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Fifteen Eighty Four

Academic perspectives from Cambridge University Press

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Williams’ Gang: A Notorious Slave Trader and his Cargo of Black Convicts

In Williams’ Gang, Jeff Forret explores a Washington, DC, slave trader’s legal misadventures associated with transporting convict slaves through New Orleans. Forret joins Cambridge University Press Senior Editor Cecelia Cancellaro to discuss the three-decade-long courtroom drama, the parallels between the slave trade and the modern-day prison-industrial complex, and more.

Jeff Forret | 26 Feb 2020

Wonders of Photonics

“Photonics” – try asking Google what this is and you’ll find a variety of answers, some more enlightening (pardon the almost inevitable pun…) than others.  But what is photonics?  Why is it...

Brian Culshaw | 25 Feb 2020

In the Shadow of Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes was old enough to have been John Locke’s grandfather, but thanks to his extreme longevity, the two great Anglo-phone philosophers were alive as contemporaries for nearly five decades. For...

Jeffrey R. Collins | 21 Feb 2020

The Past is Never Dead: History and Power in Ancient China

In ancient China, the past was ubiquitous. In the thousands of texts that have survived, between the commemorative inscriptions of the Bronze Age elite, the gnomic sayings of Confucius, and the pronouncements...

Vincent S Leung | 21 Feb 2020

Are Trump’s Tweets Unpresidential? – Often Yes, but Sometimes No

Paul M. Collins, Jr. & Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, authors of "The President and the Supreme Court" on Donald Trump's tweets.

Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, Paul M. Collins Jr. | 20 Feb 2020

Children and adults’ questions matter for cognitive development

Anyone who has been around young children knows that they are inquisitive. They are constantly exploring and trying new things. They ask a lot of questions – indeed some research has shown that by the...

Kathleen H. Corriveau, Samuel Ronfard, Lucas Payne Butler | 20 Feb 2020

Liberalism’s Many Meanings

Today discussions about ‘liberalism’s crisis’ abound. Liberal values and institutions are in retreat in countries where they seemed relatively secure, and the prospects for liberal development in...

Vanessa Rampton | 20 Feb 2020

The Art of Acting: What Performers Owe to Antiquity

Acting is an elusive art, because – unlike for example a painting, sculpture, poem or score – an actor’s performance cannot be held in the hand, and is not available to pin down for...

David Wiles | 18 Feb 2020

Romantic Ireland

Daniel MacDonald, 'Sídhe Gaoithe/ The Fairy Blast' 1842. Oil on canvas. 89 x 115cm. Image used by permission of the National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin, Ireland.

Claire Connolly | 14 Feb 2020

Expanding areas of the applications of active analog filters

  ‘A transducer for separating waves on the basis of the frequencies’ or ‘electric filters’ is an interesting but wide study area on account of their ever-increasing areas of applications. Traditionally,...

14 Feb 2020

The Creativity of Aegean Bronze Age Art

Think for a moment about ancient art. What does it conjure up? You may think of sculpture, like the Nike of Samothrace; or busts of Roman emperors; it may be that the treasures from the Egyptian pyramids...

Carl Knappett | 14 Feb 2020

Bullies and the 2020 Election

I don’t know who will win the 2020 presidential race, but I do know who will lose: the biggest bully on the block since Billy Franklin beat-up Joey Tarnower in the sixth-grade and ran-off with his lunch...

Roderick P. Hart | 13 Feb 2020