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Fifteen Eighty Four

Academic perspectives from Cambridge University Press

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Disease and Discrimination

The emergence and spread of COVID-19 has led to increased discrimination against Asian people, and specifically led to anti-Chinese prejudice. The virus is believed to have originated in a wet market...

Karen Stollznow | 3 Jun 2020

In Spitting Distance of Flammable (the politicization of spit during the pandemic)

My earliest spitting memory comes from a movie. A character, trussed up or held down, spits at the villain. I’ve forgotten the name of the movie but there are half a dozen similar scenes in Hindi cinema...

Annie Zaidi | 3 Jun 2020

Cummings, Covid and the British Establishment

By the Establishment, I do not only mean the centres of official power—though they are certainly part of it—but rather the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised....

Tim Bale | 3 Jun 2020

Keeping Hope in Discouraging Times

Although religious practice has not withered away as some once predicted, its continuing influence is the source of widespread unease. Theorists such as Charles Taylor suggest that modern science and...

David Newheiser | 3 Jun 2020

Introduction: What are Rituals?

Successful social distancing is, in our view, of equal importance in the fight against the coronavirus as the development of a vaccine. It raises difficulties from both an academic and a practical point...

Dániel Z. Kádár, Juliane House | 3 Jun 2020

Pandemics and International Travel

…all these pandemics share a common factor, namely the role of international travel in spreading the contagion. The Justinian Plague (541-546 CE, with intermittent recurrences until about 750...

Timothy H. Dixon, Robert Stern | 2 Jun 2020

Covid 19 and the struggle for hope and certainty

A few weeks ago I went out for my daily walk on Thursday evening just before 8pm. I had forgotten that since the current lockdown in the UK, this is the time set aside for the weekly Clap for our Carers...

Mona Siddiqui | 1 Jun 2020

The Coronavirus, God and Evil

It’s not the end of the world. But with the coronavirus running rampant, you could be forgiven for thinking so. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse symbolically portray the four events that will occur...

Philip C. Almond | 1 Jun 2020

Is It Over Yet?

During recent weeks we have witnessed often abusive gatherings in the United States and Spain demanding that covid-19 restrictions be lifted. Flags are flown, anthems are sung, slogans are cheered, all...

Ruth MacKay | 1 Jun 2020

Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism and Closed Borders in the Covid-19 Era

For some years now there has been a flourishing debate between those who advocate for a more open-bordered world and those who want nations to have more powers to restrict border crossings. Sometimes...

Gillian Brock | 1 Jun 2020

Understanding Life: An interview with the series editor, Kostas Kampourakis

Introducing our new book series Understanding Life! Offering multi-disciplinary perspectives, these accessible guides address stereotypes and common misunderstandings in a thoughtful way.

29 May 2020

The United States and the World Health Organization

In April 2020 U.S. President Donald Trump began to lash out at the World Health Organization, blaming it for what he claimed were missteps, failures, and prevarications in its handling of the coronavirus...

Theodore M. Brown | 29 May 2020