Oxford University Press's Blog, page 990

Community-level influences of behavior change

How can you resolve to change in 2013? With a community. The Mayo Clinic Scientific Press suite of publications is now available on Oxford Medicine Online, and to highlight some of the great resources, we’ve excerpted Prathibha Varkey, MD, MPH, MHPE’s Mayo Clinic Preventive Medicine and Public Health Board Review below.

Community and population health can be enhanced by recognizing the different levels of influence, namely intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational influences. More recently, attention is being paid to the importance of interpersonal influences through the study of social networks. Smoking cessation rates of individuals increase as more contacts in their social network quit smoking, and individuals gain weight as more contacts in their social network gain weight. Another example of social influence is an after-school program for teenagers that may not change attitudes but may reduce the opportunity to engage in risky behaviors. Organizational support for behavior change can be in the form of higher taxes on tobacco or alcohol, building recreational centers to enhance physical activity, cleaning up the environment (in one study, neighborhood deterioration was a better predictor of sexually transmitted disease than low education attainment), and using or regulating message delivery by the media.

Bringing about change at the population level may follow the principles of diffusion of innovation, as described by Everett Rogers. In this model, the social system comprises five adopter categories: (1) innovators, (2) early adopters, (3) early majority, (4) late majority, and (5) laggards. Innovators are important for change because they get the process started, but they are not very influential because too much uncertainty about the changed behavior still exists when they adopt the change. The early adopters are key to diffusing an innovation; this group tends to include the opinion leaders, and others usually solicit their advice about new innovations. This model of diffusion of innovation predicts whether innovations and change will be successful on a large scale.

How rapidly an innovation will be diffused depends on the characteristics of the innovation, how it is communicated, and the social system. The characteristics of innovation that determine its speed of adoption include its perceived relative advantage over current practice, compatibility with current practices and needs of the adopters, ease of use (simple vs complex), “trialability” (testable on a small scale), and observability (visibility of results).

The principles of this model can be useful for predicting behavior change or diffusion of best practices at the community or population level. For example, screening mammography has been widely adopted by physicians because it is perceived to detect early stage breast cancer, the test is easy for physicians to order, patient compliance is not burdensome, and results are visible in a short time. In contrast, smoking cessation counseling has been slower to diffuse because the results are not as visible (most people will not quit when advised to do so), the intervention is more complex than just ordering a test, and physician practices are not geared toward counseling.

Intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational influences affect community and population health.
Health changes at the population level may propagate in a manner predicted by the principles of diffusion of innovation.

 

A comprehensive and concise review of relevant preventive medicine and public health topics, the Mayo Clinic Preventive Medicine and Public Health Board Review is an ideal study guide for residents preparing to take the examination of the American Board of Preventive Medicine for the first time, as well as for physicians preparing for recertification. Its emphasis on evidence-based information and recommendations makes Mayo Clinic Preventive Medicine and Public Health Board Review a credible, practical resource that can be used in clinical, public health, and academic settings

The Mayo Clinic Scientific Press suite of publications is now available on Oxford Medicine Online. With full-text titles from Mayo Clinic clinicians and a bank of 3,000 multiple-choice questions, Mayo Clinic Toolkit provides a single location for residents, fellows, and practicing clinicians to undertake the self-testing necessary to prepare for, and pass, the Boards and remain up-to-date. Oxford Medicine Online is an interconnected collection of over 250 online medical resources which cover every stage in a medical career, for medical students and junior doctors, to resources for senior doctors and consultants. Oxford Medicine Online has relaunched with a brand new look and feel and enhanced functionality. Our aim is to ensure that the site continues to deliver the highest quality Oxford content whilst meeting the requirements of the busy student, doctor, or health professional working in a digital world.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Subscribe to only health and medicine articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Community-level influences of behavior change appeared first on OUPblog.

Should we be worried about global quasi-constitutionalization?

By Grahame Thompson

Have we seen a potentially new form of global governance quietly emerging over the last decade or so, one that is establishing a surrogate and informal process of the constitutionalization of global economic and political relationships, something that is creeping up on us almost unnoticed?  This issue of ‘global constitutionalization’ has become an important topic of analysis over recent years. Its development is most obvious in the case of business and corporate activity but I suggest it has a much wider provenance and is threatening to encompass many other aspects of global governance like human rights, security and warfare, environmental regulation, and more besides. One difficulty in analyzing this trend is to define its characteristics and parameters since it represents a rather loose configuration, one that is not easy to pin down.

Quasi-constitutionalization is a surrogate process of constitutionalization, not a coherent program with a rounded set of outcomes but full of contradictory half-finished currents and projects: an ‘assemblage’ of many disparate advances and often directionless moves – almost an accidental coming together of elements. So it does not amount to a ‘system’ in any conventional sense. This means it marshals together a complex bricolage of resources: material techniques and devices like models, documents, court decisions, legal statutes and treaties; institutional orders like legal apparatuses, bodies  and governance organizations; and discursive expertise, theoretical knowledges and instruments. But it is a process nonetheless: it is building norms of conduct, rule-making, and a distribution of powers in a ‘global polity’.

I call this a quasi-constitutional process because while it resembles a constitution in many respects it is difficult to transpose constitutionality directly into an international environment where there is no single competent authority that might foster or enforce such a constitution.

In turn, this connects to various senses of the juridicalization of international corporate and other affairs, where new or revitalized types of law are increasingly being brought into play as the mechanisms for resolving disputes or organizing governance. This involves new forms of public law, private law, customary law, regulatory and administrative law, all of which are rapidly evolving in the international arena alongside traditional international law. Institutions that embody such a process are the WTO, various agencies of the UN, the OECD, Bilateral Trade and Investment treaties, and a huge number of standard setting and benchmarking organization many of which are private in character but which both claim and exercise a public power at the global level. This is the site of a reinvigorated private law and private authority operating in the international domain. In the case of companies, they are increasingly adopting the language of global corporate citizenship to characterize their activity as civic actors in this evolving quasi-constitutional environment, and they are being addressed as such by bodies like the World Economic Forum and the UN’s Global Compact. Bilateral trade and investment treaties have mushroomed over recent years. Investment treaties are an example of global private administrative law in action.

On the other hand we have the OECD in its capacity as sponsor of socially responsible conduct by multinational companies (Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises) which has become an instrument of global public administrative law. John Ruggie’s recent attempt to introduce a comprehensive regime of human rights into the business world (the UNs Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework) is another case in point of the creeping quasi-constitutionalizing process.

But a major issue of concern is whether quasi-constitutionalization leads to the Rule by Laws (RbLs) rather than the Rule of Law (RoL) in the international system? The RoL may be being given away as RbLs replace a comprehensive system of democratically constituted judicial review, which cannot happen in the case of global quasi-constitutionality.

Thus in this evolving environment, instead of the rule by elected and accountable political officials we are seeing the emergence of rule by lawyers and by aged judges and law professors in international commercial and other matters. These are the actors that are leading the process of institutional rule-making. Public and particularly private elites are making-up the rules as they go along, arbitrarily and on an ad hoc basis. I call this a rule by a new self-appointed Guild of Lawyers on the one hand and a new Clerisy of the Law on the other. In effect, we are giving up any form of democratic legitimacy and accountability with this introduction of global quasi-constitutionalization.

Grahame F. Thompson is Professor of Political Economy at the Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), and Emeritus Professor at the Open University (England). His research and teaching interests have been in international political economy matters, and globalization; with a recent focus on the role of business organization in the context of international economic matters. He is the author of The Constitutionalization of the Global Corporate Sphere? (OUP, 2012).

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Subscribe to only articles on law and politics on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Subscribe to only business and economics articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Image credit: Cover of U.S. Constitution by giftlegacy via iStockphoto. 

The post Should we be worried about global quasi-constitutionalization? appeared first on OUPblog.

I resolve to take Benjamin Franklin seriously

It’s that time again: time to set resolutions and goals for ourselves as we enter the New Year. In this excerpt from Pursuing the Good Life, the late Christopher Peterson puts the spotlight on Benjamin Franklin, encouraging us to take the statesman a little more seriously… not for his political or scientific achievements, but for the way he set and cultivated his personal goals. Peterson shows that whether our resolutions are set in the beginning of January or halfway through the year, Franklin’s approach is one that we can all take some notes from.

Net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones. —Benjamin Franklin

I am writing this reflection on the last day of the year. Have you made any New Year’s resolutions? I just read an article on the most typical resolutions made by adults in the United States, and I was struck by how many of them embody the strengths of character that have been the subject of my research: spending more time with friends and family (love), saying no to cigarettes and alcohol (self-regulation), getting organized (prudence), learning something new (love of learning), helping others (kindness), getting fi t and losing weight (perseverance), and so on. Another common resolution is climbing out of debt, which in today’s world probably requires creativity coupled with good judgment.

If you want to make your resolutions happen, I suggest one more: taking Benjamin Franklin seriously.

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) is of course widely acclaimed as a statesman and scientist, but he may also deserve credit as America’s fi rst positive psychologist. Not only did he enumerate 13 praiseworthy character strengths (virtues), but he also took on the challenge of cultivating each of them, using himself as a research subject (Franklin, 1791/1962).

Franklin characterized each of the virtues of interest to him in terms of what he called their precepts . In modern psychological language, these precepts were behavioral markers of the virtue in question. For example, the precepts for industry were “lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions” and for temperance were “eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation” (p. 67).

From my perspective, too many of Franklin’s precepts are phrased in terms of what a person should not do, refl ecting his concern with what contemporary virtue ethicists call corrective virtues , those that protect against human inclinations to act in bad ways. But good character is not simply the absence of bad character. Just because people refrain from mean-spirited actions does not make them kind, any more than being free from anxiety or depression necessarily makes people happy.

Nonetheless, the value of his precepts is that they are behavioral, observable, and countable. The goals they represent are hard and specifi c, which modern psychologists know are more effective in motivating change than the vague “do your best” (DYB) goals that many of us have.

Franklin’s own program of character cultivation was prescient. He recognized that exhortation would not suffi ce to change anyone, including himself, which is a point still not fully grasped by some proponents of today’s character education. Merely hanging a character-relevant poster on a classroom wall (or for that matter, the Ten Commandments) will not lead to change.

I spent my elementary school years staring daily at the periodic table of elements, and that did not make me into a chemist or even into a passable student of chemistry. What is needed is a concrete strategy of changing behavior. Franklin believed, as do I, that most people want to be good and decent. The problem is that we may not know how to do it. One does not tell a depressed patient simply to cheer up or a person prone to procrastination to just do it. If they knew how to be cheerful or how to get things done, then they would do so. What is more helpful is to tell them how to do these things. The same point applies to the cultivation of strengths of character.

Franklin also recognized that it would be too daunting to attempt to strengthen all virtues at the same time, so he prioritized them and tackled them in order. He further observed that the strengthening of one virtue might help with the subsequent cultivation of other virtues. For example, Franklin reasoned that the virtue of moderation should facilitate the virtue of silence, given that the latter requires the skills involved in the former.

Anticipating the modern behavior change strategy of “objectively” monitoring progress, Franklin made a book, with one page for each of the virtues he wished to strengthen. He organized each page by the day of the week. At the end of each day, he would think back over his actions and make “a black mark” if he had failed in following the precept. Again, I gently criticize Franklin for emphasizing his transgressions rather than his positive accomplishments, but that followed from the way he defined the precepts for each virtue.

He resolved to address one virtue per week, in the order he had prioritized, so that in 13 weeks he would have addressed all of them in succession. Then he would do it again, and in a year he would have completed four courses. Again, this is very modern, because Franklin anticipated the need for the maintenance of change.

His goal was to have a clean book, and to help him along the way, he included in his log relevant maxims and prayers, much as people today use Post-Its on their refrigerator to keep their goals front and center. For example, my own refrigerator door has a Post-It asking “Are you really that hungry?”

Franklin judged his program a success, in that he accorded himself fewer black marks as time passed. Still, some virtues were harder for him to strengthen than others. In particular, the strength of order gave him great trouble, as he was wont to scatter about his things and could typically rely on his good memory to know where things were amidst chaos. (Does this sound familiar to any of you readers?) In any event, he decided he was incorrigible with respect to this virtue and decided to accept the fault as part of who he was. From a positive psychology perspective, this is okay. No one can have it all, although to Franklin’s credit, he tried to change before he accepted the less than desirable conclusion.

Franklin did fret that his “success” with respect to some of the virtues refl ected changes in the appearance of the character strength rather than in its reality, but from my vantage point, this is a diffi cult distinction to maintain if we regard character strengths as habits. “Fake it until you can make it” is one of the slogans of Alcoholics Anonymous, and it means that if we behave in a sober way, no matter how deliberate or stilted our initial attempts, then eventually we will be sober. We are what we do.

Appreciate that Franklin did all of this when he was 79 years of age!

In Pursuing the Good Life, one of the founders of positive psychology, Christopher Peterson, offers one hundred bite-sized reflections exploring the many sides of this exciting new field. With the humor, warmth, and wisdom that has made him an award-winning teacher, Peterson takes readers on a lively tour of the sunny side of the psychological street. Christopher Peterson was Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. One of the world’s most highly cited research psychologists and a founder of the field of positive psychology, Peterson was best-known for his studies of optimism and character strengths and their relationship to psychological and physical well-being. He was a frequent blogger for Psychology Today, where many of these short essays, including this one, first appeared.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Subscribe to only psychology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post I resolve to take Benjamin Franklin seriously appeared first on OUPblog.

Questioning the health of others and ourselves

By Patricia Prijatel

A little evergreen tree has died alongside our road and, as we walked by it yesterday, my husband wondered why. All the other trees around it are healthy and it did not look like it had been hit by lightning or damaged by wind or attacked by bugs. The tree is about six feet tall, so it lived several years. We are in the Rocky Mountains and this little guy took root on its own, growing precariously in that place by the road.

Oak Tree. Photo by Glyn Baker. Creative Commons License.

The trees all around it are scrub oak, so maybe the soil was not right for an evergreen. Maybe it just grew in the wrong place, in soil that could not sustain it. Still, there are evergreens nearby that soar to the sky, so maybe this little tree was just too weak to begin with.

Could we have done something to save it? If we were in the city, would we have babied it and maybe kept it alive? Or would it have died sooner there?

These are the same questions we ponder about why some people get sick, why one disease affects one person more than others, why people who live healthy lives still can’t beat some illnesses, yet people with deplorable habits keep going and going.

It’s the old nature versus nurture argument. Bad genes or bad environment? Or both?

I am sort of over being angry at people who have dodged major illnesses — largely because there aren’t that many of them. Seems like most people I know have something to contend with — debilitating arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s somewhere in their network of family and friends. But when I first got cancer I did look around at people who obviously were not living as healthy as I was and wondered: why me and not them? And then I realized that I had no idea what they were dealing with and I should just stop being so angry and judgmental and get over myself. It was not their fault I got sick.

Still, you have to wonder about this poker game we all play with our health. Some seem to be dealt a good hand to begin with, some make the best of a poor hand, some try but can’t make a straight out of a pair of twos, and some look at their cards and just fold.

I have one friend who never exercises and has a diet full of fat, yet she is in her mid-80s, hale, hearty, and youthful-looking. Another smoked all his life, drank, and never exercised, yet he is pushing 80 and has nothing seriously wrong physically, although I do think he looks back at his life with serious regret. But the big C didn’t get him, nor did any major illness. I wouldn’t swap places with him, though, even if I knew my cancer would return.

I also know a wide variety of cancer patients who approach the disease like the individuals they are — fighters who refuse to let the disease get the upper hand; questioners who search for their own information rather than listening to the docs; accommodators who go along with whatever the doctor says; worriers who can’t get beyond the fact that they might die. Most of us are a mix of these traits, fighting one day, living in worry the next. But we are all built differently, both physically and mentally, so we all react to our disease differently. Nobody is right, nobody is wrong. We’re all just us, being our own little trees fighting our own little battles.

We cannot escape our genes — they make us prone to certain diseases, give us the strength to fight others, and offer a blueprint for either a long or a short life. Still, we can change some of that; the science of epigenetics demonstrates that lifestyle and environmental factors can influence our genetic makeup so that, by improving things such as diet and physical activity and by avoiding unhealthy environmental pollutants including stress, bad air, and chemicals, we can eventually build a healthier DNA.

I was born into a history of cancer. My grandmother and both of my parents had forms of cancer, although none of them had breast cancer. I was the pioneer there. But both parents lived into their 80s and remained in their home until they died, surrounded by their family. So, I might have a tendency toward cancer, but perhaps my genes also mean I will hang around for a couple more decades. And my particular mix of nature and nurture has given me an ability to love, to laugh, to process health information in a way that might make me proactive, and to keep going, assuming all will be well, at least at some level.

Maybe I won’t end up as one of the stronger trees in the forest; maybe I will be the gnarled, crooked one. Maybe disease might slow me, but I feel I am rooted deeply in decent soil — family, friends, community — so I am going to push on, grow how I can, and, in the process, help shade and nurture the other trees around me.

Patricia Prijatel is author of Surviving Triple-Negative Breast Cancer, published by Oxford University Press. She is the E.T. Meredith Distinguished Professor Emerita of Journalism at Drake University. She will do a webcast with the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation on 16 October 2012. Read her previous blog posts on the OUPblog or read her own blog“Positives About Negative.”

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Subscribe to only health and medicine articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Questioning the health of others and ourselves appeared first on OUPblog.

Top ten OUPblog posts of 2012 by the numbers

By Alice Northover

While I already gave my opinion of the best OUPblog posts of the year, it’s only fair to see what you the reader decided. Here’s our top ten posts according to the number of pageviews they received.

(10) “Olympic confusion in North and South Korea flag mix-up” by Jasper Becker

(9) “Five GIFers for the serious-minded” by Alice Northover

(8) “Seduction by contract: do we understand the documents we sign?” by Oren Bar-Gill

(7) ““Remember, remember the fifth of November”” by Daniel Swift

(6) “Puzzling heritage: The verb ‘fart’” by Anatoly Liberman

(5) “The seven myths of mass murder” by J. Reid Meloy, Ph.D.

(4) “Oh Dude, you are so welcome” by Anatoly Liberman

(3) “How New York Beat Crime” by Franklin E. Zimring

(2) “Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year 2012: ‘to GIF’” by Katherine Martin

And the number one blog post of the year is…

(1) “SciWhys: Why do we eat food?” by Jonathan Crowe

And I thought it would be interesting to note that our eleventh most popular blog post of 2012 is actually from 2009. People still enjoy arguing about unfriending.

Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Top ten OUPblog posts of 2012 by the numbers appeared first on OUPblog.

Alice’s top 10 OUPblog posts of 2012

By Alice Northover

One of the great advantages of being OUPblog editor is that I read practically everything that was published on the blog in 2012: the 1,095 articles, Q&As, quizzes, slideshows, podcasts, videos, and more from the smartest minds in the scholarly world. When I first attempted the list, I had 30 articles bookmarked and I’d only made it six months back. I’m sure I’ll hate myself for missing a piece tomorrow.

Let’s start off with a recent one: Space law! “Mars, grubby hands, and international law” by Gérardine Goh Escolar, which was part of our Place of the Year series.

It was Alan Turing’s 100th birthday this year and everyone at OUP knows that we (mainly me) struggled to scrape together a full week of blogs posts on Turing to celebrate it. My favorite: “Turing : the irruption of Materialism into thought” by Paul Cockshott.

Just when you think our authors are predictable, one writes about what if you met Jesus and had an iPhone:

“eResurrection?” by Reverend John Piderit, S.J.

One of the great joys of joining OUP this year was learning the press’s history. The first of I hope many posts from our archivist: “Sir Robert Dudley, midwife of Oxford University Press” by Martin Maw.

A regular contributor to the OUPblog, Gordon Thompson wrote a piece on the pre-British invasion back in August: “A British ante-invasion: “Telstar,” 17 August 1962.” An introduction to strange, new music. Who could ask for more?

I cannot possibly pass by our weekly etymology columnist Anatoly Liberman, but choosing a single piece from him is quite difficult. I’ve selected “A lovable bully” without which I’d never have learned of Shakespeare’s love of Dutch slang.

Robert Morrison deserves some kind of award for patience and being one of the loveliest authors to work with (image permissions!). His article on John William Polidori (“Vampyre Rising”) also deserves a few more reads.

I felt Nick Hayes’s piece on the attitude towards the National Health Service just before and after its inception deserved more recognition this year. “Did we really want a National Health Service?” asks questions that people think they have answers to, all wrong. Perhaps that’s why it didn’t get the recognition it deserves.

We had many articles on politics (it was an election year after all), but the one that has really stayed with me is Stephanie Li’s “Opposing narratives of success in politics.” Li captured not only the making of candidates but the reflection of ideologies.

Finally, we had so many fine articles from Oxford World’s Classics editors, but Emily Wilson’s “Seneca in Spring-Time” took me by surprise and made me realize what a poor state my Latin was in.

Bonus blog post:

I can’t possibly include a blog post I composed in my round-up, but I can’t look back on 2012 without thinking of the hours put into “The Oxford Companion to the London 2012 Opening Ceremony.” I never did get round to one on the closing ceremony. Perhaps I can face it in 2013!

Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Alice’s top 10 OUPblog posts of 2012 appeared first on OUPblog.

Love and appetite in Anna Karenina

A timely reminder to act while you still can for New Year’s Eve… A new film adaptation of Anna Karenina, starring Keira Knightly and directed by Joe Wright, has opened worldwide, so we wanted to put it to the test. How faithful is the script to the novel? We’ve paired a scene from the film with an excerpt of the work below. One of the greatest novels ever written, Anna Karenina sets the impossible and destructive triangle of Anna, her husband Karenin, and her lover Vronsky against the marriage of Levin and Kitty, thus illuminating the most important questions that face humanity.

LEVIN emptied his glass and they were silent for a while.

‘There is one thing more that I must tell you,’ began Oblonsky. ‘You know Vronsky?’

‘No, I don’t. Why do you ask?’

‘Another bottle,’ said Oblonsky, turning to the Tartar, who was filling their glasses and hovering round them just when he was not wanted.

‘The reason you ought to know Vronsky is this: he is one of your rivals.’

‘What is he?’ asked Levin, the expression of childlike rapture which Oblonsky had been admiring suddenly changing into an angry and unpleasant one.

‘Vronsky is one of Count Ivanovich Vronsky’s sons, and a very fine sample of the gilded youth of Petersburg. I met him in Tver when I was in the Service there and he came on conscription duty. Awfully rich, handsome, with influential connections, an aide-decamp to the Emperor, and at the same time very good-natured — a first-rate fellow. And he’s even more than a first-rate fellow. As I have got to know him now, he turns out to be both educated and very clever — a man who will go far.’

Levin frowned and was silent.

‘Well, so he came here soon after you left, and as far as I can make out is head over ears in love with Kitty; and you understand that her mother …’

‘Pardon me, but I understand nothing,’ said Levin, dismally knitting his brows. And at once he thought of his brother Nicholas and how mean he was to forget him.

‘You just wait a bit, wait !’ said Oblonsky, smiling and touching Levin’s arm. ‘I have told you what I know, and I repeat that, as far as anyone can judge in so delicate and subtle a matter, I believe the chances are all on your side.’

Levin leant back in his chair. His face was pale.

‘But I should advise you to settle the question as soon as possible,’ Oblonsky continued, filling Levin’s glass.

‘No, thanks! I can’t drink any more,’ said Levin pushing his glass aside, ‘or I shall be tipsy…. Well, and how are you getting on?’ he continued, evidently wishing to change the subject.

‘One word more! In any case, I advise you to decide the question quickly, but I shouldn’t speak to-day,’ said Oblonsky. ‘Go to-morrow morning and propose in the classic manner, and may heaven bless you!’

‘You have so often promised to come and shoot with me — why not come this spring?’ said Levin.

He now repented with his whole heart of having begun this conversation with Oblonsky. His personal feelings had been desecrated by the mention of some Petersburg officer as his rival, and by Oblonsky’s conjectures and advice.

Oblonsky smiled. He understood what was going on in Levin’s soul.

Click here to view the embedded video.

‘I’ll come some day,’ he said. ‘Ah, old chap, women are the pivot on which everything turns! Things are in a bad way with me too, very bad and all on account of women. Tell me quite frankly …’

He took out a cigar, and with one hand on his glass he continued:

‘Give me some advice.’

‘Why? What is the matter?’

‘Well, it’s this. Supposing you were married and loved your wife, but had been fascinated by another woman …’

‘Excuse me, but really I … it’s quite incomprehensible to me. It’s as if … just as incomprehensible as if I, after eating my fill here, went into a baker’s shop and stole a roll.’

Oblonsky’s eyes glittered more than usual.

‘Why not? Rolls sometimes smell so that one can’t resist them!’

‘Himmlisch ist’s, wenn ich bezwungen

Meine irdische Begier;

Aber doch wenn’s nicht gelungen

Hatt’ ich auch recht hübsch Plaisir!’

Oblonsky repeated these lines with a subtle smile and Levin himself could not help smiling.

‘No, but joking apart,’ continued Oblonsky, ‘just consider. A woman, a dear, gentle, affectionate creature, poor and lonely, sacrifices everything. Now when the thing is done … just consider, should one forsake her? Granted that one ought to part with her so as not to destroy one’s family life, but oughtn’t one to pity her and provide for her and make things easier?’

‘As to that, you must pardon me. You know that for me there are two kinds of women … or rather, no! There are women, and there are … I have never seen any charming fallen creatures, and never shall see any; and people like that painted Frenchwoman with her curls out there by the counter, are an abomination to me, and all these fallen ones are like her.’

‘And the one in the Gospels?’

‘Oh, don’t! Christ would never have spoken those words, had he known how they would be misused! They are the only words in the Gospels that seem to be remembered. However, I am not saying what I think, but what I feel. I have a horror of fallen women. You are repelled by spiders and I by those creatures. Probably you never studied spiders and know nothing of their morals; and it’s the same in my case!’

‘It’s all very well for you to talk like that—it’s like that gentleman in Dickens who with his left hand threw all difficult questions over his right shoulder. But denying a fact is no answer. What am I to do? Tell me, what am I to do? My wife is getting old, and I am full of vitality. A man hardly has time to turn round, before he feels that he can no longer love his wife in that way, whatever his regard for her may be. And then all of a sudden love crosses your path, and you’re lost, lost,’ said Oblonsky with despair.

Levin smiled.

‘Yes, I am lost,’ continued Oblonsky. ‘But what am I to do?

‘Don’t steal rolls.’

Oblonsky burst out laughing.

‘Oh, you moralist! But just consider, here are two women: one insists only on her rights, and her rights are your love, which you cannot give her; and the other sacrifices herself and demands nothing. What are you to do? How are you to act? It is a terrible tragedy.’

‘If you want me to say what I think of it, I can only tell you that I don’t believe in the tragedy. And the reason is this: I think love, both kinds of love, which you remember Plato defines in his “Symposium” — both kinds of love serve as a touchstone for men. Some men understand only the one, some only the other. Those who understand only the non-platonic love need not speak of tragedy. For such love there can be no tragedy. “Thank you kindly for the pleasure, good-bye,” and that’s the whole tragedy. And for the platonic love there can be no tragedy either, because there everything is clear and pure, because …’ Here Levin recollecting his own sins and the inner struggle he had lived through added unexpectedly, ‘However, maybe you are right. It may very well be. But I don’t know, I really don’t know.’

‘Well, you see you are very consistent,’ said Oblonsky. ‘It is both a virtue and a fault in you. You have a consistent character yourself and you wish all the facts of life to be consistent, but they never are. For instance you despise public service because you want work always to correspond to its aims, and that never happens. You also want the activity of each separate man to have an aim, and love and family life always to coincide — and that doesn’t happen either. All the variety, charm and beauty of life are made up of light and shade.’

Levin sighed and did not answer. He was thinking of his own affairs and not listening to Oblonsky.

And suddenly both felt that though they were friends, and had dined and drunk wine together which should have drawn them yet closer, yet each was thinking only of his own affairs and was not concerned with the other.

Oblonsky had more than once experienced this kind of acute estrangement instead of union following a dinner with a friend, and knew what to do in such a case.

‘The bill!’ he shouted and went out into the dining-hall, where he immediately saw an aide-de-camp of his acquaintance, and entered into conversation with him about an actress and her protector. And immediately in conversation with the aide-de-camp Oblonsky felt relief and rest after the talk with Levin, who always demanded of him too great a mental and spiritual strain.

When the Tartar returned with a bill for twenty-six roubles odd, Levin, quite unconcernedly paid his share, which with the tip came to fourteen roubles, a sum that usually would have horrified his rustic conscience, and went home to dress and go on to the Shcherbatskys’ where his fate was to be decided.

‘It is heavenly when I have mastered my earthly desires; but even when I have not succeeded, I have also had right good pleasure!’

A classic of Russian literature, this new edition of Anna Karenina uses the acclaimed Louise and Alymer Maude translation, and offers a new introduction and notes which provide completely up-to-date perspectives on Tolstoy’s classic work.

For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Subscribe to only literature articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Love and appetite in Anna Karenina appeared first on OUPblog.

Music: a proxy language for autistic children

By Adam Ockelford

I spend around 12 hours a week – every week – sharing thoughts, feelings, new ideas, reminiscences and even jokes with some very special children who have extraordinary musical talents, and many of whom are severely autistic. I’m Professor of Music at the University of Roehampton, and the children come to see me in a large practice room in Southlands College where there are two pianos, so we don’t have to scrap over personal space. My pupils usually indicate what piece they would like us to play together, and they tell me when they’ve had enough. Sometimes, they tease me by seeming to suggest one thing when they mean another. We share many jokes and the occasional sad moment too.

But the children rarely say a word. They communicate everything through their playing. For them, music is a proxy language.

On Sunday mornings, at 10.00 a.m., I steel myself for Romy’s arrival. I know that the next two hours will be an exacting test of my musical mettle. Yet Romy, aged 11, has severe learning difficulties, and she doesn’t speak at all. She is musical to the core, though: she lives and breathes music – it is the very essence of her being. With her passion comes a high degree of particularity: Romy knows precisely which piece she wants me to play, at what tempo and in which key. And woe betide me if I get it wrong.

When we started working together, four years ago, mistakes and misunderstandings occurred all too frequently, since (as it turned out), there were very few pieces that Romy would tolerate: the theme from Für Elise (never the middle section), for example, the Habanera from Carmen, and some snippets from ‘Buckaroo Holiday’ (the first movement of Aaron Copland’s Rodeo). Romy’s acute neophobia meant that even one note of a different piece would evoke shrieks of fear-cum-anger, and the session could easily grow into an emotional conflagration.

So gradually, gradually, over weeks, then months, and then years, I introduced new pieces – sometimes, quite literally, at the rate of one note per session. On occasion, if things were difficult, I would even take a step back before trying to move on again the next time. And, imperceptibly at first, Romy’s fears started to melt away. The theme from Brahms’s Haydn Variations became something of an obsession, followed by the slow movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique sonata. Then it was Joplin’s The Entertainer, and Rocking All Over the World by Status Quo.

Over the four years, Romy’s jigsaw box of musical pieces – fragments ranging from just a few seconds to a minute or so in length – has filled up at an ever-increasing rate. Now it’s overflowing, and it’s difficult to keep up with Romy’s mercurial musical mind: mixing and matching ideas in our improvised sessions, and even changing melodies and harmonies so they mesh together, or to ensure that my contributions don’t!

As we play, new pictures in sound emerge and then retreat as a kaleidoscope of ideas whirls between us. Sometimes a single melody persists for 15 minutes, even half an hour. For Romy, no matter how often it is repeated, a fragment of music seems to stay fresh and vibrant. At other times, it sounds as though she is trying to play several pieces at the same time – she just can’t get them out quickly enough, and a veritable nest of earworms wriggle their way onto the piano keyboard. Vainly I attempt to herd them into a common direction of musical travel.

So here I am, sitting at the piano in Roehampton, on a Sunday morning in mid-November, waiting for Romy to join me (not to be there when she arrives is asking for trouble). I’m limbering up with a rather sedate rendition of the opening of Chopin’s Etude in C major, Op. 10, No. 1, when I hear her coming down the corridor, vocalising with increasing fervour. I feel the tension rising, and as her father pushes open the door, she breaks away from him, rushes over to the piano and, with a shriek and an extraordinarily agile sweep of her arm, elbows my right hand out of the way at the precise moment that I was going to hit the D an octave above middle C. She usurps this note to her own ends, ushering in her favourite Brahms-Haydn theme. Instantly, Romy smiles, relaxes and gives me the choice of moving out of the way or having my lap appropriated as an unwilling cushion on the piano stool. I choose the former, sliding to my left onto a chair that I’d placed earlier in readiness for the move that I knew I would have to make.

I join in the Brahms, and encourage her to use her left hand to add a bass line. She tolerates this up to the end of the first section of the theme, but in her mind she’s already moved on, and without a break in the sound, Romy steps onto the set of A Little Night Music, gently noodling around the introduction to Send in the Clowns. But it’s in the wrong key – G instead of E flat – which I know from experience means that she doesn’t really want us to go into the Sondheim classic, but instead wants me to play the first four bars (and only the first four bars) of Schumann’s Kleine Studie Op. 68, No. 14. Trying to perform the fifth bar would in any case be futile since Romy’s already started to play … now, is it I am Sailing or O Freedom. The opening ascent from D through E to G could signal either of those possibilities. Almost tentatively, Romy presses those three notes down and then looks at me and smiles, waiting, and knowing that whichever option I choose will be the wrong one. I just shake my head at her and plump for O Freedom, but sure enough Rod Stewart shoves the Spiritual out of the way before it has time to draw a second breath.

From there, Romy shifts up a gear to the Canon in D ­– or is it really Pachelbel’s masterpiece? With a deft flick of her little finger up to a high A, she seems to suggest that she wants Streets of London instead (which uses the same harmonies). I opt for Ralph McTell, but another flick, this time aimed partly at me as well as the keys, shows that Romy actually wants Beethoven’s Pathetique theme – but again, in the wrong key (D). Obediently I start to play, but Romy takes us almost immediately to A flat (the tonality that Beethoven originally intended). As soon as I’m there, though, Romy races back up the keyboard again, returning to Pachelbel’s domain. Before I’ve had time to catch up, though, she’s transformed the music once more; now we’re hearing the famous theme from Dvorak’s New World Symphony.

I pause to recover my thoughts, but Romy is impatiently waiting for me to begin the accompaniment. Two or three minutes into the session, and we’ve already touched on 12 pieces spanning 300 years of Western music and an emotional range to match.

Yet here is a girl who in everyday life is supposed to have no ‘theory of mind’ ­– the capacity to put yourself in other people’s shoes and think what they are thinking. Here is someone who is supposed to lack the ability to communicate. Here is someone who functions, apparently, at an 18-month level.

But I say here is a joyous musician who amazes all who hear her. Here is a girl in whom extreme ability and disability coexist in the most extraordinary way. Here is someone who can reach out through music and touch one’s emotions in a profound way.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Romy playing piano with musical savant Derek Paravicini and Adam Ockelford

I explore the science of how Romy and her peers are able to do what they do in my new book Applied Musicology, which uses a theory of how music makes sense to all of us to explore intentionality and influence in children who use little or no language. If music is important to us all, it is truly the lifeblood of many children with autism. Essential brain food.

Adam Ockelford is Professor of Music and Director of the Applied Music Research Centre at the University of Roehampton in London. He is the author of Applied Musicology: Using Zygonic Theory to Inform Music Education, Therapy, and Psychology Research (OUP, 2012).

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Subscribe to only music articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Subscribe to only psychology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Music: a proxy language for autistic children appeared first on OUPblog.

OUP staff pick the best adult books of 2012

Oxford University Press staff love to read so we’ve gathered together a few recommendations from what our staff read this year (although maybe not published this year).

Reticence by Jean-Philippe Toussaint

“Jean-Philippe Toussaint is likely still best known for his 1985 debut novel, The Bathroom, but he’s been churning out short, idiosyncratic and generally brilliant books every few years since then (most of them published in translation by Dalkey Archive). The novels tend to be snappy, existential, claustrophobic and yet hilariouss; it adds up to a flavor that’s unique to Toussaint. This year’s Reticence is one of his best: it follows an unnamed narrator as he searches for — and avoids — his friend Biaggi, encountering ominous portents and growing more and more suspicious. The book manages to both skewer the detective genre and meditate on the nature of paranoia, all the while serving up a generous helping of slapstick.

–Owen Keiter, Publicity Assistant

Robinson Alone by Kathleen Rooney

“This is a moving and evocative novel in verse about a young writer making his way through the United States in the middle of the 20th century. Inspired by four poems written by the nearly forgotten Weldon Kees, whose work is published by the University of Nebraska Press, Rooney fleshes out Kees’s character, Robinson, offering us his letters, humor, and heartbreak, with an eerie facility with period detail, from his days working for Time Magazine in NYC in the 1950’s to ads for shaving cream. Think Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man meets Mad Men. Read it!”

–Jeremy Wang-Iverson, Senior Publicist

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

“By the “Best Book of 2012,” you mean the best of 1860, right? The Mill on the Floss is my page-turner of the year. George Eliot’s wit and biting observations offer insight into 19th century British society and gender relations that will leave you half-smirking, half-disgruntled.”

–Alana Podolsky, Publicity Assistant

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

“I didn’t get a chance to read Wolf Hall before starting Bring Up the Bodies, and as Hilary Mantel has made a clean sweep of every literary award I wasn’t sure what to expect. (Awards aren’t often good indicators for my own enjoyment.) I’m also slightly apprehensive about historical novels after a run of authors who like to show off their knowledge in what they mistakenly think is an unobtrusive way. (Oh really, three pages on threshing methods of the 1860s with no impact on the story. I won’t be reading this anymore.) Tudor history is an area of endless study, but Hilary Mantel’s exhaustive research is integrated seamlessly into the narrative. Jane Seymour — that mute queen — has machinations all her own, and Thomas More, a man who was the British government for many years, is seen desperately trying to keep his place secure. A riveting read. ”

–Alice Northover, Social Media Manager

Oxford University Press staff like to spend their holidays reading.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post OUP staff pick the best adult books of 2012 appeared first on OUPblog.

OUP staff pick the best kids books of 2012

Oxford University Press staff love to read, but we were kids once too, so we’ve gathered together a few recommendations from our staff to keep the little ones entertained through the long winter. (Books we’ve read, but may not have been published this year.)

Dogwalker by Arthur Bradford

Benny’s Brigade by Arthur Bradford

“Arthur Bradford is the co-director of Camp Jabberwocky, a summer camp for people with disabilities; he’s also the author of the unfairly neglected short story collection Dogwalker, along with a slew of cheerfully bizarre and wonderful fiction in magazines. Benny’s Brigade ties together these two threads, presenting an endearingly absurd tale about a courtly miniature walrus named Benny, fleshed out by Lisa Hanawalt’s lavish illustrations. I enjoy it every bit as much as I’m hoping my little half-siblings will (it’s their Christmas gift — don’t tell).”

–Owen Keiter, Publicity Assistant

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

“Great book about finding adventure in an unlikely place when a brother and a sister are trapped in a museum.” 

–Jeremy Wang-Iverson, Senior Publicist

Struwwelpeter by Heinrich Hoffman

The Happy Hocky Family by Lane Smith

“One book I recommend for cold-averse, snowbound readers this winter is Struwwelpeter, a classic collection of cautionary tales for readers of any age and humor. The original is written in German by Heinrich Hoffman, but the English translation is just as delightful and sure to make young, obstreperous children sit up and fly right. Another favorite children’s book that I think contains insightful lessons for the mature and miniature reader alike is The Happy Hocky Family by Lane Smith. The art and sentiment within is simple and exquisite.  he tale of the red balloon reminds me there are riches and joys to be thankful for and shared in the aftermath of adversity.”

–Purdy, Director of Publicity

A Stranger Came Ashore by Mollie Hunter

“This book has it all: shipwrecks, magic, and a villain who may or may not be a Selkie (a seal in human form). If there’s any justice for Mollie Hunter, Selkies will become the new vampires.”

–Jonathan Kroberger, Associate Publicist

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

“Harriet the Spy: For aspiring writers. The Phantom Tollbooth: Bored? So was Milo… The Hero and the Crown: A beautiful, short, surprisingly sexy coming-of-age girl’s adventure story.”

–Anonymous editorial submission

We Are In A Book by Mo Willems

It’s a Book by Lane Smith

“What’s better than holding a book? Perhaps being in one! Mo Willems’ Elephant and Piggie series always delivers a good laugh, but We Are In A Book takes a unique, meta approach to literature that will educate and delight children. For the mature sense of humor or technology-obsessed friend, check out Lane Smith’s It’s a Book.” 

–Alana Podolsky, Publicity Assistant

Oxford University Press staff like to spend their holidays reading.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post OUP staff pick the best kids books of 2012 appeared first on OUPblog.