Category: Guest Bloggers

Archiving Birmingham Jazz: A Reader’s Guide to the Southern Music Research Center 

The following is a guest post by Burgin Mathews, author of Magic City: How the Birmingham Jazz Tradition Shaped the Sound of America which is now available wherever books are sold. For much of the twentieth century, the city of Birmingham, Alabama, was home to one of American music’s most essential unsung communities, a thriving network of musicians whose lives… Continue Reading Archiving Birmingham Jazz: A Reader’s Guide to the Southern Music Research Center 

Mobilities and Empires

The following is a guest post by Mark Dizon, author of Reciprocal Mobilities: Indigeneity and Imperialism in an Eighteenth-Century Philippine Borderland, which is available now wherever books are sold. In 1753, a group of Igorot leaders from the Cordillera Mountains at the center of the island of Luzon were in Manila, the Spanish colonial capital of the Philippines, for a… Continue Reading Mobilities and Empires

Seeking Alternative Archives to Better Understand the Past

The following is a guest post by Whitney Nell Stewart, author of This is Our Home: Slavery and Struggle on Southern Plantations, which is now available wherever books are sold. This summer may have been one of the hottest on record, but in July 2012 I experienced a suffocating heat and humidity unlike anything this Gulf-South girl had ever felt.… Continue Reading Seeking Alternative Archives to Better Understand the Past

Nontraditional Career, Unconventional History

The following is a guest post by Aimee Loiselle, author of Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class, which tells a history of women industrial workers in struggles over working conditions and pop culture in the late-twentieth century. Beyond Norma Rae is now available wherever books are sold. The successful publication… Continue Reading Nontraditional Career, Unconventional History

Movies Are Not Mirrors

The following is a guest post by Aimee Loiselle, author of Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class, which tells a history of women industrial workers in struggles over working conditions and pop culture in the late-twentieth century. Beyond Norma Rae is now available wherever books are sold.… Continue Reading Movies Are Not Mirrors

Q&A with David Menconi author of “Oh, Didn’t They Ramble”

The following is a Q&A with David Menconi, whose second book with UNC PRESS Oh, Didn’t They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music is available now wherever books are sold. Oh, Didn’t They Ramble is the definitive history of Rounder Records, drawing on previously untapped archives and extensive interviews with artists, Rounder staff, and founders Ken… Continue Reading Q&A with David Menconi author of “Oh, Didn’t They Ramble”

The Reminiscences of a One-Hundred-and-One-Year-Old Man

The following is a guest blog post by Alison Li, author of Wondrous Transformations: A Maverick Physician, the Science of Hormones, and the Birth of the Transgender Revolution, which is available now wherever books are sold. When I was debating whether to write a biography of Dr. Harry Benjamin (1885-1986), several questions loomed large. Benjamin, a German-American physician, is best… Continue Reading The Reminiscences of a One-Hundred-and-One-Year-Old Man

Billie Jean King Wins Again

The following is a guest post by Susan Ware, author of Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women’s Sports. As part of the research for my 2011 biography of Billie Jean King, I watched a video of “The Battle of the Sexes,” which took place fifty years ago on September 20, 1973. There it all was:… Continue Reading Billie Jean King Wins Again

Black “Lady Lovers” and the Search for Queer Community

The following is a guest post by Cookie Woolner, author of The Famous Lady Lovers: Black Women and Queer Desire before Stonewall which is now available wherever books are sold. Extraordinary in its scope and inventiveness to focus on their intimate lives . . . . Woolner’s beautiful prose and writing style makes this book a delight to read. Academics… Continue Reading Black “Lady Lovers” and the Search for Queer Community

The Arctic Refuge and the Power of Grassroots Visual Culture

On September 6, the Biden administration made a critical announcement about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, canceling the remaining oil and gas leases that had been auctioned off during the waning days of the Trump administration. The announcement marked a major win for environmental and Indigenous advocates, who have been fighting for decades to protect this land from fossil fuel… Continue Reading The Arctic Refuge and the Power of Grassroots Visual Culture

9 Reasons to Read “Urban Specters”

The Following is a guest post by Sarah Mayorga, author of Urban Specters: The Everyday Harms of Racial Capitalism, now available wherever books are sold. Urban Specters: The Everyday Harms of Racial Capitalism is about working-class and poor people in Cincinnati and how they make sense of their lives. How the stories they tell about the world are often shaped… Continue Reading 9 Reasons to Read “Urban Specters”

How to write a book: The timeline

Thanks to David Menconi for allowing us to reblog the following post outlining the timeline for writing his forthcoming book Oh, Didn’t They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music. This post originally appeared on his blog, Losering Books. David is the 2019 North Carolina Piedmont Laureate and was a staff writer at the Raleigh News &… Continue Reading How to write a book: The timeline

Confounding White Supremacy

The following is a guest post by Michael Ayers Trotti, author of The End of Public Execution: Race, Religion, and Punishment in the American South, which is available now wherever books are sold. This was not what white southern state officials in the 1880s thought punishment should be. When African American John Williams, condemned for murder, was publicly hanged in… Continue Reading Confounding White Supremacy

Queer History is Southern History; Queer Women are Southern Women

The following is a guest post by La Shonda Mims, author of Drastic Dykes and Accidental Activists: Queer Women in the Urban South, which is available now everywhere books are sold. When I first conceived of Drastic Dykes and Accidental Activists, I knew that I wanted to address the lack of queer people in southern US histories and the lack of… Continue Reading Queer History is Southern History; Queer Women are Southern Women

Coming Home: A Book Tour in NC

The following is a guest post by Felicia Arriaga, author of BEHIND CRIMMIGRATION: ICE, Law Enforcement, and Resistance in America. 5/23 at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe, Asheville, NC 5/25 at the Levine Museum in the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, Charlotte, NC 5/27 at Diamante Arts & Cultural Center, Raleigh, NC I wanted to host a book tour in North Carolina in the first… Continue Reading Coming Home: A Book Tour in NC

“Solidarity Across the Americas” Book Events Recap

Margaret M. Power, author of Solidarity Across the Americas: The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and Anti-imperialism, recently completed some events in Chicago and the Bay Area. Below she reflects on and recaps her events and shares a video a student made of Pedro Albizu Campos’s trip through Latin America. The song playing in the background of the video is Despierta Boricua, the hymn of the… Continue Reading “Solidarity Across the Americas” Book Events Recap

Open Access for Monographs is Here. But Are we Ready for It?

By John Sherer, Spangler Family Director of the University of North Carolina Press. He is the chair of the Association of University Presses Open Access Committee and is the Primary Investigator in the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded Sustainable History Monograph Pilot. This post originally appeared on The Scholarly Kitchen. At the University of North Carolina Press, we recently completed a… Continue Reading Open Access for Monographs is Here. But Are we Ready for It?

Finding Pluck: The Origins of “Who We Are Now”

The following is a guest blog post by Michelle Fishburne, author of Who We Are Now: Stories of What Americans Lost and Found during the COVID-19 Pandemic, which is on-sale today, everywhere books are sold. Who We Are Now is a collection of 100 first-person stories about people’s lives during the Covid-19 pandemic, gathered as Michelle Fishburne motor-homed 12,000 miles… Continue Reading Finding Pluck: The Origins of “Who We Are Now”

Reliving King’s Dream

The following is a guest post by Daniel T. Fleming, author of Living the Dream: The Contested History of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. On January 20, 1986, the United States celebrated the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Half a million people filled the streets of downtown Atlanta as the inaugural King Day parade moved along Peachtree Street and… Continue Reading Reliving King’s Dream

A Fresh Look at the History of Pecan Pie

The following is a guest blog post by Rebecca Sharpless, author of Grain and Fire: A History of Baking in the American South, available now wherever books are sold.             Come Thanksgiving, pecan pie, a gooey concoction of syrup, eggs, and butter, and pecans, will be on many American tables. Along with pumpkin and apple, it’s one of the most popular… Continue Reading A Fresh Look at the History of Pecan Pie