The revelation of the Book of Mormon at 200 [podcast]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormonism, is one of the fastest growing global religions—as of the latest reports, there are over 17 million members, and while it is still predominately considered an American religion, almost half of those members live outside of the United States due to the church’s reliance on global missionary work. 

This September marks the 200th anniversary of the Church’s founder Joseph Smith’s first vision of the angel Moroni. In this vision, the angel told Smith that he had been chosen to restore God’s church on earth and instructed him to go to the Hill Cumorah in western New York State, where he would discover a set of gold plates. Smith translated and published these plates as the Book of Mormon in 1830, giving birth to a new religion.

On today’s episode, we’re joined by two preeminent scholars on the history and theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to discuss with us the legacy of Joseph Smith’s Gold Plates as well as the state of academic scholarship surrounding the Book of Mormon.  

First, we welcomed Richard Lyman Bushman. Bushman’s books include Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling and Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction. His most recent book with Oxford is Joseph Smith’s Gold Plates: A Cultural History, which traces the history of the gold plates over the last two centuries. We then interviewed Grant Hardy whose new The Annotated Book of Mormon is the first ever fully-annotated, academic edition of the book. His previous works include The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition as well as Understanding the Book of Mormon (OUP, 2010).

Check out Episode 86 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment podcast through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors.

Recommended reading

For a more in-depth introduction to Joseph Smith’s visions and the founding of the church, read the chapter “Revelation” from Richard Lyman Bushman’s Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction. 

You can also read more of Bushman’s scholarship on the Gold Plates and Joseph Smith’s translation and publication of the Book of Mormon in the chapter “The Gold Plates as Foundational Text” from Foundational Texts of Mormonism. 

To learn more about the Book of Mormon’s language, style, organization, and religious claims, read Grant Hardy’s “A Brief Overview: Narrator-based Reading” from Understanding the Book of Mormon. 

Finally, Terry L. Givens explores the scriptural implications of the Book of Mormon and its relationship with biblical doctrine in “’Plain and Precious Truths’: The book of Mormon as a New Theology, Part 1—The Encounter with Biblical Christianity” from By the Hand of Mormon. 

Transcript

Featured image: C.C.A. Christensen’s painting of Joseph Smith receiving the Golden Plates from the Angel Moroni at the Hill Cumorah. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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Revisiting toxic masculinity and #MeToo [podcast]

Globally, an estimated one third of all women have been subjected to physical or sexual violence; however, out of fear and socio-economic disenfranchisement, less than 40% of women who experience such violence seek help. In the United States alone, one in four women have suffered rape or attempted rape in their lifetime; for men, this figure is closer to one in 26.

The disparity is staggering; statistics on gendered violence reveal men are more likely to commit violence crimes, whereas women are far more likely to be the victims of violence.

Despite greater visibility and awareness of crimes against women, notions derived from what is understood to be “toxic masculinity,” and its proponents, are a growing influence over men, and especially young males.

In 2022, the US Secret Service released a report detailing the rising threat of domestic terrorism from males identifying as “involuntary celibates,” better known as “incels,” a network of mostly young males who uphold the misguided belief that sex with women is an entitlement to which they’ve been denied. This report considered misogyny not only a threat to women, but to national security itself.

So how do we stop the tide of violence and hate-speech stemming from the circulation of such misogynistic rhetoric, and how can we move forward while best supporting its victims?

On today’s episode, we explore two recognizable components in contemporary conversations on gender and gendered violence: that of “toxic masculinity” and of the #MeToo movement, the awareness campaign that came to global prominence in October 2017 after the public downfall of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

First, we welcomed Robert Lawson, the author of Language and Mediated Masculinities: Cultures, Contexts, Constraints, to share how language intersects with masculinities in media spaces and how it may be our best weapon in combatting rising misogyny, especially online. We then interviewed Iqra Shagufta Cheema, the editor of The Other #MeToos, who spoke with us about the origins of the #MeToo movement, how it has been received around the world, and how it has changed—and will continue to change—to meet the needs of the victims for which it advocates.

Check out Episode 85 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment podcast through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors.

Recommended reading

In his interview with us, Robert Lawson discussed positive masculinity as represented by the various characters on the American sitcom, Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Read this chapter from Language and Mediated Masculinities: Cultures, Contexts, Constraints an in-depth look at how the characters subvert and destabilize hegemonic forms of masculinity through their use of language in building relationship with each other. Language and Mediated Masculinities is part of the Studies in Language and Gender series.

Read this chapter by Asmita Ghimire and Elizabethada A. Wright from The Other #MeToos on protest signs and placards written in Global English that allow women from very different contexts to identify with each other and builds on how people in non-dominant spaces can engage in semiotic reconstruction to adapt dominant languages for their individual needs. The Other #MeToos, edited by Iqra Shagufta Cheema, is part of the Oxford Studies in Gender and International Relations series. 

This chapter from Credible Threat: Attacks Against Women Online and the Future of Democracy by Sarah Sobieraj explores how women who attempt to participate in public discussions about political and social issues online confront a hostile speaking environment analogous to the hostile work environments identified in policies addressing sexual harassment in the workplace.

Why is it the case that men perpetrate the vast majority of all violence against women and girls? This chapter from Jacqui True’s Violence against Women: What Everyone Needs to Know® explores the argument that masculinity is in fact dynamic, rather than fixed by biology or any other factor, and that it is the social constructions of masculinity within and across almost all societies that have encouraged and rewarded male aggression and violence toward themselves and others.

Read the following Open Access articles from our journals:

• “Extremism and toxic masculinity: the man question re-posed” by Elizabeth Pearson in International (November 2019)
• “Online Abuse of Feminists as An Emerging form of Violence Against Women and Girls” by Ruth Lewis, Michael Rowe, and Clare Wiper in The British Journal of Criminology (November 2017)
• “Retweet for justice? Social media message amplification and Black Lives Matter allyship” by Jessica Roden, Valerie Kemp, and Muniba Saleem in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (January 2023)
• “’This Patriarchal, Machista and Unequal Culture of Ours’: Obstacles to Confronting Conflict-Related Sexual Violence” by Anne-Kathrin Kreft in Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society (Summer 2023)
• “Promoting positive masculinities among young people in Stockholm, Sweden. A mixed-methods study” by M Salazar and A Cerdán-Torregrosa in European Journal of Public Health (October 2022)

Featured image: Mihai Surdu, CC0 via Unsplash.

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The great gun conundrum [podcast]

With estimates of nearly 400 million privately-owned firearms in the United States and more than 40,000 deaths due to gun violence each year, guns and gun ownership have become polarizing issues. Forty-eight percent of Americans view gun violence as a major problem, with more than half of US citizens favouring stricter gun laws. The prevailing arguments, both for and against greater gun ownership restrictions, incorporate a range of issues, from party lines and political agendas to the influence of media coverage and the role of police in combatting violence—but what does recent scholarship reveal, and how might this scholarship inform policy for the better?

On today’s episode of The Oxford Comment, we explore the history of gun ownership in the United States and practical solutions for resolving contemporary gun violence. First, we welcomed Robert J Spitzer, the author of The Gun Dilemma: How History is Against Expanded Gun Rights, to share new historical research on America’s gun law history as it informs modern gun policy disputes. We then interviewed Philip J Cook, the author of Policing Gun Violence: Strategic Reforms for Controlling Our Most Pressing Crime Problem, who spoke with us about utilising the police as a strategic resource for reducing gun violence.

Check out Episode 84 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment podcast through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors.

Recommended reading

Read the first chapter from Robert Spitzer’s book, The Gun Dilemma: How History is Against Expanded Gun Rights, which explores the policy dilemma of a public strongly supportive of stronger gun laws, and overwhelmingly supporting of existing laws, while gun rights advocates press to repeal existing gun laws by expanding the definition of gun rights.

Read the second chapter of Philip J. Cook and Anthony Braga’s book Policing Gun Violence, which explores the social burden of gun violence. The authors explore the widespread fear and trauma that stem from the threat of gun violence and the required vigilance to avoid victimization, addressing the statistics of the communities that are most affected. 

The fourth chapter of The Silent Epidemic of Gun Injuries by Melvin Delgado approaches gun violence interventions as establishing a foundation using the latest thinking and data. A social perspective on gun injuries allows for casting a wide net in capturing this phenomenon, helping readers develop a wide lens for gun injury. Grasping the social meaning of guns is essential in coordinating public health campaigns on the outcomes they cause.

Read the introduction to Mark R. Joslyn’s The Gun Gap: The Influence of Gun Ownership on Political Behavior and Attitudes, wherein the gun gap is defined to refer to differences in political behavior and attitudes between gun owners and nonowners. In addition, the introduction establishes why the gun gap is important for understanding modern mass politics.

This chapter from Pained: Uncomfortable Conversations about the Public’s Health by Michael D. Stein and Sandro Galea explores how states with stricter firearm legislation have fewer fatal police shootings—defined as the rate of people killed by law enforcement agencies. Also assessed is the relationship between different types of legislation and rates of fatal police shootings, showing laws that strengthen background checks, promote child and consumer safety, and reduce gun trafficking are linked to lower rates of fatal police shootings.

Read the following Open Access articles from our journals:

• Social media response to mass shootings in the United States provides an important window into the nature of public mourning and policy debates in the wake of these tragedies: “Whose Lives Matter? Mass Shootings and Social Media Discourses of Sympathy and Policy, 2012–2014” by Yini Zhang et al, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (July 2019)
• Social movements pushed to reconceptualize intimate partner violence (IPV) as a social problem deserving of intervention rather than a private family matter, but political ideology and affiliation shape support for disarming the abuser or arming the victim: “Polarized Support for Intimate Partner Violence Gun-Related Interventions” by Anne Groggel, Social Problems (January 2023)
• Within the business of organized crime, guns are mostly used as a threat or to maim or kill but they also serve the more basic masculine requirement of protection, giving them a symbolic meaning as well as serving as a resource for achieving power: “Masculinities on the Continuum of Structural Violence: The Case of Mexico’s Homicide Epidemic” by Jennie B Gamblin and Sarah J Hawkes, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society (Spring 2018)
• Taking a long view of police shootings from 1970 to 2020 lessens the stochastic effect of shootings over shorter time periods and reveals that the frequency of police shootings has increased in both jurisdictions over this period, despite police not being routinely armed with firearms: “Police Shootings in New Zealand and England and Wales: A Cross-National Comparison” by Ross Hendy and Darren Walton, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice (April 2022)

Featured Image: bermixstudio, CC0 via Unsplash

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Privacy and the LGBT+ experience: the Victorian past and digital future [podcast]

Scholars continue to explore the role of sexuality in private lives—from the retrospective discovery of transgendered people in historical archives to present questions of identity and representation in social media—with the understanding that those who identify as LGBTQ+ have always existed and have fought tirelessly to advance their rights.

On today’s episode of The Oxford Comment, we discuss LGBTQ+ privacy through both historical and contemporary lenses. First, Simon Joyce, the author of LGBT Victorians: Sexuality and Gender in the Nineteenth-Century Archives, shared his argument for revisiting Victorian-era thinking about gender and sexual identity. We then interviewed Stefanie Duguay, the author of Personal but Not Private: Queer Women, Sexuality, and Identity Modulation on Digital Platforms, who spoke with about digitally mediated identities and how platforms, such as social media and dating apps, act as complicated sites of transformation.

Check out Episode 83 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment podcast through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors.

Recommended reading

You can read the introduction from Simon Joyce’s book, LGBT Victorians, which reimagines and complicates our understanding of the Victorian period by thinking about how British thinkers and writers assessed and responded to larger international movements, including European sexology, the poetry of Walt Whitman, and late-century French erotica. Joyce also wrote about “LGBTQ+ Victorians in the archives” on the OUPblog last fall. 

Read the prologue from Stefanie Duguay’s book, Personal but Not Private, which explores how queer women share and maintain their identities across social media platforms despite overlapping technological, social, economic, and political concerns. You can explore more of Duguay’s research at the Digital Intimacy, Gender, and Sexuality Lab, where she serves as director.

Learn more about the origins of Pride in the introductory chapter of Out in Time: The Public Lives of Gay Men from Stonewall to the Queer Generation by Perry N. Halkitis.

Explore LGBTQ+ online identity mediation in our Open Access articles:

• “Walled cosmopolitanization: how China’s Great Firewall mediates young urban gay men’s lives” by Lin Song and Shangwei Wu in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (March 2023)
• “Gay employees on social media: Strategies to portray professionalism” by Lucas Amaral Lauriano in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (March 2023)
• “Performing a Vanilla Self: Respectability Politics, Social Class, and the Digital World” by Mikaela Pitcan, Alice E. Marwick, and Danah Boyd in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (May 2018)
• “Predictors of self-harm and suicide in LGBT youth: The role of gender, socio-economic status, bullying and school experience” by V. Jadva, A. Guasp, J. H. Bradlow, S. Bower-Brown, and S Foley in Journal of Public Health (March 2023)

Featured image: Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton as Fanny and Stella, 1869. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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Digital dilemmas: feminism, ethics, and the cultural implications of AI [podcast]

Skynet. HAL 9000. Ultron. The Matrix. Fictional depictions of artificial intelligences have played a major role in Western pop culture for decades. While nowhere near that nefarious or powerful, real AI has been making incredible strides and, in 2023, has been a big topic of conversation in the news with the rapid development of new technologies, the use of AI generated images, and AI chatbots such as ChatGPT becoming freely accessible to the general public.

On today’s episode, we welcomed Dr Kerry McInerney and Dr Eleanor Drage, editors of Feminist AI: Critical Perspectives on Data, Algorithms and Intelligent Machines, and then Dr Kanta Dihal, co-editor of Imagining AI: How the World Sees Intelligent Machines, to discuss how AI can be influenced by culture, feminism, and Western narratives defined by popular TV shows and films. Should AI be accessible to all? How does gender influence the way AI is made? And most importantly, what are the hopes and fears for the future of AI?

Check out Episode 82 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment podcast through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors.

Recommended reading

Look out for Feminist AI: Critical Perspectives on Algorithms, Data, and Intelligent Machines, edited by Jude Browne, Stephen Cave, Eleanor Drage, and Kerry McInerney, which publishes in the UK in August 2023 and in the US in October 2023. 

If you want to hear more from Dr Eleanor Drage and Dr Kerry McInerney, you can listen to their podcast: The Good Robot Podcast on Gender, Feminism and Technology.

In May 2023, the Open Access title, Imagining AI: How the World Sees Intelligent Machines, edited by Stephen Cave and Kanta Dihal publishes in the UK; it publishes in the US in July 2023.

You may also be interested in AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines, edited by Stephen Cave, Kanta Dihal, and Sarah Dillon, which looks both at classic AI to the modern age, and contemporary narratives.

You can read the following two chapters from AI Narratives for free until 31 May:

• Chapter 8: “Enslaved Minds: Artificial Intelligence, Slavery, and Revolt” by Kanta Dihal
• Chapter 9: “Machine Visions: Artificial Intelligence, Society, and Control” by Will Slocombe

Other relevant book titles include: 

• Relationships 5.0: How AI, VR, and Robots Will Reshape Our Emotional Lives by Elyakim Kislev
• Human-Centered AI by Ben Shneiderman (Read Chapter 16: “Social Robots and Active Appliances” for free until 31 May)

You may also be interested in the following journal articles: 

• “AI ethical bias: a case for AI vigilantism (AIlantism) in shaping the regulation of AI” by Ifeoma Elizabeth Nwafor from the Autumn 2021 International Journal of Law and Information Technology
• “My AI Friend: How Users of a Social Chatbot Understand Their Human–AI Friendship” by Petter Bae Brandtzaeg, Marita Skjuve, and Asbjørn Følstad from the July 2022 Human Communication Research (Open Access)
• “Persuasion in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI): Theories and Complications of AI-Based Persuasion” by Marco Dehnert and Paul A Mongeau from the July 2022 Human Communication Research

Featured image: ChatGPT homepage by Jonathan Kemper, CC0 via Unsplash.

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Climate emergency: lessons from Classic Maya to contemporary China [podcast]

The consequences of climate change are catastrophic; floods, fires, droughts, rising sea levels, reduced biodiversity, and resource scarcity are but a few of the effects of failing to act. With the warmest decade on record behind us, and rising emissions before us, not to mention present conversations on how to best manage climate refugees, it is unsurprising that climate change is now a leading concern among institutions, and individuals, around the world. This real and present threat to our planet may seem insurmountable, but there are—and have been—lessons shared on how to mitigate the damage already wrought, and how to prevent future detriment.

On today’s episode, we explore two unique examples of societal adaptation to climate change: one from our past, and one from our present. First, we welcomed Kenneth E. Seligson, the author of The Maya and Climate Change: Human-Environmental Relationships in the Classic Period Lowlands, who shared insights into his work exploring the environmental resilience of the Classic Maya, the environmental challenges they faced and overcame, and the lessons we can learn from them. We then interviewed Scott M. Moore, the author of China’s Next Act: How Sustainability and Technology are Reshaping China’s Rise and the World’s Future, to speak about contemporary China’s meteoric and controversial rise to a global power, its leading role in sustainability and technology, and what this means for institutions around the world.

Check out Episode 81 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment podcast through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors.

Recommended reading

You can read the introduction from Scott M. Moore’s book, China’s Next Act: How Sustainability and Technology are Reshaping China’s Rise and the World’s Future, which provides an accessible overview of a broad range of emerging issues that have reshaped China’s relationship with the world, including climate change, public health, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology.

In ‘Shifting the Focus’ from Kenneth E. Seligson’s The Maya and Climate Change: Human-Environmental Relationships in the Classic Period Lowlands, Seligson introduces conservation and sustainability practices of the Classic Maya including forestry, agriculture, water management, burnt lime production, and stone processing.

New in paperback, read the introductory chapter of Sustainable Materialism: Environmental Movements and the Politics of Everyday Life, by David Schlosberg and Luke Craven, which proposes the construction of different practices, institutions, systems for meeting some of our basic material needs—food, energy, and clothing—in more just and sustainable ways.

Also new in paperback, read the introduction to Building a Resilient Tomorrow: How to Prepare for the Coming Climate Disruption, by Alice C. Hill and Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, which analyses key developments and anticipated challenges in the emerging field of climate resilience, drawn from the authors’ unique network of national and international leaders in the private, public, and NGO sectors.

Read the following Open Access articles from our leading journals:

• “Low-carbon warfare: climate change, net zero and military operations” by Duncan Depledge from International Affairs (March 2023)
• “Climate Change, Energy Transition, and Constitutional Identity” by J. S. Maloy from International Studies Review (March 2023)
• “Coping with Complexity: Toward Epistemological Pluralism in Climate–Conflict Scholarship” by Paul Beaumont and Cedric de Coning from International Studies Review (December 2023)
• “(Dis)order and (in)justice in a heating world” by Robyn Eckersley from International Affairs (January 2023)
• “What If: The Literary Case for More Climate Change” by Lucy Burnett from ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment

Featured image: “A morning shot in the jungle of Palenque of the Maya Temple of the Inscriptons and Temple of the Red Queen,” Danny van Dijk, CC0 via Unsplash

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Women in sports: Althea Gibson, Billie Jean King, and their legacies [podcast]

The world of sports has long been a contested playing field for social change. When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball in 1947, it was widely assumed that other heroic male athletes would follow in subsequent sports. So, when Althea Gibson—a young woman who grew up in Harlem playing paddle tennis—became the first Black athlete to win a major title in 1956, she shocked the tennis world. Women’s history in sports has in fact been a long series of shocks that have reshaped the world of athletics as well as the possibilities that exist for women everywhere.

On today’s episode, we discuss the lives, careers, and lasting legacies on and off the tennis courts of two great women athletes—Althea Gibson and Billie Jean King.

First, we welcomed Ashley Brown, the author of Serving Herself: The Life and Times of Althea Gibson, to speak about the barrier breaking tennis player and golfer. We then interviewed Susan Ware, the author of American Women: A Concise History, American Women’s History: A Very Short Introduction,and Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women’s Sports, published by UNC Press. Susan shared with us some background on how King leveraged her career as a form of activism for gender equality and discussed how sports have changed for women athletes in the years since. 

Check out Episode 80 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment podcast through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors.

Recommended reading

You can read the introduction from Ashley Brown’s book, Serving Herself, which explores how gender and sexuality were essential aspects to her history of integration.

Don’t miss this interview with Ashley Brown with a deeper discussion of why she chose to write about Gibson’s life.

To learn more about the Black women athletes who broke barriers in tennis, explore the Oxford African American Studies Center profiles of Althea Gibson, Zinna Garrison, Venus Williams, and Serena Williams.

Learn how Billie Jean King was the right woman at the right moment in American history, in the introduction to Susan Ware’s Game, Set, Match.

You can also learn more about the 20th century women’s movement in this chapter, “Modern American Women, 1920 to the present”, from Susan Ware’s American Women’s History

Featured image: Althea Gibson, half-length portrait, holding tennis racquet. Photograph by Fred Palumbo, 1956. Library of Congress, CC0 via Unsplash.

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Mind the gap: the growth in economic inequality [podcast]

The world is navigating a troubling economic situation. Inflation has become a global issue, concerning policy makers and private citizens equally. Energy and supply chains woes are continuous. Interest rates, consumer prices, and cost-of-living have soared, with many economists positing that the current trajectory is indicative of a coming recession.

Amid these crises, how do we recover? How can we address such financial distress and inequity, and how might we go about enacting more permanent resolution?

On today’s episode, the first for 2023, we spoke with Chris Howard, author of Who Cares: The Social Safety Net in America, and Tom Malleson, author of Against Inequality: The Practical and Ethical Case for Abolishing the Superrich, on the social safety net, the ethical implications of extreme wealth, and what steps can be taken to achieve economic equality.

Check out Episode 79 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment podcast through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors.

Recommended reading

If you would like to find out more about the social safety net in America, we’ve made the introduction to Chris Howard’s new book, Who Cares: The Social Safety Net in America free for 3 months.

Before writing Against Inequality, Tom Malleson argued on behalf of economic democracy in After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st Century. Its first chapter, also free for 3 months, can be found here. Tom also co-wrote Part-Time for All: A Care Manifesto with Jennifer Nedelsky, which proposed a plan to radically restructure both work and care.

We’ve freed Gøsta Esping-Andersen and John Myles’ chapter, “Economic Inequality and the Welfare State“, from The Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality (edited by Brian Nolan et al), which discusses the difficulties of capturing the impact of the welfare state on income inequality. 

For further reading on economic inequality, social welfare, power dynamics, neoliberalism, and democratic socialism, check out these recent OUP titles:

• Transnational Social Protection: Social Welfare across National Borders by Peggy Levitt, Ken Chih-Yan Sun, Ruxandra Paul, and Erica Dobbs
• The New Power Elite by Heather Gautney
• Disorienting Neoliberalism: Global Justice and the Outer Limit of Freedom by Benjamin L. McKean
• Would Democratic Socialism Be Better? by Lane Kenworthy

Lastly, check out these Open Access journal articles and book chapters, which can all be found on Oxford Academic:

• “Introduction: Why Do Governments Struggle to Reduce Inequalities?” from Public Policy to Reduce Inequalities across Europe: Hope Versus Reality (August 2022) by Paul Cairney, Michael Keating, Sean Kippin, and Emily St Denny
• “Bringing the market in: an expanded framework for understanding popular responses to economic inequality” by Arvid Lindh and Leslie McCall in Socio-Economic Review, April 2022
• “‘It’s the value that we bring’: performance pay and top income earners’ perceptions of inequality” by Katharina Hecht from Socio-Economic Review, October 2021
• “On the Impact of Inequality on Growth, Human Development, and Governance” by Ines A Ferreira, Rachel M Gisselquist, and Finn Tarp from International Studies Review, January 2021
• “Billionaires” by Tino Sanandaji and Peter T. Leeson from Industrial and Corporate Change, January 2013 

Featured Image: Towfiqu barbhuiya, CC0 via Unsplash.

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Looking into space: how astronomy and astrophysics are teaching us more than ever before [podcast]

It’s been 500 years since the first circumnavigation of the globe, and few could have predicted then that we would see detailed images of stars, galaxies, and exoplanets like the ones produced by the James Webb Space Telescope this year.

On today’s episode of The Oxford Comment, we’re looking at what these recent discoveries mean to our understanding of the universe. Why should we all know about distant galaxies? How will this learning impact us? And what role will artificial intelligence and machine-learning play in the wider astronomy field in the coming years?

The questions are big, the area is even bigger, and we are delighted to be joined by two eminent fellows from the Royal Astronomical Society to review this expansive subject.

First, we welcome Claudia Maraston, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth, and an expert in theoretical astrophysics, in particular the calculation of theoretical spectra for stellar populations. She also sits on the editorial board of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Our second guest is Jonathan Tennyson, Massey Professor of Physics at University College London, whose research specialises in the accurate quantum mechanical treatments of both the spectroscopy and collision properties of small molecules, with an emphasis on the provision of data for other research areas. Jonathan is also Editor-in-Chief of the Open Access Royal Astronomical Society Techniques & Instruments.

Check out Episode 78 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment podcast through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors.

Recommended reading

To learn more about the themes raised in this podcast, we’re pleased to share a selection chapters and articles.

If you would like to find out more about recent discoveries in observational astronomy, why not start with a title in our Very Short Introductions series, Observational Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction by Geoff Cottrell?

You may also be interested in Astronomy: The Human Quest for Understanding by Dale A. Ostlie which looks at how science operates practically in relation to astronomy, leading the reader down a path to our present-day understanding of our Solar System, stars, galaxies, and more.  

If you’re interested in the role ordinary people taking part in cutting-edge science and what humans can bring to interpreting big data which smart machines can’t, The Crowd and the Cosmos: Adventures in the Zooniverse by Chris Lintott highlights that, “You, too, can help explore the Universe in your lunch hour.”

Numerous articles written and co-written by our guests Claudia Maraston and Jonathan Tennyson can be found in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Tennyson also co-wrote this introductory article to RAS Techniques and Instruments earlier this year.

Discover more about the James Webb Telescope on Oxford Academic through our range of journal articles, many of which are Open Access. This range includes Royal Astronomical Society articles such as the following:  

• “Hiding in plain sight: observing planet-starspot crossings with the James Webb Space Telescope” by Giovanni Bruno et al
• “Conditions for detecting lensed Population III galaxies in blind surveys with the James Webb Space Telescope, the Roman Space Telescope, and Euclid” [Open Access] by Anton Vikaeus et al.  

Featured image: “NASA’s Webb Reveals Cosmic Cliffs, Glittering Landscape of Star Birth,” July 2022. NASA/ESA/CSA, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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Egyptology at the turn of the century [podcast]

On 1 November 1922, Egyptologist Howard Carter and his team of excavators began digging in a previously undisturbed plot of land in the Valley of the Kings. For decades, archaeologists had searched for the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun with no success, and that November was to be Carter’s final attempt to locate the lost treasures. What Carter ultimately discovered—the iconic sarcophagus, the mummy that inspired whispers of a curse, and the thousands of precious artifacts—would shape Egyptian politics, the field of archaeology, and how museums honor the past for years to come.

On today’s episode, we discuss the legacy of early twentieth-century Egyptology to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb.

First, we welcomed Bob Brier—one of the world’s foremost Egyptologist, and an expert in mummies who is one of a few scholars who have had the opportunity to investigate Tutankhamun’s mummy—as he discusses his new book Tutankhamun and the Tomb that Changed the World and the 100 years of research that have taken place since the tomb’s discovery. We then spoke with Peter Der Manuelian, the author of Walking Among Pharaohs: George Reisner and the Dawn of Modern Egyptology, to discuss Reisner’s life, the rise of American Archaeology in Egypt, and the archeological field’s involvement in nationalism and colonialism.

Check out Episode 77 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment podcast through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors.

Recommended reading

To learn more about the themes raised in this podcast, we’re pleased to share a selection of free-to-read chapters and articles:

Earlier on the OUPblog, we shared an interactive map showing some of Reisner’s and Carter’s key discoveries. Included in the map are photos of some of the amazing artefacts as well as excerpts from Tutankhamun and the Tomb that Changed the World and Walking Among Pharaohs: George Reisner and the Dawn of Modern Egyptology.

From The Oxford Handbook of Egyptology, read about the nature of history and Egyptology.

You can read about the exploration of the Valley of the King’s prior to the late Twentieth Century in The Oxford Handbook of the Valley of the Kings.

To learn more about the phenomenon of Egyptomania that has spread through the 20th and 21st centuries, you can read a chapter from Ian Shaw’s book Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction.

Learn more about the discovery of Howard Carter’s letters confirming the theft of artefacts in this recent piece from The Guardian.

The greywacke statue of King Menkaura and the painted coffin of Djehutynakht, two of George Reisner’s discoveries mentioned by Peter Der Manuelian, can be viewed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Lastly, Bob Brier mentioned one of the most famous Saturday Night Live skits, Steve Martin’s “King Tut” song from 1978:

Featured image: “Howard Carter in the King Tutankhamen’s tomb, circa 1925” by Harry Burton, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

OUPblog - Academic insights for the thinking world.

Distrust in institutions: past, present, and future [podcast]

Research shows that American distrust in government, scientists, and media has reached new heights, and this distrust in institutions is reflected in much of the world.

In his play, Orestes, Euripides opines, “When one with honeyed words but evil mind persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.” Might we still overcome this onslaught of misinformation and preserve our trust in the very institutions that have governed and enriched us, in some form or another, for centuries?

On today’s episode of The Oxford Comment, we spoke with Brian Levack, author of Distrust of Institutions in Early Modern Britain and America, Robert Faris, co-author of Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics, and Tom Nichols, author of Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy and The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, to discuss the past, present, and future of institutional distrust, with a particular focus on the contentious 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections.

Check out Episode 76 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment podcast through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors.

Recommended reading

To learn more about the themes raised in this podcast, we’re pleased to share a selection of free-to-read chapters and articles:

Here you can read the Introduction to Distrust of Institutions in Early Modern Britain and America by Brian Levack.

Network Propaganda, by Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts, is fully Open Access, but we wish to highlight “Chapter 1: Epistemic Crisis” and “Chapter 8: Are the Russians Coming?”.

Tom Nichols, author of The Death of Expertise and Our Own Worst Enemy, has written numerous blog posts and quizzes for the OUPblog, including “Reality check: the dangers of confirmation bias” and “The news media: are you an expert?”.

Additional articles and blog posts on distrust, conspiracy theories, election fraud, and public health disinformation can also be found on the OUPblog, such as:

• “How conspiracy theories hurt vaccination numbers” by Michael Stein and Sandro Galea
• “The fight against fake news and electoral disinformation” by Bente Kalsnes
• “The Black Death: how did the world’s deadliest pandemic change society?” by Mark Bailey

And in journals, such as:

• “From Bad to Worse? The Media and the 2019 Election Campaign” by Dominic Wring and Stephen Ward, from the September 2020 issue of Parliamentary Affairs
• “Russian News Media, Digital Media, Informational Learned Helplessness, and Belief in COVID-19 Misinformation” by Erik C Nisbet and Olga Kamenchuk, from the Autumn 2021 issue of the International Journal of Public Opinion Research.

Lastly, the Open Access articles “State, media and civil society in the information warfare over Ukraine: citizen curators of digital disinformation” by Yevgeniy Golovchenko, Mareike Hartmann, and Rebecca Adler-Nissen, and “You Are Wrong Because I Am Right! The Perceived Causes and Ideological Biases of Misinformation Beliefs” by Michael Hameleers and Anna Brosius, can be found in the journals International Affairs and International Journal of Public Opinion Research, respectively.

Featured image: “United States Capitol outside protesters with US flag” by Tyler Merbler, CC BY 2.0 via Flickr/Wikimedia Commons.

OUPblog - Academic insights for the thinking world.