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A couple of years ago, I wrote about the consequences of David Cameron’s Bloomberg speech, where he set out his plans for a referendum on British membership of the EU. I was rather dubious about such a vote even happening, and even more so about the quality of the debate that would ensue. As much as I was wrong about the former, the latter has been more than borne out by events so far.

The post Britain and the EU: going nowhere fast appeared first on OUPblog.

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India has a long history and tradition of upholding the power of debate. Bhiku Parekh explains in this interview that perhaps more than any other civilization, India has deeply valued debate, and would partake in them for days at a time.

The post The tradition of political debate in India appeared first on OUPblog.

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What makes discussion great is when thought leaders’ advocate, debate, pontificate, commiserate, relate, educate and collaborate…until thought turns to spate, promotes hate, carries weight, problems accelerate, personal ideals dictate, ideas deflate, people turn irate. And, then it’s too late.

-TA Gould

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(No, I'm not talking about YA Pride -- that's a few months from now, in June.)

Are you a proud reader of YA? I am! I mean, I read other things too. Graphic novels. Cat care handbooks. Sewing manuals.  But I haven't had to defend any of those, really.

Last October, I wrote a blog post called YA Shame and Stigma. It was a reaction to some comments Warm Bodies author Isaac Marion wrote on his Facebook wall. (Before you balk, I did ask him for permission to quote--I did not set out to provoke him, just to analyze his opinion and engage a community dialogue.) The post just passed 6,000 views yesterday, which is... mindboggling to me. Thank you all for reading and sharing your opinions.

I have been thinking about it a lot this week because


1) Warm Bodies hits movie theaters this weekend! AAAAAAAA! I can't wait. I'm sitting here hitting refresh on the movie theater's website every couple of hours to see if they've posted movie times yet. I'm jealous of Thuy because she's already seen it twice and it's not even out until Feb 1. I think I might be disproportionately excited...


2) The Youth Media awards were announced today, ushering a new crop of awesome books, including YA novels, to the fore. (Which Isaac will probably not read either, but, you know, he's busy writing a prequel and sequels to Warm Bodies.) Also, Tamora Pierce, who commented on the original post, won the Margaret A. Edwards award, and now I really really want to go to ALA Annual. (Another blog post about that coming up soon.)


3) Because of the movie release, a lot of people are finding the original "YA Shame and Stigma" post again, which is awesome; however a lot of people are also saying "Ugh! Now I don't want to read Warm Bodies, because of what he said about YA, which I love so much I want to marry it." And to that I say, whoa, Nelly!

Read widely and read what you want, but I think deciding not to read Warm Bodies for that reason also follows the same narrow line of thinking people apply to not reading YA. Decide not to read it because zombies freak you out--ok, fair enough. I don't read realistic fiction about terrorism for the same reason. Perhaps you don't like romance and prefer, instead, the biography of a fish. That's cool, too. But just think: the author is not the book. You may like him, you might not, but the bottom line is, I really liked his book and I recommend it highly. You may be missing out on a book you'll like by deciding to skip it. Just maybe!

I like to think I'm not so prejudiced that I'd refuse to read a book because I think, *blanket assumption* all books of that label are rubbish. (Except the Fifty Shades books, and only because it's somewhat difficult to get "in the mood" when I'm laughing so hard that I can't read through the tears in my eyes. Exception: the chicken cookbook parody, which gets me in the mood for food.)

The point of all this, if I can underline, italicize, and bold it all at once is, If you're lucky enough to live in a free country, read what you like--there are books of all kinds because there are people of all kinds. Recommending your favorite books does not mean you have to deprecate someone else's. *gets off soapbox*


4) I've read so many other reader responses to the topic and want to share them with you. There are lots of possible responses, and none of us is really wrong or right, I think. There is just our opinion, and then there's someone else's. What is YA and why should we read it? So many variations. I agree with some, but not all of these; still, I think they're all pretty valuable as part of the dialogue.

If I missed your post, please leave a link in the comments and I'll add it to the list.

Newest first:


Teen Librarian's Toolbox: Why YA? (again) Fear & Loathing in YA Literature

Muteswann: Why I Read Crime Fiction and Teen/YA Novels

Bookshelvers Anonymous: The New Adult Category Revisited (Ah, the NA category... I'm flip-flopping on this topic still. I first said Nay but I think I'm now a very cautious Yea?)

Word for Teens: YA shame & stigma, what we're buying and why I want to go into the industry

YABliss: YA in Theaters

Reading Nook: Book & Blog News

WhatchYAreading Podcast: Do Not Read the Madness Underneath (18:42 onward... I actually have some issues with this, not with what they say about YA or Isaac Marion, but about the price of books. But, you know, they probably didn't work in a bookshop for 13 years.)

Rachel Hartman: I'm off to Calgary (Congrats on your Morris Award, Rachel!)

Jessica Corra: The Great YA Debate (I posted a comment but it didn't get published. I don't remember what I said.)

Cuddlebuggery: Buzz Worthy News: 15 Oct 2012

The Readventurer: Odds & Ends on the Web: October 13th Edition

Book a Week: Let's Cut the Shit: "Young Adult" is Patently Incorrect

Pass the Chiclets:  Isaac Marion and his view of YA as a ridiculous, pointless category

Marie Lu: Another Day, Another YA Label Battle (Prodigy will be out an hour after I post this :D)



If you have links to YA reviewers' posts about Warm Bodies, which, let's face it, really crack me up especially when they gush about what a great book it is, add them to the linky. (I'm lookin' at you, TeenLitRocks. You totally give me the giggles.) I feel like the best "revenge" is to get as many as possible YA readers to read and enjoy Warm Bodies.  I know, I'm backwards like that.




If you, like me, are freezing from the toes up and need to get the circulation pumping in your extremities, read this interview from  February 2012 or another from December 2012. Grrr! Arrgh! >.< I want to like you, Isaac, but you're making it tough.



And now, because I don't want to think about this any more this week, I'm going to watch Murdoch Mysteries, which has nothing to do with YA (unless you count the episode "Bloodlust", in which some boarding school girls go gaga over some novel written by Bram Stoker).

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Are the political ideals of liberty and equality compatible? In this video, OUP author James P. Sterba of University of Notre Dame, joins Jan Narveson of University of Waterloo, to debate the practical requirements of a political ideal of liberty. Not only Narveson but the entire audience at the libertarian Cato Institute where this debate takes place is, in Sterba’s words,  ”hostile” to his argument that the ideal of liberty leads to (substantial) equality.  Sterba goes on to further develop that argument in From Rationality to Equality.

Click here to view the embedded video.

James P. Sterba is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. His latest work, From Rationality to Equality, publishes in February 2013. His previous publications include Three Challenges to Ethics (OUP, 2001), The Triumph of Practice over Theory in Ethics (OUP, 2005) and Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men? A Debate, with Warren Farrell (OUP, 2007). He is past president of the American Philosophical Association (Central Division).

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The post Are the political ideals of liberty and equality compatible? appeared first on OUPblog.

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It's Shanyn's Blogoversary over at Chick Loves Lit, so she's hosting a giveaway carnival--check out www.chickloveslit.com for the full festivities starting today. Great blogs including The Bibliophilic Book Blog, Bookalicio.us, and PageTurners are participating! 

I'm giving away an ARC of Amy Dominy's OyMG, complete with signed bookmark! I'll ship anywhere in the US and Canada (sorry International peeps, the tax man is coming for me next month, and I have to keep those pennies pinched).

From goodreads.com: Jewish girl. Christian camp. Holy moley. 

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In this two-part series, Michelle and Lauren explore some of the most hot-button issues in religion this past year.

Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!

Featured in Part 1:

Christopher Hitchens and Tariq Ramadan Debate: Is Islam a Religion a Peace?

Highlights and exclusive interviews with Hitchens, Ramadan, & New York Times National Religion Correspondent  Laurie Goodstein

Read more and watch a video courtesy of the 92nd St Y HERE.

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Nick Mafi, Oxford University Press employee extraordinaire

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David Sehat, author of The Myth of American Religious Freedom

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The Ben Daniels Band

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Jon Lawrence is a Senior Lecturer in Modern British Political History at Cambridge University, and is particularly interested in politics as a site of interaction between politicians and the public. He is the author of Electing Our Masters: the Hustings in British Politics from Hogarth to Blair. In the original post below, he looks at how the spirit of the hustings is being kept alive during the election campaign by the Internet and the UK’s first televised Prime Ministerial debate, which aired last week. You can read more by Jon Lawrence here.

The spirit of the hustings has brought British politicians face-to-face with an irreverent, questioning public for centuries. It is arguably the most distinctive and valuable feature of our electoral culture, but it is not one that political parties can be trusted to keep alive in the internet age. It is no accident that Gordon Brown switches off the comments function on his YouTube postings, or that most of the free-comment facilities on the Conservatives’ innovative WebCameron site were switched off after its first 8 months.  But for all that, the 2010 election has already shown encouraging signs that the spirit of the hustings is alive and well in British politics.  For sure, the role of the public has been tightly circumscribed in the televised leadership debates, but there is still a clear recognition that, as the rules put it, ‘the audience is a key element of the programmes and has to be seen by the viewers’.  The audience may not be allowed to applaud, let alone heckle, but their presence is central to the theatre of these debates. It was striking in the first debate how, as the leaders warmed-up, so they got better at answering questions directly and personally (in turn this allowed ITV to focus more closely on audience reaction since one of the 76 rules governing these broadcasts stipulates that ‘if one of the leaders directly addresses an individual audience member, a close-up shot of that individual can be shown’). Nick Clegg not only appeared the most comfortable with this intimate style of politics, but he also pushed it furthest –notably by addressing most of the questioners by name in his 90 second peroration. Although David Cameron has spent much of the last two years criss-crossing the country addressing open meetings of voters in key marginal constituencies, it was Clegg who appeared instinctively to understand the power of the hustings to re-connect politics (and politicians) with the public. Of course it helped that he could play his ‘plague on both your houses’ card, but this was made more credible by his mastery of the old arts of the hustings.

And what of the internet? Is all the hype about the virtual election justified, and, perhaps more importantly, has the web restored spontaneous, irreverent interaction to British politics? Well it’s trying, but there’s still a long way to go. There is no doubt that both the media and party activists are hooked on the internet campaign, but

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Recently I saw the documentary Resolved which is about high school public policy debating and specifically two teams of debaters, one from an Illinois suburb and one from inner-city Los Angeles. During the movie I learned that public policy debate between high school students is not at all what I thought it was. For the past several decades it’s been about fast talking – and I mean really fast talking – and rapid information processing more than focusing on gaining a strong understanding of a particular issue. (Part of the movie focuses on the two teens from L.A. trying to change debate from the fast-talking fast-processing style to something more traditional. But, that aspect of the documentary is not the focus of this post.)

Students involved in debate do learn important skills. But, it does seem that what I thought of as debate doesn’t exist anymore. For example, because of the speed at which the debaters speak, most people can’t understood what’s being said. That means that those attending a debate are just the judges and other debaters. (No family members, friends, etc.)

This doesn’t mean that a lot of research doesn’t go into preparing for debates. The teens gather so much information (which is all printed out) that they fill multiple plastic tubs that they cart with them to debate competitions. As a librarian working with teens, I had a certain sense of pleasure thinking about all of those teens using research skills in order to uncover information for the debate.

In one section of the movie one of the debaters talks about the importance of research in preparing for a debate. He talks about how some information can be found on search engines like Google. But then he talks about the importance of using other “search engines” that make it possible to dig deeper into a topic and how without these other search engines he wouldn’t be able to gather information needed in order to be successful in debating. The other search engines he mentioned were Lexis/Nexis, Proquest, and other tools that we commonly in the library world refer to as databases.

This teen talking about databases and searching was something I actually wrote down while watching the movie. I was so struck by this very smart teen talking about research and knowing that there were tools other than Google that he could use, but thinking of them as just another search engine.

Why was this so key to me? Because, I spend a lot of time talking to librarians – public, academic, and school – about what we call these things known as databases in the library world. Do we use the term database? Do we simply refer to them as a way to locate articles? How do we refer to them? The answer seemed so simple when it came from the teen debater in Resolved. To him, they are just search engines – a different type of search engine but still a search engine.

Now I know, some readers will not like this idea of calling Proquest, Ebschost, etc. a search engine. But, think about the teen in the movie. It didn’t hurt his research skills to be lumping the databases with Google and Yahoo. He understood there were differences. But, for his purposes, all of the tools had the same basic purpose, to be able to search the web for information that would meet his needs.

Maybe here and now we should resolve to remove the word databases from our library vocabulary, web site, promotional pieces, etc. and simply call everything a search engine. What do you think? Let the debate begin.

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Here's a quick Illustration I did for fun today about the debate over universal health-care in America. My best to the SFG.

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Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com.  In the article below he reflects on last week’s vice-presidential debate. Read his previous OUPblogs here.

Obama supporters were surprised that Sarah Palin didn’t trip up in her debate with Joe Biden; but they nevertheless thought that she was incoherent through most of it. Palin’s supporters were thrilled that she came back after multiple setbacks with her interviews with Katie Couric with a slam dunk. We have become so divided as a nation that we can’t even agree on which is night and which is day.

The reason, I think, is because Sarah Palin did not answer Gwen Ifill’s questions. When a student refuses to take a test, we cannot meaningfully compare her performance with another.

Right at the outset of the debate, Palin announced her contempt for the debate format: “I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also.” Palin’s opponents cried foul, but her supporters applauded her contempt of the media and Washington’s rules.

Here was Gwen Ifill’s first question: “The House of Representatives this week passed a bill, a big bailout bill … was this the worst of Washington or the best of Washington that we saw play out?”

This was Palin’s first non-answer: “You know, I think a good barometer here, as we try to figure out has this been a good time or a bad time in America’s economy, is go to a kid’s soccer game on Saturday, and turn to any parent there on the sideline and ask them, “How are you feeling about the economy?”

Biden did a classic debate pivot, but he did try to answer the question, saying “I think it’s neither the best or worst of Washington, but it’s evidence of the fact that the economic policies of the last eight years have been the worst economic policies we’ve ever had.”

Consider Ifil’s third question: “Governor, please if you want to respond to what he (Biden) said about Sen. McCain’s comments about health care?” and Palin’s petulant non-reply “I would like to respond about the tax increases.”

Or Ifill’s seventh question: “What promises have you and your campaigns made to the American people that you’re not going to be able to keep?” Sarah Palin tried her hand at the pivot trick too: “I want to go back to the energy plan, though, because this is — this is an important one that Barack Obama, he voted for in ‘05.” By pivot I mean, tangent.

In her closing statement, Palin again made clear where her priorities were. “I like being able to answer these tough questions without the filter, even, of the mainstream media kind of telling viewers what they’ve just heard. I’d rather be able to just speak to the American people like we just did.” Speak to the American people she did, but answer these tough questions she did not.

We should stop pretending that debates really happen in American politics; even the four organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates no longer qualify. Masquerading for debate, all we get are solipsistic televised addresses delivered to us in alternating segments. Last Thursday, Gwen Ifill was little more than a two-minute time keeper with no control of how Biden and especially Palin used their time.

Let us remember why we care for debates. Because meaningful exchanges between alternative voices stand at the heart of democracy. By controlling for question, we can see how candidates measure up to each other substantively. Instead, American politics today is deluged by speeches and not debates, asymmetric communications in which politicians talk past each other rather than to each other.

Avoiding the questions and eschewing a debate may be good for a candidate but it is bad for democracy. And we should not allow Sarah Palin or any other candidate to tell us that democracy is only about connecting with people and not also debating the issues. Only demagogues insist on trading directly with the people without the watchful eye - Palin calls it the “filter” - of the media or a dissenting interlocutor. Democracy is best served by reciprocity and deliberation, not one-sided assertions to one’s base with no follow-up questions.

While Palin connected last Thursday, she hardly debated. As supporter Michelle Malkin revealingly put it: “She was warm, fresh, funny, confident, energetic, personable, relentless, and on message.” Seven ayes for style, an aye for substance, and nay to debate. The nays have it.

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Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com.  In the article below he reflects on last Friday’s debate. Read his previous OUPblogs here.

In the first presidential debate on Friday night, Senator McCain tried repeatedly to cast Senator Obama as a naive lightweight who does not understand foreign policy. Seven times, McCain laid the charge that Obama just doesn’t get it.

-”Senator Obama doesn’t understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy.”
-”And, yes, Senator Obama calls for more troops, but what he doesn’t understand, it’s got to be a new strategy…”
-”What Senator Obama doesn’t seem to understand is that if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone …”
-”I don’t think that Senator Obama understands that there was a failed state in Pakistan when Musharraf came to power.”
-”If we adopted Senator Obama’s set date for withdrawal, then that will have a calamitous effect in Afghanistan and American national security interests in the region. Senator Obama doesn’t seem to understand there is a connection between the two.”
-”Again, a little bit of naivete there. He doesn’t understand that Russia committed serious aggression against Georgia.”
-”Senator Obama still doesn’t quite understand – or doesn’t get it — that if we fail in Iraq, it encourages al Qaeda.”

In schools, in the boardroom, even around the kitchen table, people tend to prove their knowledge by proving what they think to be true rather than by attacking their interlocutors for their failure to understand. McCain was deploying a peculiar form of persuasion that we see often in our politics: he was trying to make a self-referential claim by an other-referential jab. By calling Obama naive he was trying to imply that he was not. Since it is bad taste in politics (as in real life) to be a self-professed know-it-all, it was, McCain probably thought, a classier act to simply dismiss Obama as naive and allow the conclusion that he understood foreign policy better to follow.

Yet this was exactly the failed strategy that Al Gore used against George Bush in their presidential debates in 2000. Although some pundits thought that Al Gore was scoring debate points, many viewers came away thinking that he was a condescending know-it-all.

Even the most artful rhetorician of our time, President Ronald Reagan, had to strike the right balance of tone and humor to successfully get away with his “there you go again” rejoinder. This well executed line in his debate with President Carter in 1980 was one of the defining moments of that campaign. But it gained traction only because there was a growing consensus in the electorate that the decades-long liberal formula for solving the country’s economic woes was obsolete and in need of overhaul. “Do you still not get it” only works when the audience has already gotten it and moved on to newer solutions, leaving one’s interlocutor alone in the dustheap of history.

The problem is that in 2008, Obama is not alone in his views. There are significantly more voters tired of George Bush’s unilateralism, his hard-headed focus on the war on terrorism in Iraq, and his refusal to negotiate with rogue nations than there are voters who would prefer to stay his course. Unlike in 1980 when the country was moving to the political right, this year, many Independents will be apt to wonder if it is McCain who still doesn’t get it.

Senator McCain would do well to remember that the primary season is over and he needs to stop speaking only to his base if he wants to narrow Obama’s lead in the polls. The strategy of calling one’s debate partner naive (a euphemism for a fool) does not often get one extra points from neutral bystanders, independent voters. If Republicans were, like McCain, exasperated on Friday night with their perception that Obama just wouldn’t see the obvious, McCain probably appeared condescending to Independents with the forced grins by which he greeted Obama’s alleged displays of naivete. McCain needs to stop harping on the charge that Obama doesn’t get it but start proving that HE gets it - that many Independents and Democrats are looking to restore the country’s relationship with the rest of the world, that there are many Americans who see the war in Iraq as a foreign policy tangent to the brewing problems in Afghanistan. Maybe Senator Obama doesn’t get it. But do you, Senator McCain?

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Last night, the Democrats came to my town for the big debate.

My observations:

SIGNAGE MATTERS.  The Hillary signs were big.  The Obama signs said HOPE.  Next to the Hilary signs, they looked like Hope for Hillary.  Not Obama.  My favorite sign: Stop Sununu.

Note: nothing on CHOICE.  Last night, it was all health care and spending.

PEOPLE ARE PSYCHED.  There was lots of media and lots of people.  M and I had a long talk with NBC's Tom MOnahan (Hartford syndacite).  Nice man.  Thoughtful.  (If you're reading, Tom, READ THE BOOK!!)

:-)

FRONT RUNNERS ARE CAUTIOUS.  The candidates with nothing to lose are free to say exactly what they want to.  (I loved Biden's comments on Guiliani.  Actually, I liked a lot of what he had to say.)

I stayed up too late.  I didn't clean my desk.  My "Henry Miller" chair should arrive today or tomorrow.  

Much to do...... Read the rest of this post

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I don't know about you, but just a glance at a work by Mondrian eases my mind. The symmetry. The straight lines and bold colors. Mondrian inspires a calm like no other and calls me to get organized, to make order from the chaos of life.

While I'll never achieve the perfection of a Mondrian painting, I find bold, clean design cleansing and uplifting.

I'm also a huge fan of graphic design using text. (This image to the right reads "Mayakovsky" from left to right and "for the voice" from top to bottom.)

So imagine my joy when I received two picture books in the mail from author/illustrator Annette Simon.* Simon uses graphic design and clean, bold symmetry to great effect in her picture books.

Annette Simon's This Book is for All Kids, but Especially My Sister Libby. Libby Died is told from the point of view of five-year-old Jack Simon, whose younger sister has passed away. It begins, "Did you hear me? She died. And when you die, you don't even have to get chicken pox."

Jack's continues his story, wondering about what it means to be dead (do you eat?) and what if he had died instead. He asks his mother what he can take with him when he goes and what it's like in heaven. Libby Died is a heartbreaking book to be sure, but one that is completely honest in expressing a loss from the point of view of a five year old.

Simon's use of text in Libby Died is brilliant. When Jack's questions are more insistent, text is larger, sometimes extending off the page. When Jack is more speculative, or following his thoughts tangentially, text trails off and becomes smaller. Bold colors and simple graphics are used throughout the book, giving Libby Died an emotional punch and a direct honesty. Libby Died will be much appreciated by children, who, however unfortunately, are dealing with a similar situation. It's a brilliant book--the best one I've read for children on the topic of death.

Simon's 2002 mocking birdies tackles a more cheerful subject--what kids today often call "copy-catting." One bird (in brilliant Mondrian blue)^ says "you" and another--in red, but of course--repeats "you." Soon there's a cacophony of "you"s and "stop singing my song" and songs that are blue or red. As the words become busier, Simon's graphic text alters--to smaller and overlapping words. When they can no longer be separated, the words become purple.

The purple singing attracts a purple mocking bird and eventually the most egregious mimic of all--that's right, the copy cat himself.

mocking birdies is great fun to read aloud, especially to the three- to six-year-old audience. They know all about copy-catting, so this book hits home.

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* (Since blog reviews and objectivity are subject to much speculation and criticism at the moment, let me say that I review approximately 10% of the books I receive directly from authors.)

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^ My copy features primary blue and red, rather than the lighter blue in the image above.

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