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Jessica Prentice coined the word “locavore” which was chosen as the Oxford Word of the Year! We asked her how the word came about. Her answer is below.

There’s only one word for it: giddy. That’s how I’ve been feeling since reading the first email informing me that “locavore” was voted 2007’s “Word of the Year” by Oxford University Press. It’s the same feeling you have when you’re twelve years old and the guy you have a crush on gives you a valentine, and doesn’t give one to anyone else. You blush, you jump up and down in your seat, and you send excited text messages to the people you know will understand.

And how exciting to be asked to blog about it and be able to tell the story from my point of view! From the very beginning, the word “locavore” had legs. It’s actually been a fascinating phenomenon to watch: to see something that never existed before take on meaning and gather momentum. It’s also a phenomenon that would have been impossible before the internet. So, how did the word “locavore” come about? (more…)

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It’s always an exciting time at OUP when the New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year is selected. As announced here on Monday, this year’s choice is locavore, meaning “a person who endeavors to eat only locally produced foods.” The word may very well strike a resonant chord for anyone who has mulled over how many miles a bunch of bananas has logged before it gets to the local grocery store. But unlike some of our previous Words of the Year — most recently, podcast in 2005 and carbon neutral in 2006 — locavore is very much “on the cusp,” not yet firmly established in widespread usage, despite its great potential. That means Oxford lexicographers will continue to monitor its progress to see if it eventually warrants inclusion in the next edition of NOAD.

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It’s that time of the year again. It is finally starting to get cold (if you are worried about the global warming maybe you should become carbon-neutral) and the New Oxford American Dictionary is preparing for the holidays by making its biggest announcement of the year. The 2007 Word of the Year is (drum-roll please) locavore.

The past year saw the popularization of a trend in using locally grown ingredients, taking advantage of seasonally available foodstuffs that can be bought and prepared without the need for extra preservatives.

The “locavore” movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation. (more…)

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Terryl L. Givens is Professor of Literature and Religion and James A. Bostwick Chair of English at the University of Richmond. His newest book, People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture not only traces the development of Mormon culture from Joseph Smith through today, but also looks at Mormon culture in the context of society at large. In the article below Givens uses Mormon history to elucidate why discussion of Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s religion is irrelevant.

On the 10th of September, 1846, the bombardment began and continued sporadically for three days. As many as 800 (some Mormons said 1800) U.S militiamen and area citizens with six pieces of canon had surrounded the virtually deserted city of Nauvoo, Illinois. The two to three hundred remaining Mormons converted some steamboat shafts to canon and threw up barricades in a feeble attempt to survive. (more…)

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Patagonia, Argentina

Coordinates: 45 0 S 69 0 W

Approximate area: 300,000 sq. mi. (770,000 sq. km)

Perhaps best characterized as a sparsely populated, expansive arid region situated almost literally at the ends of the Earth, Patagonia once teemed with an impressive range of flora and fauna. Of course to fully appreciate the abundance of life that once called this piece of South America home, it helps to have a degree in paleontology. (more…)

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D. Michael Lindsay, author of Faith in The Halls of Power, spent long hours trying to get to the bottom of the Evangelical mind-frame. In the podcast below Lindsay explains how he got the interviews that shaped his book. Additionally, on Beliefnet, they are holding a Blogalogue (such a cool word right?) about Lindsay’s research with journalists Hanna Rosin and Jeff Sharlet, evangelical author Jerry Jenkins, and former Bush aide David Kuo. Read Lindsay’s first piece here.

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Last spring, just as OUP was beginning to buzz with excitement for our fall books, D. Michael Lindsay, the author of Faith In The Halls of Power, came and talked to us. For the next couple of weeks I am going to share some of what he said. It the podcast below Lindsay tells the story of what happened when Bud McFarlane woke up from his attempted suicide attempt. The transcript of the audio is after the jump.

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The post below is by Theo Calderara, editor at OUP.

Evangelicals in politics get a lot of attention these days, much of it focusing on issues like abortion. But while everyone’s watching what James Dobson is doing in America, they’re missing what Rick Warren is doing in Africa.

Last night, Michael Lindsay spoke about his new book, Faith in the Halls of Power, at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. One of the many fascinating things the crowd heard is that while everyone thinks evangelicals have a lot of influence on domestic issues, they’re really making an impact abroad. (more…)

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Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Each year, on Rosh Hashanah mankind is judged and entered into the “book of life,” but the judgment is not final. We have ten days of atonement before Yom Kippur when the judgment is sealed. Below is a myth about atonement from The Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism by Howard Schwartz. Perhaps the example of Rabbi Abraham will inspire you. To read last year’s excerpt from The Tree of Souls click here.

A Vision at the Wailing Wall

In those days Rabbi Abraham Berukhim was known for performing the Midnight Vigil. He rose every night at midnight and walked through the streets of Safed, crying out, “Arise, for the Shekhinah is in exile, and our holy house is devoured by fire, and Israel faces great danger.” He longed, more than anything else, to bring the Shekhinah out of exile.

Now Rabbi Abraham was a follower of Rabbi Isaac Luria, known as the Ari. The Ari had great mystical powers. By looking at a man’s forehead he could read the history of his soul. He could overhear the angels and he knew the language of the birds. He could point out a stone in a wall and reveal whose soul was trapped in it. So too was he able to divine the future, and he always knew from the first day of Rosh ha-Shanah who among his disciples was destined to live or die. This knowledge he rarely disclosed, but once, when he learned there was a way to avert the decree, he made an exception. Summoning Rabbi Abraham Berukhim, he said: “Know, Rabbi Abraham, that a heavenly voice has gone forth to announce that this will be your last year among us—unless you do what is necessary to change the decree.” (more…)

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D. Michael Lindsay is the author of Faith in The Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite and is a member of the sociology faculty at Rice University. In the post below he examines the influence of religion on the military based on his experience interviewing prominent evangelical Americans. Read more by Lindsay here.

In the buildup to the General Petraeus’s appearance before Congress, we’ve been hearing a lot about partnerships between the American military and Sunni tribal leaders, like the so-called “Anbar Awakening.” These military leaders are often the only Americans Iraqis ever meet. And these leaders are more and more likely—especially at the elite level—to be evangelicals. (more…)

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Earlier today we posted a Q & A with Allan V. Horwitz, co-author with Jerome C. Wakefield, of The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow Into Depressive Disorder. Below is an excerpt from the book which uses Willy Loman from Death of A Salesman to show how our perceptions of sadness have changed over time.

The Concept of Depression

The poet W. H. Auden famously deemed the period after World War II the “age of anxiety.” For Auden, the intense anxiety of that era was a normal human response to extraordinary circumstances, such as the devastation of modern warfare, the horrors of the concentration camps, the development of nuclear weapons, and the tensions of the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Were Auden still alive, he might conclude that the era around the turn of the twenty-first century is the “age of depression.” (more…)

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Life is looking pretty dreary for the orphans of the Windcity orphanage and cheese factory. They work excruciating shifts producing the most foul cheese on the earth (2 ounces make you hallucinate. 3 ounces will kill you) and to top it all of they mu

Michael J. Klarman, won the Bancroft Prize in 2005 for From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Movement, is an abridged, paperback edition of his original masterpiece, which focuses around one major case, Brown v. Board of Education. In the original essay below Klarman, who is the James Monroe Professor of Law and Professor of History at the University of Virginia, explores political backlash.

While we ordinarily think of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) as contributing to the creation of the modern civil rights movement, Brown’s more immediate effect was to crystallize the resistance of southern whites to progressive racial change, radicalize southern politics, and create a climate ripe for violence. Indeed, prominent Court decisions interpreting the U.S. Constitution have often produced political backlashes that undermine the causes that the rulings seem to promote. (more…)

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Rebecca OUP-US

Homer Simpson had a point, “you don’t make friends with salad,” especially on the 4th of July. A good party requires a good barbeque and Andrew Smith, editor of the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, is here to test your knowledge. Think you are the king of all grill masters? See how many of the following questions you can get right. The answers are at the end.

1. The word barbecue likely originated in: (more…)

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So yesterday was the anniversary of one of the most amazing musical moments of all time, the release of St. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. The album kicked off the Summer of Love (we can only hope this summer is 1/10 as exciting) and everything changed. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and the American National Biography celebrated the event with an interactive album cover. To trip just click.

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