Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
The Mayo Clinic Scientific Press suite of publications is now available on Oxford Medicine Online. To highlight some of the great resources, we’ve pulled together some interesting facts about physiology from James R. Munis’s Just Enough Physiology.
OUP author Jason Mittell is understandably proud of his student’s excellent video. March Madness begins. We’ll be starting our own on the OUPblog and OxfordWords, but to start one for the papacy and of course Tournament of Books. American Revolutionary art Internet-ed. And more links for your reading pleasure…
By J. Edward Taylor and Diane Charlton
Agriculture in North America traditionally has had its comparative advantage in having access to abundant low-skilled labor from Mexico. Around 70% of the United States hired farm workforce is Mexico-born, according to the National Agricultural Worker Survey (NAWS). Fruit, vegetable, and horticultural farms in the US have enjoyed an extended period of farm labor abundance with stable or decreasing real wages.
By Anthony King
On 24 January 2013, Leon Panetta, the US Secretary of State for Defence, made an historic announcement: from 2016, combat roles would be open to female service personnel. For the first time, women would be allowed to serve in the infantry. Applauded in liberal quarters, the decision was widely seen as unproblematic since it merely ratified a de facto reality.
International Women’s Day has grown since the 1900s to become a global occasion to inspire women and celebrate achievements. Perhaps two of the most inspirational female figures from history are the Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc. We spoke with Marina Warner, author of the seminal titles, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism and Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary, about these women and their historical and personal impact.
To celebrate World Book Day this week, we take a look at what John Sutherland thinks about why we read bestsellers and what they say about the age in which they were published, in his Very Short Introduction to Bestsellers.
By Professor J. Waddington
Fortunately, I have escaped the obligation of performing jury service, but I know many who have been less fortunate. The stories they tell of their experience hardly fosters confidence in this institution that enjoys such a position of unquestioned pre-eminence in the Common Law criminal trial. They tell of ignorant, utterly disengaged, deeply prejudiced people, often more anxious to escape the confines of the court and resume their lives, than committed to doing justice.
Along with Plato, Aristotle (384–322 bc) was one of the two greatest philosophers of antiquity, and in the view of many he was the greatest philosopher of all time. His Poetics is the most influential book on poetry ever written and is a founding text of European aesthetics and literary criticism. We present a brief extract from Republic, Books Two and Three.
By Kathy Blackwell
A friend once asked if I ever get bored teaching the violin and doing the same thing year after year. He was surprised when I said “It’s anything but dull and boring!” I have always enjoyed the unique character and style of each student, and it’s a privilege as a teacher to see them develop over the years.
By Robert V. McNamee and Daniel Parker
It is well known in the history of psychology that Descartes was an early thinker on what we would now call classical conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning, which he referred to as “reflex”. However, an early epistolary reference seems generally to be missed: his letter to his friend Marin Mersenne, 18 March 1630.
By Anatoly Liberman
American schools dance nonstop. A wild display of “flailing arms and wriggling torsos,” known as the Harlem Shake, is the latest addition to our civilization. High school “kids” writhe eel-like on the floor, chairs, and tables, fall, sometimes break arms and legs, and have fun, which is the unassailable backbone of our educational system. At some places, teachers and principals dance with the kids and thus double the amount of fun.
By Leonard A. Jason
As the federal bureaucracy continues to struggle with philosophical issues of the appropriate role of government, many Americans feel that our political parties are incapable of providing credible solutions to the nation’s burgeoning societal and economic problems.
By Matthew Flinders
I’d never even heard of Eastleigh, let alone been there, until a couple of weeks ago. When I did go there I wished that I hadn’t. The fact that I am told that the ‘notable residents’ of Eastleigh include Benny Hill and Stephen Gough (the ‘naked rambler’ no less) did little to quell the stench of good-times-past that hung in the air. But last week the people of Eastleigh spoke – in record numbers – and their message was clear: ‘sod off’.
By Andrew J. Polsky
We are in the midst of a great Dwight Eisenhower revival. Our 34th president, whose tenure once appeared to be little more than a sleepy interlude between the New Deal era and the tumultuous 1960s, is very much in vogue again. The past year has seen the publication of three major new biographies. On 7-8 March, Ike’s presidential legacy and its implications for our own time will be the focus of a conference at Hunter College in New York City.
Does the world have a voice? Do particular places have a distinctive vocabulary, grammar, and syntax all their own? Can we learn this language, learn to attune our ears to its music and perhaps in this way come to inhabit the world with more care and feeling? These are not new questions, nor are they original to me.
By Robert Gellately
My interest in the Cold War has developed over many years. In fact, as I look back, I would say that it began around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 1960s when I was still in high school. Over the years, as a college student and then as a university professor, I began to look more closely at the vast literature that developed on the topic and to examine the bitter controversies that had raged since 1945.