Oxford University Press's Blog, page 991
December 30, 2012
Rebecca Lane’s top 5 books of 2012
The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
I listened to the audiobook version narrated by Stephen Fry. With his hilarious accents for all the different aliens I enjoyed it far more than if I’d read it. I’m glad I finally know why the number 42 is so important.
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Beautifully written, this story centres around memory, reflections on the past, and the regret that comes with age. The first part recounts the narrator’s school days and idealistic expectations of life leads and then jumps ahead forty years when he is an unexceptional middle-aged divorcee, still learning about the past.
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The first book I read on my Kindle — one I’d struggle to lift in print at over 1,000 pages! This book has everything — love, adventure, rags to riches — but it’s the story of betrayal and revenge spanning a lifetime that I found so fascinating.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
As haunting as its reputation promises, I loved this eerie story of a second wife trying to deal with the suffocating presence of her predecessor and the mystery that unfolds.
When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman
I thoroughly enjoyed this funny yet touching story of family life and the impact external events have on these vital relationships. It also includes a talking rabbit, which sounds odd, but it definitely works.
Rebecca Lane is a Commissioning Editor in Reference & Dictionaries at Oxford University Press.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
The post Rebecca Lane’s top 5 books of 2012 appeared first on OUPblog.
December 29, 2012
Abby Gross’s top books of 2012
I read science and social science manuscripts for work, so in my off time I like to read other genres, from fiction and fantasy to cookbooks. Here were some of my favorite reads of the year.
I hadn’t read a young adult novel in years, and the jacket description of this book was enough to send me running in the opposite direction. But ignore the copy about the teenager struggling with cancer and her friend whom she meets in a support group. John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars is a magnificent and hilarious book about two young people who game the make-a-wish foundation to pursue a meeting with their favorite author, only to find out he is a crazy drunk.
After finishing the works of MFK Fisher, the godmother of writing about cooking, I was despondent — until I found Tamar Adler, whose new book, An Everlasting Meal, channels Fisher’s practical, no-nonsense style and wisdom. If you are like me, and you prefer to cook freestyle, without intricate recipes, this book will surprise you with ideas for using up the last bits of whatever you have on hand. More importantly, it teaches the reader — Adler is a natural instructor — about how to weave cooking into life without assuming that you have tons of cash or free time.
I wish I could go back in time to my 18-year-old self, bored in Biology 101, and hand over a copy of Homo Mysterious: Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature, by David Barash. (Disclosure: I helped OUP publish this book.) Barash addresses brow-furrowing questions like “why do humans create religion?” and “why do women menstruate?” He swiftly reasons through the possible arguments (with jokes, which helps non-scientists through the science) eventually leaving the questions unanswered, but the reader equipped to think more intelligently about why we are what we are and why we do what we do.
Abby Gross is a Medical editor at Oxford University Press.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
The post Abby Gross’s top books of 2012 appeared first on OUPblog.
Josh Landon’s top 5 books of 2012
The Passage of Power by Robert Caro
The fourth volume in Caro’s (insert hyperbolic adjective here) Lyndon Johnson biography is a must-read for his depiction of Robert Kennedy alone. Wow, who knew he was such a [expletive deleted]?
Zona by Geoff Dyer
Ostensibly a shot-by-shot analysis Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film “Stalker,” this book quickly spins off the rails (as is Geoff Dyer’s trademark) into long and fascinating discursions about the authors lifelong desires and regrets, and whether we actually, deep down, really want what we think we want. I should probably add that it’s also extremely funny.
Rule & Ruin by Geoffrey Kabaservice
Geoff Kabaservice’s supremely readable and entertaining book about the collapse of a moderate wing within the Republican Party couldn’t be more relevant in light of the country’s ongoing fiscal cliff/plan B/debt ceiling debates which are, apparently, never going away. Ever.
NW by Zadie Smith
Worth reading if only for Zadie Smith’s incredible ear for dialogue. An insightful, if frequently uncomfortable, look at urban life in the 21st century.
Arcadia by Lauren Groff
This story about the rise and fall of a fictional upstate New York commune in the 1970’s was my outside-my-comfort-zone read of the year. It’s the kind of book you get excited about by the time you get halfway through because you realize you now have the perfect Birthday/Mother’s Day/Christmas gift for the next year.
Bonus Book (originally published in 2008)
How to Be Useful: A Beginner’s Guide to Not Hating Work by Megan Hustad
I deeply regret not having the opportunity to read this book in my early/mid 20s. The book, which culls the best ideas from a century’s worth of “career” books (some brilliant, some tacky), is filled with ideas and suggestions that will flat-out make you a happier person.
Josh Landon is a National Account Representative to Barnes & Noble, Follett, & BAM for Oxford University Press, and the B&N Rookie of the Year 2012 Award winner.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
The post Josh Landon’s top 5 books of 2012 appeared first on OUPblog.
Cornelia Haase’s top 5 books of 2012
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Heart-breaking tale about nine-year-old Liesel who lives with a foster family in Nazi Germany after her parents have been taken to a concentration camp. Not just another dramatic World War II novel, but a brilliant book about family relationships, fear, and human strength.
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson, translated by Rod Bradbury
It’s Allan Karlsson’s 100th birthday when he decides to leave the old people’s home and goes on an eventful journey, involving a suitcase full of cash, accidental murder, and a pet elephant. The characters are lovable and the tone light and entertaining. My feel-good book of the year!
The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair
A young American woman of Indian ancestry revisits the events of a summer she spent in India as a child — a summer in which she uncovered her family’s biggest secret. Nair manages to keep up the suspense right until the end… a real page-turner!
White as Milk, Red as Blood by Alessandro D’Avenia
A typical teenager, 16-year-old Leo’s life changes completely when he finds out that his love interest Beatrice suffers from leukaemia. The characters are authentic and the story beautifully told. Unfortunately it hasn’t been translated into English (yet?).
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
Set in Istanbul, this book tells the story of the Kazanci family, where a mysterious family curse causes the men in the family to die in their early forties. As the story unfolds, old family secrets come to light. A great and compelling story!
Cornelia Haase is an Assistant Commissioning Editor in Reference at Oxford University Press.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
The post Cornelia Haase’s top 5 books of 2012 appeared first on OUPblog.
December 28, 2012
Friday procrastination: winter cold edition
What do you read when struck down with a winter cold? Run back to the classics of Fitzgerald and Spielberg; learn from the ancients and panic about technology; and try not to look at things that make your eyes fall out.
In anticipation of the upcoming movie, the literary world is going Gatsby. First up, “Where Daisy Buchanan Lived.”
The University of Chicago received a package for Henry Walton Jones, Jr (Indiana Jones).
Cancer scientists take lessons from the ancient Greeks.
Music inspired by books. Next up band names inspired by books?
New technology + publishing = +1 on to do list.
Rachel Fershleiser of Tumblr on the Bookternet.
Bram Stoker and Walt Whitman were pen pals.
Articles for deletion on Wikipedia.
The antimonopolist history of the world’s most popular board game.
An online tutorial for medieval Latin.
Our most intriguing book review yet: “my big criticism with The Book of Marvels And Travels is that it’s not very good as a videogame. i found it extremely hard to manipulate the controls through the pulpy binding and the graphics are no good. i tried to visualise about what i was reading and then i started imagining a blue triangle moving through an endless purple void and when i woke up my pillow was gone.”
And finally Gatbsy!
Click here to view the embedded video.
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 Friday procrastination: winter cold edition appeared first on OUPblog.
Atlas of the World Quiz
School might be out for the holidays, but there’s still lots to learn. Since education never ends, we’ve prepared this geography quiz drawn from facts from the Oxford Atlas of the World, 19th edition. The only atlas to be updated annually, Oxford’s Atlas of the World combines gorgeous satellite images with the most up-to-date geographic and census information.
Get Started!
Your Score:
Your Ranking:
Oxford’s Atlas of the World — the only world atlas updated annually, guaranteeing that users will find the most current geographic information — is the most authoritative resource on the market. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only geography articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: From Atlas of the World, 19th edition.
The post Atlas of the World Quiz appeared first on OUPblog.
Gerard Wolfe at the Tenement Museum
Thirty years after the first edition was published, Synagogues of New York’s Lower East Side: A Retrospective and Contemporary View, Second Edition (Fordham University Press) was released earlier this year. The author Gerard Wolfe shows how the Jewish community took root on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the late 19th and early 20th century by focusing on these beautiful buildings and houses of worship. It was Dr. Wolfe’s walking tours on the Lower East Side early 1970’s that led to the renovation of many synagogues in the neighborhood, including the Eldridge Street Synagogue. The Tenement Museum on Orchard Street hosted Dr. Wolfe for a signing and launch event for the book on 19 November 2012. These photos were taken from that event, and a visit to the Museum of Jewish Heritage earlier that day.
Gerard Wolfe signs copies of Synagogues of New York’s Lower East Side at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.
http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/upload...
Synagogues of New York’s Lower East Side on display at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.
http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/upload...
Packed house for the Synagogues of New York’s Lower East Side launch event at the Tenement Museum
http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/upload...
Fans at the Tenement Museum.
http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/upload...
Gerard Wolfe told the story of the book, which was first published in 1978.
http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/upload...
Gerard Wolfe at the Tenement Museum.
http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/upload...
Fans at the Tenement Museum.
http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/upload...
Gerard Wolfe’s wife Cecilia.
http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/upload...
One of the book’s photographers, Jo Renee Fine, signs books.
http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/upload...
Fordham University Press director Frederic Nachbaur with Oxford Director of Client Services Kurt Hettler.
http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/upload...
');tid('spinner').style.visibility = 'visible';
var sgpro_slideshow = new TINY.sgpro_slideshow("sgpro_slideshow");
jQuery(document).ready(function($) {
// set a timeout before launching the sgpro_slideshow
window.setTimeout(function() {
sgpro_slideshow.slidearray = jsSlideshow;
sgpro_slideshow.auto = 1;
sgpro_slideshow.nolink = 0;
sgpro_slideshow.nolinkpage = 1;
sgpro_slideshow.pagelink="self";
sgpro_slideshow.speed = 10;
sgpro_slideshow.imgSpeed = 10;
sgpro_slideshow.navOpacity = 25;
sgpro_slideshow.navHover = 70;
sgpro_slideshow.letterbox = "#000000";
sgpro_slideshow.info = "information";
sgpro_slideshow.infoShow = "S";
sgpro_slideshow.infoSpeed = 10;
// sgpro_slideshow.transition = F;
sgpro_slideshow.left = "slideleft";
sgpro_slideshow.wrap = "slideshow-wrapper";
sgpro_slideshow.widecenter = 1;
sgpro_slideshow.right = "slideright";
sgpro_slideshow.link = "linkhover";
sgpro_slideshow.gallery = "post-33120";
sgpro_slideshow.thumbs = "";
sgpro_slideshow.thumbOpacity = 70;
sgpro_slideshow.thumbHeight = 75;
// sgpro_slideshow.scrollSpeed = 5;
sgpro_slideshow.scrollSpeed = 5;
sgpro_slideshow.spacing = 5;
sgpro_slideshow.active = "#FFFFFF";
sgpro_slideshow.imagesbox = "thickbox";
jQuery("#spinner").remove();
sgpro_slideshow.init("sgpro_slideshow","sgpro_image","imgprev","imgnext","imglink");
}, 1000);
tid('slideshow-wrapper').style.visibility = 'visible';
});
Gerard R. Wolfe, Ph.D., is an architectural historian and former professor and administrator at New York University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He was the first to offer historical/architectural walking tours of the Lower East Side, beginning in the early 1970s. He is the author of The Synagogues of New York’s Lower East Side: A Retrospective and Contemporary View, Second Edition.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only American history articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
The post Gerard Wolfe at the Tenement Museum appeared first on OUPblog.
Romanticism: a legacy
By Michael Ferber
William Wordsworth
The Very Short Introductions are indeed very short, so I had to cut a chapter out of my volume that would have discussed the aftermath or legacy of Romanticism today, two hundred years after Romanticism’s days of glory. In that chapter I would have pointed out the obvious fact that those who still love poetry look at the Romantic era as poetry’s high point in every European country. Think of Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Pushkin, Mickiewicz, Leopardi, Lamartine, Hugo, and Nerval. Those who still love “classical” music fill the concert halls to listen to Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Berlioz, and Wagner; and those who still love traditional painting flock to look at Constable, Turner, Friedrich, and Delacroix. These poets and artists are still “alive”: their works are central to the culture from which millions of people still draw nourishment. I can scarcely imagine how miserable I would feel if I knew I could never again listen to Beethoven or read a poem by Keats.
But more interesting, I think, is the afterlife of the Romantics in more popular culture. Take William Blake, for instance. Almost a century after he died, Charles Parry set Blake’s sixteen-line poem “And did those feet in ancient time / Walk upon England’s mountains green” to a memorable hymn tune. It was first intended for a patriotic rally during World War I, but it was soon taken up by the women’s suffrage movement and the labour movement because of its moving evocation of a once and future Jerusalem in “England’s green and pleasant land.” It is now England’s second national anthem, and is sung in America too: a Connecticut friend of mine always sings “in New England’s green and pleasant land.” It also inspired the title and the music of the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire. Emerson, Lake and Palmer have recorded an acid-rock version of the hymn in Brain Salad Surgery (1973) and Billy Bragg made a more restrained but eloquent one in 1990. In 1948 William Blake “appeared” to Allen Ginsberg in a hallucination, and thus takes much of the credit (or blame) for the Beat poet’s immense poetic works. I often see Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell” as grafitti on walls or as slogans on bumper stickers. When I was an underpaid teaching assistant I joined a picket line carrying a sign I had made: “The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.” Even as a well-broken-in horse of instruction today I still see much truth in that proverb.
A major legacy of Romanticism is the environmental movement. John Muir (1838-1914), the great pioneer of the wilderness preservation movement, and founder of the Sierra Club, combined a Romantic sensibility with an outlook based on the Bible. He absorbed Burns from his native Scotland, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley from England, and Emerson and Thoreau from his adopted America. Thoreau himself, who was close to the Transcendentalist group, which grew in large part out of German and British Romanticism, was the first great nature writer in America; his Walden is still required reading not only in universities but among those who are devoted to conservation and sustainability. Wordsworth himself, of course, deserves some credit for his role in preserving the Lake District; he is sometimes called the grandfather of the National Trust of the UK
It is true that the environmental movement owes much to modern science, and most modern scientists no longer consider Romanticism a useful source of concepts. However it is also true that without something of the Romantic sensibility, especially the feeling of connectedness to nature or rootedness in the earth, it would not be much of a movement. “Organic” metaphors were common among the Romantics, notably the idea that nature is not a mechanism but a living organism and that in an open and imaginative state of mind we can, as Wordsworth put it, “see into the life of things,”. It seems to me that the holistic and ecological outlook owes much to this spirit. Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), famous for his best-selling Sand County Almanac with its “land ethic,” writes of the “biotic community” and the importance of “thinking like a mountain” to understand the complex interrelationships of humans and nature. And what could be more holistic than the “Gaia” theory of James Lovelock (born in 1919), according to which the whole earth acts like one huge organism or ecological unit?
“Romantic” is often a pejorative term, used to dismiss unrealistic, escapist, woolly, or dreamy ideas. But it now seems likely that if we don’t soon become a little more Romantic, the earth will dismiss us.
Michael Ferber is Professor of English and Humanities and English Graduate Director at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of several books including Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction.
The Very Short Introductions (VSI) series combines a small format with authoritative analysis and big ideas for hundreds of topic areas. Written by our expert authors, these books can change the way you think about the things that interest you and are the perfect introduction to subjects you previously knew nothing about. Grow your knowledge with OUPblog and the VSI series every Friday!
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only VSI articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only literature articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image Credit: A portrait of William Wordsworth from Portrait Gallery of the Perry–Castañeda Library of the University of Texas at Austin [public domain via Wikimedia Commons]
The post Romanticism: a legacy appeared first on OUPblog.
December 27, 2012
Oxford Music in 2012
2012 has been an eventful year for the OUP music teams. We’re in reflective mood as the year draws to a close, so we thought we’d share our highlights of 2012.
January
OUP’s most popular classical music publication had a documentary dedicated to it on BBC TV — “The Lark Ascending: the nation’s favourite piece of classical music” discussed the history of the work, and also included a complete performance of the fantasia for solo violin and orchestra.
February
World premiere of McDowall’s musical tribute to Scott of the Antarctic’s ill-fated expedition, Seventy Degrees Below Zero. The new work for tenor and orchestra was performed alongside Vaughan Williams’s Sinfonia Antartica, in a concert which featured Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville (which caused great excitement!).
March
OUP composer Richard Causton was appointed lecturer in Music Composition at Cambridge University, one of the world’s most prestigious music teaching jobs.
April
Launch party for Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ by Mark Katz at our New York office, complete with DJs, a turntable, and an appearance by legendary DJ GrandWizzard Theodore.
May
Wells Cathedral
OUP composer Michael Finnissy’s Sincerity — his choral anthem commissioned for The Choir Book for the Queen — was premiered in the lovely surroundings of Wells Cathedral. The Choir Book for the Queen is a collection of contemporary anthems compiled and commissioned to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
June
Oxford Music launched on Twitter and gained 100 followers in the very first day. Follow us @OUPMusic.
The first public performance of Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia for Piano and Orchestra took place in the UK. Although the piece was composed in 1896 it had never been published until this year. It is the composer’s first known work for solo instrument.
Composer Will Todd wrote a new piece of choral music which was included in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee service. Choristers from St Paul’s and a ‘Diamond Choir’ of young singers from around the UK performed The Call of Wisdom at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. We interviewed Will about it on our blog.
Anwen Greenaway (Promotion Manager) got married in Oxford, and was thrilled to receive a specially written Wedding Fanfare from composer Howard Skempton. He even turned up on the day to perform it with Anwen’s niece!
Howard Skempton and Anwen’s niece
Anna-Lise Santella (Editor of Grove Music/Oxford Music Online) won on the hit US quiz show “Jeopardy”! She won two days in a row on June 27th and 28th.
Anna-Lise on Jeopardy
July
The Southbank Centre in London was taken over by the New Music 20×12 team for a whole weekend in July. New Music 20×12 commissioned 20 twelve minute pieces of music from the UK’s leading composers to celebrate the talent and imagination of the UK’s musical community as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. OUP composers Howard Skempton and Richard Causton were both commissioned and their new pieces were included in the weekend celebration of the project.
Howard Skempton trying bell ringing at the Southbank Centre
The London Olympics were the highlight of 2012 for lots of the UK-based team. Lucy Allen (Print and Web Marketing Assistant) went to the fencing and Anwen Greenaway (Promotion Manager) went to the athletics. Seeing the world’s best athletes competing was mesmerising!
August
Chilcott’s The Angry Planet had its world premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in London as part of the 2012 BBC Proms concerts. The work was the largest piece commissioned for the proms this year and the concert was broadcast live on TV.
Richard Causton’s New Music 20×12 commission Twenty-Seven Heavens was performed in Amsterdam, Edinburgh, and Darmstadt by the European Youth Orchestra on their summer tour.
Click here to view the embedded video.
We were excited when Olympic swimmer and gold medalist Dana Vollmer linked to our blog post by Gerald Klickstein about how musicians and athletes can excel under pressure.
#bbpBox_232907154674311168 a { text-decoration:none; color:#990000; }#bbpBox_232907154674311168 a:hover { text-decoration:underline; }Being a Mindful athlete- I'm quoted in an interesting! http://t.co/FyyfMoWP #fb
August 7, 2012 1:32 pm via Twitter for iPhone
Reply
Retweet
Favorite
Dana VollmerOur very own OUP history editor and author Nancy Toff won the 2012 National Service Award from the National Flute Association.
September
American dream pop band Asobi Seksu retweeted our post about Colony Records closing. It was a pretty exciting moment for our music book marketer, who is a fan!
October
Animation insider Daniel Goldmark visited the OUP office in New York to talk about music in Pixar films (including how music makes the beginning of Up so darn sad).
Kathryn Marsh’s The Musical Playground won the American Folklore Society’s Opie Prize.
The ASCAP Awards were announced, and three OUP titles won:
Nicolas Slonimsky Award for Musical Biography for Steve Swayne’s Orpheus in Manhattan: William Schuman and the Shaping of America’s Musical Life
Béla Bartók Award for Ethnomusicological Book for Lynn M. Sargeant’s Harmony and Discord: Music and the Transformation of Russian Cultural Life
Deems Taylor Award for Janet Schmalfeldt’s In the Process of Becoming: Analytic and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music
November
Vaughan Williams’s opera The Pilgrim’s Progress was performed at English National Opera: a rare treat, as the opera has only been performed handful of times since its premiere in 1951. OUP staff were thrilled to attend some of the performances!
Oxford Handbooks Online in Music launched. Oxford Handbooks Online in Music brings together the world’s leading scholars to write review essays that evaluate the current thinking on a field or topic, and make an original argument about the future direction of the debate.
It was Awards season!
OUP music titles were successful at the American Musicological Society awards:
Solie Award for Transnational Encounters: Music and Performance at the U.S.-Mexico Border , edited by Alejandro Madrid
Robert M. Stevenson Award for Susan Boynton’s Silent Music: Medieval Song and the Construction of History in Eighteenth-Century Spain
And the Society for Music Theory Awards:
Wallace Berry Award for Janet Schmalfeldt’s In the Process of Becoming: Analytic and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music
Emerging Scholar Award for Steven Rings’s Tonality and Transformation
Citation of Special Merit for The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Riemannian Music Theories , edited by Edward Gollin and Alexander Rehding
And at the Society for Ethnomusicology Awards:
Alan P. Merriam Prize for Sean Williams and Lillis Ó Laoire’s Bright Star of the West: Joe Heaney, Irish Song Man
December
Gabriel Jackson was honoured with his third British Composer Award – winning in the Choral category for his piece for choir and pianola, Airplane Cantata.
The OUP Music twitter feed reached 1000 followers!
John Rutter wrote a beautiful new carol, All Bells in Paradise, for the King’s College, Cambridge CD Nine Lessons and Carols. It was included in the Christmas Eve service at King’s College, Cambridge, which is broadcast around the world.
Click here to view the embedded video.
As an end of year treat music journals have given free access to the most read articles from each journal (Early Music, Music and Letters, Music Quarterly, and Opera Quarterly) in 2012. Read them quick. They’re only free until the 31st December!
Anwen Greenaway is a Promotion Manager in Sheet Music at Oxford University Press. Read her previous blog posts.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only music articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: All images property of Oxford University Press unless otherwise stated. Do not reproduce without permission.
The post Oxford Music in 2012 appeared first on OUPblog.
New year’s resolution: don’t sabotage yourself
We humans are funny. Often we create beliefs or engage in behaviors that seem to help us in the short term, only to discover they get in the way of the lives we really want to live, or the people we want to become.
Allow me to share the story of my friend, Erin. Over lunch one day, she told both her mentor and me about a division director job she had truly wanted. The role offered good challenges, the chance to develop her skills, fabulous travel, and unparalleled flexibility. It would have been “a dream come true”.
But then Erin began to recite a litany of reasons why she hadn’t gone after the job. She wasn’t good in interviews, having never received the coaching that so many candidates are privy to these days. She was overweight, which would surely make a poor impression. On top of all this, due to the economic downturn, many people more qualified than she would apply. She thought she’d be great at the job if she could have made it beyond the interview, but all things considered, she “knew” she hadn’t stood a chance.
“So I never applied,” she told us. “Instead, I sent the advertisement to a peer and encouraged him to interview.” She paused. “He got the job.”
How was it that this bright, hardworking, lovely young woman also had such an aptitude for self-sabotage?
There are plenty of smart, even gifted, people like Erin. They are bonded by a common behavior psychologists call “self-handicapping,” which involves anticipating a real or imagined obstacle that might get in the way of success, and using that obstacle as an excuse.
Self-handicapping allows us to protect ourselves from the pain of assuming responsibility for our failures, and people do it all the time. In a groundbreaking 1978 study, psychologists Berglas and Jones found that participants who “succeeded” at a test (that was really just luck-based) were more likely to choose to take a performance-inhibiting drug before taking a second test. In other words, they actively set themselves up for failure on the second try. By doing this, they could blame their subsequent poor performance on the drug, and also protect their earlier feeling of success.
In a more recent set of experiments conducted by psychologist Sean McCrea at the University of Konstanz in Germany, participants were asked to take several intelligence tests under a variety of conditions. The research showed that people who were encouraged to make excuses for their poor performance — blaming poor performance on loud noises, for example — maintained high self-esteem, but were also less motivated to improve.
This kind of behavior is often so subtle and habitual that we don’t notice we’re doing it. Think about the manager who has to give a big presentation and fails to practice ahead of the event, or people who procrastinate on work projects and wind up “not having enough time” to do a good job. In a 2010 HBR article, Jeffrey Pfeffer identified self-handicapping as one of three major barriers to building professional power: people avoid the pain of failure by never trying to build power in the first place.
What can you do to overcome self-handicapping? Here are four steps:
Watch for the warning signs. Drawing down your efforts, generating lists of excuses, or distracting yourself (music, alcohol, etc.) are signs that you’re engaging in self-handicapping. Everyone needs to take breaks and manage energy during the work day, but these activities can be clues that you are veering onto the trail of self-sabotage. A mentor or colleague can often help steer you back on course.
Use “what-ifs” and “if-onlys” to help you generate goals instead of excuses. Research shows that the thinking people engage in during self-handicapping can just as easily be flipped to be motivational. When you ponder what could have gone better, or recognize obstacles in your way, you generate valuable information. Identify factors within your control, and see what you can do about them. Erin, for example, could have responded to the thought “I’m not great in interviews” by researching the right skills, practicing them, and requesting support from her mentor.
Recognize and manage your negative emotions. Research shows that when we use our “if-onlys” to motivate rather than excuse ourselves, we will also likely experience negative emotions, such as disappointment and self-directed anger . If you can notice these emotions and be kind to yourself in working through them, you’re more likely to be able to move into positive, empowering behavior.
Go for mastery. Self-handicapping is most likely to kick in when we are trying to perform well in order to avoid negative feedback from external sources, such as criticism from colleagues. When we focus instead on developing mastery in a domain we care about, we tap into our inherent motivation to learn and grow. Recognize what matters to you, and brainstorm ideas to get yourself moving in that direction.
Going for what you really want takes considerable courage. Let’s face it, even when you put forth your best effort, things don’t always turn out as you would like. But by taking a risk you open yourself not only to the possibility of failure, but also the possibility of learning, growth, and real attainment. It’s up to you to decide which is more perilous: the risk of disappointment, or the risk of never reaching your potential.
Reprinted with permission from Harvard Business Reveiw. This blog was originally published here.
Susan David is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Happiness (due out in January 2013) with Ilona Boniwell and Amanda Conley Ayers. Susan is is a founder and co-director of the Harvard/McLean Institute of Coaching and a member of the Harvard faculty. She is also the director of Evidence Based Psychology, a leadership development organization and management consultancy.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only psychology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
The post New year’s resolution: don’t sabotage yourself appeared first on OUPblog.
Oxford University Press's Blog
- Oxford University Press's profile
- 238 followers
