Category Archives: The Oxford Comment

Equity in Health Care – Episode 74 – The Oxford Comment



There are many factors that affect our ability to be healthy and we unfortunately do not all have the same access to care. Barriers can be related to cost, discrimination, location, sexual orientation, and gender identity – to name just a few.

On today’s episode of The Oxford Comment, we complement Oxford Academic’s extensive “Health Equity” collection of journal articles, book excerpts, and online resources by speaking with two medical experts, Dr. Jon Rohde, formerly of the South Africa EQUITY project, and Dr. Don Dizon, Director of the Pelvic Malignancies Program at Lifespan Cancer Institute, Head of Community Outreach and Engagement at The Cancer Center at Brown University, and Director of Medical Oncology at Rhode Island Hospital. In addition to caring for patients, they have each dedicated their careers to addressing inequity in public health.

Learn more about Oxford Academic’s “Health Equity” collection here: https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/health-equity
Learn more about Jon Rohde here: https://oxfordre.com/publichealth/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190632366.001.0001/acrefore-9780190632366-e-446
Learn more about Don S. Dizon and The Oncolgogist here: https://academic.oup.com/oncolo/pages/dizon-blog

Please check out Episode 74 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors:
– Amazon Music: https://oxford.ly/3O8bPBH
– Apple Podcasts: https://oxford.ly/2RuYMPa
– Google Podcasts: https://oxford.ly/38UpF5h
– iHeartRadio: https://oxford.ly/3xBtxaQ
– Spotify: https://oxford.ly/2JLNTTO
– Stitcher: https://oxford.ly/2R0fVNZ
– TuneIn: https://oxford.ly/3jKR0OG
– YouTube: https://oxford.ly/2YY4iMT

The Oxford Comment Crew:
Executive Producer: Steven Filippi
Associate Producers: Christine Scalora
Host: Meghan Schaffer

Music: Filaments by Podington Bear is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.

© Oxford University Press


Hong Kong 2022: One Country, Two Systems? – Episode 73 – The Oxford Comment



The first of July 2022 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China. It also marks the halfway point of a fifty-year agreement between China and Hong Kong that established the “one country, two systems,” rule – a system designed to allow Hong Kong to “enjoy a high degree of autonomy, except in foreign and defence affairs” while still remaining a Special Administrative Region of China. What have these twenty-five years signified for Hong Kongers and the wider world?

On today’s episode of The Oxford Comment, we welcome two leading experts in Chinese history and foreign policy, Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, the editor of The Oxford History of Modern China and Dr. Tim Nicholas Rühlig, author of China’s Foreign Policy Contradictions: Lessons from China’s R2P, Hong Kong, and WTO Policy, to explore the history, handover, and future of Hong Kong.

Learn more about Jeff S. Wasserstrom and The Oxford History of Modern China here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-history-of-modern-china-9780192895202
Learn more about Tim Nicholas Rühlig and China’s Foreign Policy Contradictions: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/chinas-foreign-policy-contradictions-9780197573303

Please check out Episode 73 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors:
– Amazon Music: https://oxford.ly/3O8bPBH
– Apple Podcasts: https://oxford.ly/2RuYMPa
– Google Podcasts: https://oxford.ly/38UpF5h
– iHeartRadio: https://oxford.ly/3xBtxaQ
– Spotify: https://oxford.ly/2JLNTTO
– Stitcher: https://oxford.ly/2R0fVNZ
– TuneIn: https://oxford.ly/3jKR0OG
– YouTube: https://oxford.ly/2YY4iMT

The Oxford Comment Crew:
Executive Producer: Steven Filippi
Associate Producers: Patrick Horton-Wright, Meghan Schaffer
Host: Meghan Schaffer

Music: Filaments by Podington Bear is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.

© Oxford University Press


Oxford World English Symposium 2022 Recap – Episode 72 – The Oxford Comment



With over 1 billion speakers, English is an incredibly diverse language. Dozens of countries around the world have their own varieties, many of which have not historically seen adequate representation in English dictionaries.

This past April, the Oxford English Dictionary hosted the Oxford World English Symposium 2022, a two-day event featuring a series of parallel sessions and panels on topics relating not only to varieties of English, but language prejudice, colonialism, and context-based English language teaching, among others.

On today’s episode, we’re featuring Lisa Lim, Phillip Louw, and Michael Proffitt, three of the Symposium’s participants, in the form of a follow-up panel hosted by Dr. Danica Salazar, World English Executive Editor for Oxford Languages.

More information about the Oxford World English Symposium 2022, including links to the panel discussions and parallel sessions, can be found here: https://public.oed.com/varieties-of-english/oed-symposium-2022/

Please check out Episode 72 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors:
– Amazon Music: https://oxford.ly/3O8bPBH
– Apple Podcasts: https://oxford.ly/2RuYMPa
– Google Podcasts: https://oxford.ly/38UpF5h
– iHeartRadio: https://oxford.ly/3xBtxaQ
– Spotify: https://oxford.ly/2JLNTTO
– Stitcher: https://oxford.ly/2R0fVNZ
– TuneIn: https://oxford.ly/3jKR0OG
– YouTube: https://oxford.ly/2YY4iMT

Music: Filaments by Podington Bear is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.

© Oxford University Press


The Role of DNA Research in Society – Episode 71 – The Oxford Comment



On today’s episode, we’re commemorating National DNA Day in the United States by considering the role that DNA plays in our society. First, we welcome Amber Hartman Scholz, co-author of the article “Myth-busting the provider-user relationship for digital sequence information”, looking at how genetic resources are actually used and shared across the globe. We discuss the surprising findings of this research as well as the important implications for policy makers. We then interview Dee Denver, the author of The Dharma in DNA: Insights at the Intersection of Biology and Buddhism, to talk about the significance of DNA research and what the lay person should know about the uses and findings of DNA. We also talk about another aspect that is much less well known: the role that DNA plays at the intersection of spirituality and science. Underlying both interviews is the question of open science and why it matters, specifically, for DNA research.

Learn more about Amber Hartman Scholz and Myth-busting the provider-user relationship for digital sequence information here: https://academic.oup.com/gigascience/article/10/12/giab085/6489125
Learn more about Dee Denver and The Dharma in DNA here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-dharma-in-dna-9780197604588

Please check out Episode 71 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors:
– Amazon Music: https://oxford.ly/3O8bPBH
– Apple Podcasts: https://oxford.ly/2RuYMPa
– Google Podcasts: https://oxford.ly/38UpF5h
– iHeartRadio: https://oxford.ly/3xBtxaQ
– Spotify: https://oxford.ly/2JLNTTO
– Stitcher: https://oxford.ly/2R0fVNZ
– TuneIn: https://oxford.ly/3jKR0OG
– YouTube: https://oxford.ly/2YY4iMT

The Oxford Comment Crew:
Executive Producer: Steven Filippi
Associate Producers: Stella Edison, Amelia Storck
Host: Christine Scalora

Music: Filaments by Podington Bear is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.

© Oxford University Press


Women’s Economic Empowerment, Past and Future – Episode 70 – The Oxford Comment



On today’s episode of The Oxford Comment, we discussed the global and historical implications of women, work, and economic empowerment.

First, we welcomed Laura M. Argys and Susan L. Averett, the authors of Women in the Workforce: What Everyone Needs to Know®, to share their research on women’s growing role in the workforce and the problems with definitively measuring the gender wage gap. We then interviewed, Laura Edwards, the author of Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States, looking at the 19th century legal status of textiles and how they provided a unique path to economic empowerment for women and people of color.

Learn more about Laura M. Argys and Susan L. Averett and Women in the Workforce here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/women-in-the-workforce-9780190093389
Learn more about Laura F. Edwards and Only the Clothes on Her Back here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/only-the-clothes-on-her-back-9780197568576

Please check out Episode 70 of The Oxford Comment and subscribe to The Oxford Comment through your favourite podcast app to listen to the latest insights from our expert authors:
– Apple Podcasts: oxford.ly/2RuYMPa
– Google Podcasts: oxford.ly/38UpF5h
– Spotify: oxford.ly/2JLNTTO
– Stitcher: oxford.ly/2R0fVNZ
– Youtube: oxford.ly/2YY4iMT

The Oxford Comment Crew:
Executive Producer: Steven Filippi
Associate Producers: Sarah Butcher
Host: Rachel Havard

Music: Filaments by Podington Bear is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.

© Oxford University Press