Last month, reports emerged that students at the University of Virginia in America can now take a four-week course studying the HBO drama series Game of Thrones. As the news breaks that English students at Georgia Regents University, also in the US, are to study the debut album of rapper Kendrick Lamar, we take a look at 11 other courses with modules inspired by popular culture. ...Gaga for Gaga: Sex, Gender and Identity at the University of Virginia, USAs anyone who has ever done an Arts degree knows, all Arts students eventually end up having to study Freud, and spend a term or two writing a...
... was Nixon a traitor as well as a crook?Ken Hughes examines the question in “Chasing Shadows,” a chilling and compelling look at one of the multiple origins of the Watergate scandal, which toppled a president and heightened Americans’ cynicism about their leaders.A researcher at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center Presidential Recordings Program, Hughes has spent years examining the Nixon tapes, which the former president fought till the end of his life to keep secret and the bulk of which have now been made public.
Even if it is a way to show distance from the president, there’s little reason for candidates to stake out their positions before November, says Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.
Legal scholars say this week’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, delaying gay marriage in the commonwealth, was no surprise. The experts I interviewed say the court’s nine justices probably will take up the issue in the next session, which begins in October. ... it’s likely the high court will take up at least one of the various cases, said Daniel Ortiz, a law professor at the University of Virginia. He also noted the shifting attitudes toward gay marriage: “The country has become more comfortable with something it was anxious about just a few years ago.”
During the past four weeks, a parade of witnesses in the corruption trial of Bob and Maureen McDonnell have described the former first lady as a mercurial "nutbag" whose outbursts rattled the governor's mansion staff, and as someone who should be treated as if she were 5 years old. ... Anne Coughlin, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, looks at the treatment of Maureen McDonnell and sees it as the most recent chapter in a very long story. "There is a long tradition of women defendants being portrayed in a way that focuses on their mental state in order t...
“They have one training day a year, which is mostly spent drinking rather than drilling,” University of Virginia historian Alan Taylor, author of two books that deal with the War of 1812, says of the militiamen. “Whoever was elected captain would take them down to the local tavern and they’d get blasted.” ... “The losers are writing the history as if they were victors,” the historian Taylor says. “It’s the essence of American politics. You’ve got to be able to control the narrative and persuade the public that you have led the nation ...
...The concept of biophila was developed by conservationist E.O. Wilson, whose hypothesis was that people innately focus on other living systems — that they have an inherent love of nature — and that out of this love could spring a new conservation ethic.The hypothesis has given rise to biophilic design and biophilic cities that put these notions into action. Tim Beatley, a landscape architect at the University of Virginia who has actively promoted biophilic design, has compiled a list of cities that get it: Portland, Ore.; San Francisco; Wellington, New Zealand; Oslo; Vitoria-Gast...
"He got this thing going, and it was making money. It was running a surplus," said David Breneman, a University of Virginia professor who teaches the economics of education. "The regional accrediting body in California came down on him like a ton of bricks. They didn't like anything he was doing."
It’s never clear when the attacks are coming, which makes inhalers important, said Tom Platts-Mills, head of the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the University of Virginia and former president of The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. “We spend a lot of time and effort trying to persuade people not to be caught in a difficult situation without their inhalers,” Platts-Mills said, “and it’s very important to tell patients that if they’re going on a trip or to a new house or to visit someone, that they should always have their in...
"The similarities are obvious. They are both somewhat less than conservative," said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. ... If Mr. Christie is to fulfill his national ambitions, he will have to overcome some of the same problems that bedeviled Mr. Giuliani, including the presence of several potential Republican challengers who are more conservative, analysts said. "The problem for Christie is that Republicans are going to have many choices for 2016," said Mr. Sabato.
“Remember, this is a midterm with low turnout,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “Candidates on both sides are playing to their base and hoping for a large boost from them in fundraising and votes. You don't accomplish that by watering down the message.”
In the field of GOP presidential hopefuls that has yet to carve out a clear frontrunner, an indictment of one could make room for the others. As Christie begins to rise in the GOP presidential polling field, knocking out one hopeful could give him a boost. "The word ‘indictment’ is never good," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
“I just don’t think people can, unless they’re extremely well-positioned, just decide to jump in and run,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics
"We all know what the audiences are for those shows — they're tiny in number but massive in influence," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.
Beard observes that there is no word in Latin for “smile,” and makes the striking suggestion that the Romans simply did not smile in the sense that we understand the social gesture today. (Writing in The New York Review of Books, Gregory Hays, a classicist at the University of Virginia, has challenged the claim: “It may well be that the Romans did not smile, as we do, to indicate greeting or willingness to serve. But the smile of amusement, pleasure, or approval is probably as Roman as gladiators and stuffed dormice.”)
... Results of a study done by Habitat through the Weldon Cooper Center at the University of Virginia were also unveiled at the picnic. The study gauged how new homeownership affected the families over time.
University of Virginia researchers last month published in the journal Science results of a study in which they got a bunch of people in a variety of situations and told them to sit still for 15 minutes with nothing but their thoughts for entertainment.
... What I found absolutely shocked me: the researchers from the University of Virginia couldn’t tell if pretend play is a means to an end or if it’s merely a sign that things are going well. More specifically, the article weighs three possibilities: Is pretend play necessary for positive development? Is it one of many routes to development? Or is pretend play a symptom of other factors that lead to positive development? Here’s what they found:
... SpermCheck FertilitySpermCheck Fertility, an over-the-counter male fertility test developed locally, is now available in Rite Aid stores nationwide, the company recently announced. Dr. John Herr, director of the Center for Research in Contraceptive and Reproductive Health at the University of Virginia, developed the test.
Women who have several sexual partners before getting married have less happy marriages - but men do no harm by playing the field,a study has found.According to new research by the National Marriage Project, more than half of married women who had only ever slept with their future husband felt highly satisfied in their marriage. But that percentage dropped to 42 per cent once the woman had had pre-marital sex with at least two partners. It dropped to 22 per cent for those with ten or more partners. But, for men, the number of partners a man had appeared to have no bearing on how satisfie...