By: William Bocholis,
on 12/11/2015
There are many rewards that can be garnered through sharing our cultural reflexivity, honoring the voices of the people we serve, involving ourselves in honest and open cultural dialogue, and delving into uncomfortable topics involving race, class, power, and privilege.
The post Hip Hop therapy: the primacy of reflexivity and cultural dialogue appeared first on OUPblog.
By: KatherineS,
on 11/23/2015
Why adapt Zola? What’s he got to say to us today? If the novels are so good why not leave them as they are – as novels – and forget it?
The post On Adapting Emile Zola: Notes from a BBC script writer appeared first on OUPblog.
By: DanP,
on 11/22/2015
Should we eat animals? Vegetarians often say “No, because the meat industry harms animals greatly.” They point to the appalling conditions in which animals are raised in factory farms, and the manner in which they are killed. Meat-eaters often reply that this objection is ill-founded because animals owe their very existence to the meat industry.
The post Does the meat industry harm animals? appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Alice,
on 11/16/2015
As 2015 draws to a close, it’s time to look back and see which words have been significant throughout the past twelve months, and to announce the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year. Without further ado, we can reveal that the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015 is…
The post The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is… emoji appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Alice,
on 11/9/2015
In thinking about the future of scholarly publishing – a topic almost as much discussed as the perennially popular ‘death of the academic monograph’ – I found a number of themes jostling for attention, some new, some all-too familiar. What are the challenges and implications of open access?
The post The future of scholarly publishing appeared first on OUPblog.
By: KatherineS,
on 10/16/2015
I approach myth from the standpoint of theories of myth, or generalizations about the origin, the function, and the subject matter of myth. There are hundreds of theories. They hail from anthropology, sociology, psychology, politics, literature, philosophy, and religious studies.
The post In defense of myth appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Brittany Hobson,
on 10/15/2015
If your experience of school music was anything like mine, you’ll recall those dreaded aural lessons when the teacher put on a recording and instructed you to identify the instruments, to describe the main melody, to spot a key change, perhaps even to name the composer.
The post Learning to listen appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Eleanor Jackson,
on 10/13/2015
In antiquity, ‘Arabia’ covered a vast area, running from Yemen and Oman to the deserts of Syria and Iraq. Today, much of this region is gripped in political and religious turmoil that shows no signs of abating.
The post Arabia: ancient history for troubled times appeared first on OUPblog.
By: KatherineS,
on 10/9/2015
The discovery of water on Mars has been claimed so often that I’d forgive anyone for being skeptical about the latest announcement. Frozen water, ice, has been proven on Mars in many places, there are lots of ancient canyons hundreds of kilometres long that must have been carved by rivers, and much smaller gullies that are evidently much younger.
The post NASA discovers water on Mars again: take it with a pinch of salt appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Hannah Paget,
on 9/30/2015
Barriers, like promises and piecrust, are made to be broken. Or broken down, rather. Translators, like teachers, are great breakers-down of barriers, though, like them, they are almost always undervalued. This autumn our minds and our media are full of images of razor-wire fences as refugees, fleeing war zones, try to cross borders legally or illegally in search of a safe haven.
The post Breaking down barriers appeared first on OUPblog.
By: SoniaT,
on 9/23/2015
Not too long ago, I promised to return to the origin of b-d words. Today I’ll deal with Engl. bad and its look-alikes, possibly for the last time—not because everything is now clear (nothing is clear), but because I have said all I could, and even this post originated as an answer to the remarks by our correspondents John Larsson (Denmark) and Olivier van Renswoude (the Netherlands).
The post The B-word and its kin appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Abbey Lovell,
on 9/20/2015
On 22 June 2015, the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko opened a new memorial complex at the site of the former extermination camp Maly Trostenets near Minsk. Between 1941 and 1944, German occupants and their helpers interned and killed up to 206,500 people in this camp and in the nearby forest of Blagovshchina.
The post When everywhere is a grave: remembering WWII casualties in Belarus appeared first on OUPblog.
By: SoniaT,
on 9/16/2015
What is the origin of the now popular phrase in the house, as in “Ladies and gentlemen, Bobby Brown is in the house”? I don’t know, but a short explanation should be added to my response. A good deal depends on the meaning of the question “What is the origin of a certain phrase?” If the querist wonders when the phrase surfaced in writing, the date, given our resources, is usually ascertainable.
The post Wading through an endless field, or, still gleaning appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Samantha Zimbler,
on 9/14/2015
In a recent Huffington Post piece entitled “Police Shootings Are About Class as Well as Race,” Jesse Jackson argued that the issue of police violence specifically, and an unjust and excessive criminal justice system in general, are disproportionately experienced by the poor, irrespective of race.
The post Police shootings and the black community appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Kim Behrens,
on 9/10/2015
The international response to the photographs of the dead body of three year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi, washed ashore on a Turkish beach on 2 September 2015, has prompted intense debate. That debate has been not only about the proper attitude of Britain and other countries to the refugee crisis, but also about the proper place of strong emotions in political life.
The post Aylan Kurdi: A Dickensian moment appeared first on OUPblog.
By: SoniaT,
on 9/4/2015
We recently asked you to tell us to send us your reflections, stories, and the difficulties you’ve faced while doing oral history. This week, we bring you another post in this series, focusing on an oral history project from Carmen Doncel and Henry Eric Hernández. We encourage you to to chime into the discussion, comment below or on our Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and G+ pages.
The post Back to the “stove front”: an oral history project about Cuban housewives appeared first on OUPblog.
By: DanP,
on 9/3/2015
Kuwait is changing the playing field. In early July, just days after the June 26th deadly Imam Sadiq mosque bombing claimed by ISIS, Kuwait ruled to instate mandatory DNA-testing for all permanent residents. This is the first use of DNA testing at the national-level for security reasons, specifically as a counter-terrorism measure. An initial $400 million dollars is set aside for collecting the DNA profiles of all 1.3 million citizens and 2.9 million foreign residents
The post Kuwait’s war on ISIS and DNA appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Alice,
on 8/20/2015
The brain is a product of its complex and multi-million year history of solving the problems of survival for its host, you, in an ever-changing environment. Overall, your brain is fairly fast but not too efficient, which is probably why so many of us utilize stimulants such as coffee and nicotine to perform tasks more efficiently. Thus far, no one has been able to design a therapy that can make a person truly smarter.
The post A magical elixir for the mind appeared first on OUPblog.
By: SoniaT,
on 8/14/2015
The four-year drought in California, which is causing severe water shortages and related problems, is receiving increasingly more attention. It is affecting everyone, causing people to adjust their lifestyles and causing small business owners and entire industries to rethink their use–and misuse–of water.
The post Water and conflict appeared first on OUPblog.
By: SoniaT,
on 8/3/2015
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.
The post Medicare and end-of-life medical care appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Rebekah Daniels,
on 7/30/2015
Over the past half-century, Medicare and Medicaid have constituted the bedrock of American healthcare, together providing insurance coverage for more than 100 million people. Yet these programs remain controversial: clashes endure between opponents who criticize costly, “big government” programs and supporters who see such programs as essential to the nation's commitment to protect the vulnerable.
The post Medicare and Medicaid myths: setting the 50-year record straight appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Amelia Carruthers,
on 7/26/2015
The French Revolution was one of the most momentous events in world history yet, over 220 years since it took place, many myths abound. Some of the most important and troubling of these myths relate to how a revolution that began with idealistic and humanitarian goals resorted to ‘the Terror’.
The post Ten myths about the French Revolution appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Hannah Paget,
on 7/20/2015
Today there are high hopes for technological progress. Techno-optimists expect massive benefits for humankind from the invention of new technologies. Peter Diamandis is the founder of the X-prize foundation whose purpose is to arrange competitions for breakthrough inventions.
The post Why a technologically enhanced future will be less good than we think appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Ayana Young,
on 7/17/2015
In my 22 years of teaching and writing about Arabic and Islamic Studies, I have probably heard every kind of naive and uninformed comment that can possibly be made in the West about Islam and Muslims. Such remarks are not necessarily all due to ill will; most of the time, they express bewilderment and stem from an inability to find accessible, informed sources that might begin to address such widespread public incomprehension. Add that to the almost daily barrage of news and media commentary concerning violence in the Middle East and South Asia, two regions viscerally connected with Islam and Muslims.
The post Contemporary Muslims and the challenge of modernity appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Alice,
on 7/15/2015
Wednesday, 22 July 2015, marks the tenth anniversary of the OUPblog. In one decade our authors, staff, and friends have contributed over 8,000 blog posts, from articles and opinion pieces to Q&As in writing and on video, from quizzes and polls to podcasts and playlists, from infographics and slideshows to maps and timelines. Anatoly Liberman alone has written over 490 articles on etymology. Sorting through the finest writing and the most intriguing topics over the years seems a rather impossible task.
The post The best of a decade on the OUPblog appeared first on OUPblog.
