Philosopher of the month: Ludwig Wittgenstein

By Mohamed Sesay

This June, the OUP Philosophy team are proud to announce that Ludwig Wittgenstein is their Philosopher of the Month. Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-born philosopher and logician, regarded by many as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Wittgenstein was born the youngest of eight children into a wealthy industrial family in Vienna, Austria. He intended on studying aeronautical engineering, but his interest in the philosophy of mathematics led him to Cambridge where he studied under Bertrand Russell.

Celebrating pride through oral history

By Andrew Shaffer

In recognition of Pride Month, we’re looking at some of the many oral history projects focused on preserving the memories of LGBTQ communities. The LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory is connecting archives across North America to produce a digital hub for the research and study of LGBTQ oral histories. The University of Chicago is cataloguing the history of students, faculty, and alumni for its “Closeted/Out in the Quadrangles” project. The University of Wisconsin – Madison continues to collect the histories of Madison’s LGBT Community, and has even prepared mini-movies to make the materials more accessible.

World Blood Donor Day 2015: blood types [infographic]

By Joe Couling

World Blood Donor Day 2015 is celebrated on 14 June each year. This Sunday, the theme is “Thank you for saving my life,” a chance for everyone who has benefited from a blood donation to thank the donors that selflessly donated to the cause. The demand for blood is always high as the shelf life of donated blood is only 42 days.

How much do you know about Dracula? [quiz]

By Amy Jelf

Now that the second season of the Oxford World’s Classics Reading Group is drawing to a close, let’s see how much you’ve learnt from reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Test your knowledge of all things Vampire with our quiz.

Magna Carta: the international dimension

By Henry Summerson

The importance of Magna Carta—both at the time it was issued on 15 June 1215 and in the centuries which followed, when it exerted great influence in countries where the English common law was adopted or imposed—is a major theme of events to mark the charter’s 800th anniversary.

The greatest charter?

By Nicholas Vincent

On 15th June 2015, Magna Carta celebrates its 800th anniversary. More has been written about this document than about virtually any other piece of parchment in world history. A great deal has been wrongly attributed to it: democracy, Habeas Corpus, Parliament, and trial by jury are all supposed somehow to trace their origins to Runnymede and 1215. In reality, if any of these ideas are even touched upon within Magna Carta, they are found there only in embryonic form.

Darra Goldstein on food scholarship

What do Russians poets eat? When does food heritage become international politics? How has sugar been used as medicine? Darra Goldstein, the editor-in-chief to The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, shares her insights on how a three-year project transformed into the lively compendium of all things sweet. She takes us through the process of what it was like to oversee 265 contributors and over 600 entries, and the journey she took to get where she is today.

Composition, performance, and mashups

By Kyle Adams

What does it mean to create an artwork? For centuries, we thought we knew the answer. In literature, an author recorded words on a page. In the visual arts, an artist put paint to canvas. In music, a composer jotted down notes and rhythms on a staff as the raw material for his/her creations.

A Q&A with the Editor of Environmental Epigenetics

Environmental Epigenetics is a new, international, peer-reviewed, fully open access journal, which publishes research in any area of science and medicine related to the field of epigenetics, with particular interest on environmental relevance. With the first issue scheduled to launch this summer, we found this to be the perfect time to speak with Dr. Michael K. Skinner, Editor-in-Chief to discuss the launch of the journal into an exciting and rapidly developing field.

Happiness: it’s not always smiley faces and that’s okay

By Amanda Conley Ayers

Imagine that today is Happiness Day. For the next 24 hours, you get to enjoy the day to the best of your ability. What would you do?’ I asked some of my friends and family this same question. If you’re like many of the people I polled, you would probably plan to spend the day with family, indulge in a pleasurable activity, or aim to carve out a significant chunk of time with one of your favorite hobbies. But not everyone approaches happiness the same way.

Redefining beauty in the suburbs of Victorian London

By Kate Nichols

The British Museum’s current blockbuster show, Defining Beauty: the Body in Ancient Greek Art, amasses a remarkable collection of classical sculpture focusing on the human body. The most intriguing part of the show for me was the second room, “Body colour,” which displays plaster casts of several Greek sculptures brightly painted in green, blue, yellow, red and pink. The press has not known what to make of “Body colour.” It has been met with surprise, sneers, or been entirely ignored in otherwise glowing reviews.

An etymologist fidgets on a bad bed. Part 1: “Bed.”

By Anatoly Liberman

As a rule, I try not to deal with the words whose origin is supposedly known (that is, agreed upon). One can look them up in any dictionary or on the Internet, and no one needs a blog for disseminating trivialities. The etymology of bed has reached the stage of an uneasy consensus, but recently the accepted explanation has again been called into question.

Facing the challenges of palliative care: evolution

By David C. Currow, Marie Fallon, Nathan Cherny, Russell K. Portenoy, and Stein Kaasa

The last two decades have witnessed truly remarkable growth in the field of palliative care. Such growth is challenging, and brings both uncertainties and optimism about the future. In this three-part blog, we’ll take a look at some of the complex issues of continuity, development and evolution in palliative medicine.

Hey everybody! Meet Yasmin!

By Yasmin Coonjah

Please welcome another newbie to the Social Media team at Oxford University Press, Yasmin Coonjah, who joined the gang in May 2015 as an OUPblog Editor and Social Media Marketing Assistant!

Vincent van Gogh’s images of motherhood

By Amalia Vavala

Vincent van Gogh’s turbulent relationship with mothers—especially his own—began a full year before his birth. On 30 March 1852, Anna Carbentus van Gogh gave birth to a son, Vincent Willem van Gogh, who was stillborn. Anna tearfully buried her son in the cemetery of the parsonage where the Van Goghs lived. A year later to the day, Anna would give birth to another son, whom she also named Vincent Willem van Gogh.

A Q&A with Work, Aging and Retirement Editor, Mo Wang

By Mo Wang

Recently, we sat down with the Editor of Work, Aging and Retirement, Mo Wang, to discuss how he got involved with the journal and the plans he has in store for the journal in the future. Work, Aging and Retirement is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary journal that dedicates to publish evidence-based, translational research on worker aging and retirement, with the goal of enhancing understanding about these phenomena.