Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
I covered nearly forty years in the history of an art form — from its birth in the early 1970s to the latest technological developments — in my new book, Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ. I wanted to highlight some of the most important events in that rich history and for your to enjoy the accompanying sights and sounds.
By Sydney Beveridge
On this day in 1804, two Virginian explorers set out on a journey west in what would become the legendary Lewis and Clark Expedition. And in their footsteps, we can follow America’s expansion west.
By Edward Shorter and Susan Bélanger
In the fifty years since the publication of A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess’s dystopian fable remains by far the best-known of his more than 60 books. It also remains controversial and widely misunderstood: assailed for inciting adolescent violence (especially following Stanley Kubrick’s explicit 1971 film adaptation) or viewed as an anti-psychiatry treatise for presenting behavioural conditioning as an instrument of social control. But this aspect of the book needs to be seen within a broader context.
Over the next week, we will be pairing excerpts from Jim Johnston’s From Slave Ship to Harvard with the historical comic strip “Flashbacks” by Patrick Reynolds. Together they tell the story of Yarrow Mamout.
This Day in World History
Late in the afternoon of May 14, 1948, a group of Jewish settlers fulfilled a long-cherished dream and declared, as of midnight that night, the existence of the state of Israel. The announcement created the first Jewish state in nearly two millennia — and outraged the Palestinian people and their Arab allies.
On this day in 1496, British doctor Edward Jenner administered the first smallpox vaccination to James Phipps, an eight year old boy. To mark the anniversary, we speak with Martin S. Hirsch, MD, FIDSA. Dr. Hirsch is editor-in-chief of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, professor of infectious diseases and immunology at the Harvard School of Public Health, and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital.
By Mark McCormack
The progress of gay rights is again subject to political warfare in the United States. Despite his recent proclamation in support of gay marriage, many have been disappointed by the pace in which President Obama has addressed issues of sexuality equality: particularly regarding the length of time it took to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the lack of progress on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. This sentiment is flamed by the passage of homophobic legislation, with 38 states prohibiting marriage equality—the most recent being North Carolina just this week.
May 12th, which falls exactly one week after last Saturday’s Supermoon, marks the 167th birthday of Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924), a composer whose best-known song was inspired by the moon. Fauré is known today as the paramount composer of the French mélodie, and his setting of the poem Clair de lune (“Moonlight”) by Paul Verlaine (1844–1896) demonstrates why his works are beloved by pianists and singers alike.
By Sam Popkin
While a challenger’s presidential campaign can quickly adjust and adapt to shifting winds like a speedboat, an incumbent’s campaign behaves more like a battleship, maneuvering slowly and making very large waves. Instead of a core inner circle calling the shots from a “war room,” a president’s re-election team must coordinate with White House staffers and the President’s cabinet — all of whom have agendas difficult to change, control or coordinate.
This Day in World History
Six years before, the emperor had ordered the building of a vast new city. On May 11, 330, construction was sufficiently complete for that city to be dedicated. The Emperor Constantine took part in a solemn mass at St. Eirene, his newly built church, that dedicated the new city to the Virgin Mary. He issued an edict that declared the city New Rome, or the Second Rome, capital of the empire. Within a hundred years, though, the city came to be known by another name — Constantinople.
To commemorate the birthday of the great American songwriter, Irving Berlin, we spoke with Jeffrey Magee, author of Irving Berlin’s American Musical Theater.
By Patricia Aufderheide
What happens to documentary when media goes interactive? It’s not always a welcome question. Documentarians aren’t necessarily thrilled at the idea of someone poking at their precious work on a smartphone, rather than settling into a seat at a theater or on a couch. But they’re going to have to get used to it. Media users want to do more than just watch these days.
By David Potter
This past weekend Olympic superstar swimmer Janet Evans showed up in New York in the company of Olympic sponsor BMW. The London Olympics are unthinkable without their corporate sponsors, both for the site itself and for the teams that are going to compete. But what would a person connected with the ancient version of the Games think?
By Susan J. Matt
Are we lonely because of Facebook? For the last few weeks, sociologists, technologists, and other pundits have debated this question. Facebook’s critics claim the technology isolates its users, while its defenders seem unwilling to concede that their social networking results in loneliness. Largely absent from the conversation has been the historical perspective, which sheds important light on the topic. When one takes the long view, it becomes clear that Facebook has not made us lonely, for Americans have been lonely for at least two centuries, and have often struggled to find ways to assuage these feelings.
By Maury Klein
For Americans in 1869, the driving of the golden spike, which joined the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads at Promontory Point, Utah, on May 10, carried a significance similar to that of the first moon landing for a later generation. It marked the conquest not only of distance, but of a landscape that was as alien to most Americans as the moon. It bound together the far-flung ends of a nation still licking its wounds from a bloody and divisive civil war. Travelers could now go from New York to California via a series of trains in seven days, a journey that earlier took 35 days across the fever-infested Isthmus of Panama or five months for the perilous sail around Cape Horn. In the process they could also glimpse the West that few of them had ever seen and was already an American mythology in the making.
By Callum Brown
In 1955 Margaret Knight became the most hated woman in Britain. She was vilified and demonised in virtually every British newspaper, and thousands of letters attacking her were sent by ordinary Britons to the BBC, to the papers and to her personally. Parents wrote fearing for the safety of their children, bishops and priests criticised her impudence, whilst well-known authors like Dorothy L Sayers castigated her ignorance. Hounded by journalists and pursued by photographers, the smiling image of Mrs Knight in her ‘Sunday-best hat’ and coat appeared in most newspapers. She was the nation’s number one ‘folk devil’ of 1955.