Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Stephen R. Wilk
When reporting on the origin of that science fiction cliché, the ray gun or death ray, most histories cite H.G. Wells’ classic story The War of the Worlds, which first appeared in Pearson’s Magazine between April and December of 1897. Wells was undoubtedly one of the founders of science fiction, striving to create original situations and ideas.
By Lynda Walsh
Nobody questions Carl Sagan’s charisma. He was television’s first science rock star. He made appearances on the Tonight Show; he drove a Porsche with a vanity plate that read “PHOBOS,” one of Mars’s moons; journalists enthused over his “velour” voice.
By Michael Gerhardt
Most people think of Jimmy Carter, if they ever do, as a failed president and perhaps overly energetic former president. Yet, a closer look at his four years in office suggest there was more to his presidency than his forging a Middle East peace initiative and his landslide loss in his reelection campaign.
By Ronald K.L. Collins
It is ironic: Free speech is seldom free. It often demands a price. There is a comic adage that says, “tell your boss what you think of him and the truth will set you free.” Indeed. Too often, such is the cost of free speech.
By Tony Whyton
Created by the Berlin-based street artist MTO, a graffiti artwork was painted on a Parisian wall a few years ago and only on display for a few days before being painted over. A few photographs of the image, taken by MTO at the scene, are all that remain of the work.
By G. Ronald Murphy, S.J.
A lot of things become clear when you realize that many of the puzzling and mysterious Christian artifacts and poetry of the North, those from England and Germany as well as those from the Scandinavian countries, are speaking in the language of Germanic myth—specifically in the language of the ancient evergreen tree, the savior of the last human beings, Yggdrasil.
By Christine Sismondo
“Where everybody knows your name.” Easily one of the best phrases ever written. That string of five words summed up the idea of the “local,” a refuge from the dynamism of modernity where a small clutch of people get together nearly every day to shoot the shit over a pint – or four.
By David Crystal
Hilary and I asked ourselves this question repeatedly when we were planning the tour that we eventually wrote up as Wordsmiths and Warriors: The English-Language Tourist’s Guide to Britain. Where can you find out about the places that influenced the character and study of the English language in Britain? How do you get there? And what do you find when you get there?
By Stephen Gorin, PhD, MSW
Since its enactment in 2010, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, has been the focus of controversy and heated debate. As the date for implementing the health exchanges approaches, the war of words has intensified. It is perhaps not surprising that in a recent poll for the Kaiser Family Foundation, 51% of respondents said that they lacked enough information to understand how the ACA would affect them and their families, and 44% were unsure whether the ACA was even law.
By Brian Nelson
Émile Zola’s main achievement was his twenty-volume novel cycle, Les Rougon-Macquart (1871–1893). The fortunes of a family, the Rougon-Macquart, are followed over several decades. The various family members spread throughout all levels of society, and through their lives Zola examines methodically the social, sexual, and moral landscape of the late nineteenth century.
In a Reddit AMA session a few months ago, Bryan Cranston was asked when he thought his character on Breaking Bad broke bad. His response: “My feeling is that Walt broke bad in the very first episode. It was very subtle but he did because that’s when he decided to become someone that he’s not in order to gain financially. He made the Faustian deal at that point and everything else was a slippery slope.”
Reflecting on his futuristic 2002 film Minority Report, Steven Spielberg said “one of the most exciting scenes” he had to shoot was this action scene – in which two characters (John and Agatha) traverse a busy shopping mall with armed police in pursuit, relying on Agatha’s ability to see into the future in order to hide and successfully evade capture.
By Tom Allen
The start of implementation of Obamacare has triggered a renewed, fiercer response from its critics. During my 12 years in Congress there was no comparable effort to undermine a recently enacted law, including President Bush’s prescription drug bill, which almost all Democrats opposed. Why are Republican Governors and House members—with no plan to replace Obamacare—so determined to destroy it?
By Troy Reeves
Thanks to a professional development grant, I spent a few days earlier this month visiting colleagues in Oklahoma and Texas, hoping to steal — I mean borrow! — ideas and procedures to improve the UW-Madison oral history program.
By Sonia Tsuruoka
This is how rich, curious Westerners fritter away the summer months: not yachting along the Côte d’Azur or strolling arm-in-arm through Mediterranean villas, but navigating the hectic, crime-ridden slums of Kibera, Dharavi, and Rocinha in an assortment of developing countries like South Africa, India, and Brazil.
By Ian Hargreaves
Returning to any book script created a decade ago involves lexical shock. When the subject is journalism and the decade the one just gone, the effect is more that of lexical implosion.