The Oxford Comment

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. How can we address such financial distress and inequity, and how might we g...

On the last episode of The Oxford Comment for 2022, we’re looking at what the James Webb Space Telescope means to our understanding of the universe. 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, Claudia Maraston and Jonathan Tennyson, to review this expansive subject.

Claudia Maraston is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Por...

On November 1, 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 cu...

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 enric...

High gas prices. Nuclear reactors closed forever. The growth of the electric car industry. Record-breaking temperatures, and Europe’s Dependence on Russian Natural Gas. There has been no shortage in energy-related news stories this summer, and we know that they are not going to go away any time soon.

On today’s episode of The Oxford Comment, we spoke with Martin J. Pasqualetti, Professor of Geography at Arizona State University an...

There are many factors that affect our ability to be healthy and we unfortunately do not all have the same access to care. Barriers can be related to cost, discrimination, location, sexual orientation, and gender identity – to name just a few.

On today’s episode of The Oxford Comment, we complement Oxford Academic’s extensive “Health Equity” collection of journal articles, book excerpts, and online resources by speaking with two m...

The first of July 2022 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China. It also marks the halfway point of a fifty-year agreement between China and Hong Kong that established the “one country, two systems,” rule – a system designed to allow Hong Kong to “enjoy a high degree of autonomy, except in foreign and defence affairs” while still remaining a Special Administrative Region of China. What ...

With over 1 billion speakers, English is an incredibly diverse language. Dozens of countries around the world have their own varieties, many of which have not historically seen adequate representation in English dictionaries.

This past April, the Oxford English Dictionary hosted the Oxford World English Symposium 2022, a two-day event featuring a series of parallel sessions and panels on topics relating not only to varieties of En...

On today’s episode, we’re commemorating National DNA Day in the United States by considering the role that DNA plays in our society. First, we welcome Amber Hartman Scholz, co-author of the article “Myth-busting the provider-user relationship for digital sequence information”, looking at how genetic resources are actually used and shared across the globe. We discuss the surprising findings of this research as well as the important...

On today’s episode of The Oxford Comment, we discussed the global and historical implications of women, work, and economic empowerment.

First, we welcomed Laura M. Argys and Susan L. Averett, the authors of Women in the Workforce: What Everyone Needs to Know®, to share their research on women’s growing role in the workforce and the problems with definitively measuring the gender wage gap. We then interviewed, Laura Edwards, the au...

Black History Month celebrates the achievements of a globally marginalized community still fighting for equal representation and opportunity in all areas of life. This includes education.

In 1954, the United States’ Supreme Court ruled “separate but equal” unconstitutional for American public schools in “Brown v. Board of Education.” While this ruling has been celebrated as a pivotal victory for civil rights, it has not endured...

As we approach the end of 2021, we can look back at the previous two years of restrictions, lockdowns, COVID tests and vaccination lines, not to mention all the political strife… or we can look to the unknown, ahead to the new year. But let us pause for a moment and enjoy the now: a holiday season that should be livelier than last year’s. After all that’s gone on, we could use some old-fashioned holiday cheer.

On today’s episode...

The effects of COVID-19 reach far beyond mortality, triggering widespread economic and sociopolitical consequences. It is unsurprising to learn, after everything that has transpired in the past two years, that COVID-19 has also had a detrimental effect on our mental health. Recent studies in the US and UK have shown a huge increase in the number of adults who have experienced symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder over pre-p...

Open research means faster, more equitable access to cutting edge findings, driving disciplines forward, and introducing transparency into the research process. As the world’s largest university press publisher of open access content, Oxford University Press believes a more open world should work for everyone.

Over the past few years, the movement has grown to encompass other aspects of the research journey, from data sets to peer ...

What do you think of when you hear the term “public debt?” If you’re familiar with the phrase, you might think about elected officials debating budgets and how to pay for goods and services. Or maybe it’s a vague concept you don’t fully understand.

For today’s episode of The Oxford Comment, we spoke with In Defense of Public Debt co-author Barry Eichengreen, Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of Californ...

We’re all familiar with the phrase “words have power”—but in a political and cultural climate where we become more aware of the power that money, influence, and privilege have every day—how do people wield the power of words?

On this episode of The Oxford Comment, we spoke with philosopher Myisha Cherry and poet Carmen Bugan to talk about how they see their disciplines addressing the questions of language, oppression, and resistanc...

On today’s episode of The Oxford Comment, we focused on human consciousness and how studying the neurological basis for human cognition can lead not only to better health but a better understanding of human culture, language, and society as well.

We are joined today by Dr. John Parrington, author of the newly published book Mind Shift: How Culture Transformed the Human Brain, and Professor Anil Seth, Editor-in-Chief of the Open Acc...

June is National Ocean Month in the United States, and earlier this month, the whole world observed World Oceans Day, a day that has been celebrated since 2008 with a different theme each year. The theme for 2021 was “Life and Livelihoods.”

Covering 71% of the earth’s surface, the ocean is home to a vast array of life—an estimated 2.2 million species—and provides livelihoods for 40 million people in the fishing industry. But many s...

In January, Oxford University Press announced its support for SHAPE, a new collective name for the humanities, arts, and social sciences and an equivalent term to STEM. SHAPE stands for Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts for People and the Economy and aims to underline the value that these disciplines bring to society. Over the last year or so, huge attention has—rightly—been placed on scientific and technological advancemen...