want. However, Medicare’s statement was largely treated as uncontroversial—indeed, almost routine in nature.

Animal, vegetable or mineral? [quiz]

By Susannah Gibson

In the late eighteenth century, against a troubled background of violent change on the continent and rising challenges to the Establishment at home, botanists were discovering strange creatures that defied the categories of ‘animal, vegetable, and mineral’.