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Author: Connie Chia

April 1, 2015

Barbara W. Ellis: 6 Tips for Creating an Eco-Friendly Landscape

Whether you want to redesign your entire landscape, find a project for this weekend, or simply reduce overall outdoor maintenance, taking steps to make your garden greener, or more sustainable, may be the answer. Sustainable landscaping is a way to design and care for yards, gardens, and the larger landscape to create outdoor spaces that are attractive and healthy for humans, wildlife, pets, and the environment as a whole. Growing greener does not have to entail huge effort or become a life-altering process. While enthusiastic gardeners may be inspired to plant a wildflower meadow or create a native woodland garden, far simpler steps also can be beneficial. Continue Reading Barbara W. Ellis: 6 Tips for Creating an Eco-Friendly Landscape

Categories Author blog entry/Gardening/Guest Bloggers
March 30, 2015

Lauren J. Silver: Enlivening Social Justice through Spanning Boundaries

“Why didn’t we learn about this stuff earlier? I can’t believe I’m in college and this is the first time I’m learning in class about present-day racism, sexism, and homophobia.” These are the types of comments that I often hear from students in the classes I teach on Urban Education, Youth Identities, and Gender & Education. Once, a white young woman, a graduate student, broke down in tears during class as she opened up about her sense of shame. She was outraged about the indignities experienced by poor children of color in urban schools and she felt ashamed that she was previously unaware of these realities. I can see on their faces when it begins to dawn on them that not only have their educations been amiss in preparing them to take action against injustice, they have not even been given the tools to see or acknowledge the inequalities of which they themselves are a part. Continue Reading Lauren J. Silver: Enlivening Social Justice through Spanning Boundaries

Categories Author blog entry/Education/Guest Bloggers/Sociology
March 23, 2015

Adam Wesley Dean on the Creation of Yosemite

Yosemite National Park made the evening news on Wednesday, January 14, 2015. American rock climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson reached the top of El Capitan by ascending Yosemite’s Dawn Wall. The climbers’ years of preparation, 19-day free-climb, and personal stories riveted television audiences nationwide. News programs also gave audiences a rare treat: panoramic views of the park’s natural beauty that included cascading waterfalls, granite formations, and snow-dusted trees.
Yet Yosemite almost did not become a national park. Continue Reading Adam Wesley Dean on the Creation of Yosemite

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Civil War/Environmental Studies/Guest Bloggers/Hiking/History/Nature
March 19, 2015

Philip F. Rubio: Who Remembers the Nationwide Postal Wildcat Strike of 1970 (and Why Does That Matter)?

On March 12, a rank-and-file caucus of Branch 36 (Manhattan-Bronx) of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) spearheaded the demand for a branch strike vote. Striking the federal government has been illegal since 1912. But that is exactly what Branch 36 voted to do on March 17. Picket lines went up at midnight all over New York City. Other NALC branches voted to strike, spreading upstate and into New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania; then west to Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Colorado, and California. Together they shut down 671 post offices in dozens of cities and towns across the United States. Clerks, mail handlers, maintenance workers, motor vehicle operators, and other crafts from other postal unions joined what became the largest “wildcat strike ” (one not authorized by a national union) in American labor history. Over 200,000 postal workers struck for eight days. Despite the inconvenience of a total mail stoppage, strikers enjoyed the support of the majority of Americans. Continue Reading Philip F. Rubio: Who Remembers the Nationwide Postal Wildcat Strike of 1970 (and Why Does That Matter)?

Categories African American Studies/American History/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Labor Studies
March 16, 2015

Cian T. McMahon: The Global Dimensions of Saint Patrick

But while Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations have often brought people together under the banner of “Irishness,” they have also served as bellwethers for deep-rooted concerns. After achieving political independence from Britain in the early 1920s, for example, the Irish government sought to consolidate their claims to respectability by prohibiting the sale of alcohol on the saint’s feast day. Throughout the twentieth century, Saint Patrick’s Day parades in Ireland were dour, formal affairs, often conducted through driving curtains of spring rain. Continue Reading Cian T. McMahon: The Global Dimensions of Saint Patrick

Categories Author blog entry/European History/Global Studies/Guest Bloggers/History
March 16, 2015

Book Trailer: The Stigma of Surrender, by Brian K. Feltman

In the video, Feltman shares what initially sparked his interest in the military and social history surrounding prisoners of war during and after World War I and he discusses the psychological impact of captivity on a soldier’s sense of manhood at a time when honor was defined on the battlefield. Continue Reading Book Trailer: The Stigma of Surrender, by Brian K. Feltman

Categories Interviews/Military History/Video
March 11, 2015

Lindsey A. Freeman: On the Anniversary of Fukushima

I am in one of the uncanniest locations to learn of this tragedy on the other side of the globe. Richland was the bedroom community for scientists, engineers, and managers working at the Hanford Site, a top-secret complex created for the Manhattan Project. After the war, Hanford was a key location for nuclear bomb production during the Cold War. Now the site is mostly dedicated to cleaning up after those nuclear adventures. Continue Reading Lindsey A. Freeman: On the Anniversary of Fukushima

Categories Author blog entry/Current Events/Environmental Studies/Guest Bloggers/Science/Sociology/UNC Press Authors
March 2, 2015

R. Douglas Hurt on Agriculture and Confederate Power

A lesser known failure of the Confederacy, however, involved agriculture. In 1861, Southerners considered agriculture an element of power similar to military power, which, combined, would guarantee secession and independence. They were confident that not only would Union armies not prevail but also that their own agricultural capability would prevent the Union from starving the Confederacy into submission. Southerners could fight, feed themselves, and use cotton as a diplomatic tool–assumptions that in the minds of many already made the Confederacy independent. Continue Reading R. Douglas Hurt on Agriculture and Confederate Power

Categories Author blog entry/Civil War/Guest Bloggers/History
February 25, 2015

Lauren J. Silver: Beyond Snapshot Stories: The Power in Youth Representation

2014 was marked by protests across the nation insisting that Black Lives Matter. Many decry the justice system, which has failed to indict officers and vigilantes who have killed unarmed black children, while girl victims receive little notice in the press. We have an urgent need to tell and listen to deeper, more nuanced stories about these youth and other youth of color who remain either invisible or hyper-visible in marked, stereotyped ways. Continue Reading Lauren J. Silver: Beyond Snapshot Stories: The Power in Youth Representation

Categories African American Studies/Author blog entry/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Sociology/Women's Studies
February 19, 2015

Marianne Gingher: ABA Winter Institute 2015

Friendliness was the vibe of my entire experience at ABA’s Winter Institute. I’d expected to meet several North Carolina-based booksellers, but I wasn’t prepared for the tremendous interest booksellers from California, Montana, Colorado, North Dakota, Michigan, Massachusetts, Texas, and Ohio expressed. The thing was, they’d come to North Carolina, seen it with their own eyes, spent time here, liked what they saw, and clearly wanted to share a sense of that experience with their patrons. “Read these folks!” I told them. “You will get all sorts of perspectives on the state, from politics to lyrical meditations on its beauty.” Continue Reading Marianne Gingher: ABA Winter Institute 2015

Categories Author blog entry/Events/Guest Bloggers/Literature/Local Indy Booksellers/North Carolina/The Book Biz/UNC Press News
February 17, 2015

Xiaoming Zhang: Deng Xiaoping and China’s Invasion of Vietnam

Deng Xiaoping’s paramount political status and strength of personality played a major role in shaping China’s foreign policy during the last decade of the Cold War, opposing Soviet hegemony while allying with the United States and other Western countries in order to gain their support for China’s economic reform. Continue Reading Xiaoming Zhang: Deng Xiaoping and China’s Invasion of Vietnam

Categories American History/Asian Studies/Author blog entry/Economics/Guest Bloggers/History/Military History/Military Studies/Politics
February 16, 2015

Adam Wesley Dean on an Industrial North and an Agricultural South

Of the North’s population, over 14.5 million lived in rural areas with a population of less than 2,500, while only 5 million lived in what any reasonable person could call an “urban society.” Roughly 60% of northerners worked on farms. Most farms were small, with the average varying between 113 and 169 acres in the states that stayed loyal to the union. The vast majority of historians and museums have long known these figures and their implications for understanding the war. Why, then, does the state board of education cling to the old story? Perhaps the public feels at ease in labeling the slave-holding Confederacy as something distant, something foreign, a relic of a bygone era, rather than a society in many ways just as capitalist and worldly as our own. Continue Reading Adam Wesley Dean on an Industrial North and an Agricultural South

Categories Author blog entry/Civil War/Guest Bloggers/History
February 2, 2015

Thomas J. Brown on Confederate Retweeting

Twitter is more similar to commemorative forms that have flourished since the mid-twentieth century. It appeals to commercialized recreation rather than ritualized reverence, much as the Confederate battle flag gained visibility through college sports and sustained influence through sales of t-shirts and beach towels. Enthusiasm for social media is part of the celebration of technology that has recently reshaped memory of the Hunley submarine. The concept of historical “live tweeting” resembles efforts of Civil War re-enactors to reproduce conditions of the past, such as the real-time unfolding of events, though my day-by-day chronicle does not pretend to offer the “period rush” some hobbyists find in simulation. Continue Reading Thomas J. Brown on Confederate Retweeting

Categories Author blog entry/Civil War/Events/Guest Bloggers/History/Military History
January 29, 2015

Marcie Cohen Ferris: Civil Rights, Lunch Counters, and North Carolina Basketball

In 1966, Charles “Charlie” Scott (b. 1948 in NYC) became the first African American student to attend the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill on an athletic scholarship. He decided to attend UNC rather than basketball powerhouse Davidson College after a wrenching moment at a small café in Davidson, North Carolina. Former Davidson College basketball star Terry Holland, who both played and later served as assistant coach under the college’s legendary coach Lefty Driesell, and UNC law professor and civil rights attorney Daniel H. Pollitt, who was a passionate advocate for social justice in Chapel Hill during the 1950s and 1960s, vividly recall Scott’s historic decision. Pollitt worked with Dean Smith, UNC’s beloved basketball coach (1961-1997) and Robert Seymour, progressive minister at the Olin T. Binkley Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, to recruit Charlie Scott and to help integrate the university community. Continue Reading Marcie Cohen Ferris: Civil Rights, Lunch Counters, and North Carolina Basketball

Categories African American History/Author blog entry/Civil Rights/Cooking / Food/Guest Bloggers/History/North Carolina/Sports
January 27, 2015

Doug Orr: A Young Pete Seeger Encounters Music of the Appalachians

Pete was seventeen years of age in 1936 when he accompanied his father to Asheville to attend Lunsford’s Mountain Dance and Folk Festival. During Fiona Ritchie and my Wayfaring Strangers book interview with Pete at his home above the Hudson River, Pete recalled that “ordinary working people were making fantastically good music.” The youthful Pete Seeger was mesmerized as Lunsford presided on the spotlighted stage over a parade of square-dance teams, family string bands, singers, fiddlers, and banjo players. There Pete had his formative exposure to the five-string banjo played by Samantha Bumgarner, from whom he acquired his first such instrument. Pete recalled that Lunsford patiently showed him basic banjo licks that Pete would practice and perfect over subsequent years. Continue Reading Doug Orr: A Young Pete Seeger Encounters Music of the Appalachians

Categories Appalachian Studies/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Music/North Carolina
January 26, 2015

Video: Tomas F. Summers Sandoval Jr. on what history tells us about our present

Tomás F. Summers Sandoval Jr., author of Latinos at the Golden Gate: Creating Community and Identity in San Francisco, explains how history might not be synonymous with the past. Continue Reading Video: Tomas F. Summers Sandoval Jr. on what history tells us about our present

Categories History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Latino Studies/Video
January 21, 2015

Brian K. Feltman: Blurred Lines: Prisoners of War, Deserters, and Bowe Bergdahl

Accusations of desertion prompted many of Bergdahl’s supporters to reconsider their positions and left several congressmen scrambling to delete early tweets that praised his service. While many Americans may be surprised by the heated controversy surrounding Bergdahl’s capture, the Bergdahl affair is only the most recent example of the hazy line separating deserters and prisoners of war. Continue Reading Brian K. Feltman: Blurred Lines: Prisoners of War, Deserters, and Bowe Bergdahl

Categories Author blog entry/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/History/Military History/Military Studies
January 14, 2015

Christina D. Abreu: In Honor of Professor Juan Flores

Criticism and embrace of identity terms like “Hispanic” and “Latino/a” have been longstanding in the field of Latino/a Studies. Puerto Ricans, Flores argued, share more in common with African Americans than with other Latino/a groups. He contended that Puerto Ricans and African Americans experience similar forms of racial and ethnic subordination in the United States because of parallels in their location in urban areas, their socioeconomic status, and their position as colonized subjects of the same nation-state. Continue Reading Christina D. Abreu: In Honor of Professor Juan Flores

Categories Author blog entry/Cuba/Cultural Studies/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Latino Studies/Music