Category: Film

Nicolas G. Rosenthal: Reimagining American Indian Culture in Hollywood and Beyond

From the 1910s through the 1930s, hundreds of American Indians settled in Los Angeles and worked in the motion picture industry as actors, extras, stunt performers, and technical advisors. Some were recruited from reservations to make films for a short period of time. They camped in the Santa Monica Mountains, shot films in its canyons during the day, and explored the city by night. Continue Reading Nicolas G. Rosenthal: Reimagining American Indian Culture in Hollywood and Beyond

Christian McWhirter: Did They Get It Right?: Civil War Music in Popular Film

Glory is noteworthy as one of the few popular representations of the war to include African American music. The Civil War had a tremendous impact on black music but the songs created and sung by African Americans are rarely included in books and films. Although Burns makes use of black spirituals, even he does not incorporate those that were actually most popular among slaves, freedpeople, and USCTs. Continue Reading Christian McWhirter: Did They Get It Right?: Civil War Music in Popular Film

Video: Trailer for ‘Death Row,’ a film by Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian, included in their new book

View the trailer for the documentary film ‘Death Row,’ included in the new book by Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian called ‘In This Timeless Time: Living and Dying on Death Row in America.’ Continue Reading Video: Trailer for ‘Death Row,’ a film by Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian, included in their new book

Historians on ‘The Help’: Vanessa May and Rebecca Sharpless Respond

Historians Vanessa May and Rebecca Sharpless discuss what’s wrong and what’s right with ‘The Help.’ Continue Reading Historians on ‘The Help’: Vanessa May and Rebecca Sharpless Respond

Marvin McAllister: Idris Elba ‘Multi-Levels’ THOR: Norse Mythology Meets Yoruba Cosmology

Historian Marvin McAllister explores the racial and mythical dimensions of casting a black British actor in the role of a Norse god in the recent film THOR. Continue Reading Marvin McAllister: Idris Elba ‘Multi-Levels’ THOR: Norse Mythology Meets Yoruba Cosmology

Karen L. Cox: GONE WITH THE WIND as Southern History

Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that this year marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War epic, Gone with the Wind.  The book and its characters are being celebrated and discussed around the world.  From Atlanta to Calcutta, people have weighed in on why they like the book, how many times… Continue Reading Karen L. Cox: GONE WITH THE WIND as Southern History

Michael Hunt: Restrepo: An Oscar for Afghanistan?

Update 4/21/2011:The lamentable news of Tim Hetherington’s death covering the civil conflict in Libya reached us yesterday (20 April 2011). Restrepo is one of this fine and courageous documentarian’s major achievements. His record of what it meant for U.S. soldiers to fight in the Afghan War will stand the test of time.—MHH Ignore all the vacuous policy statements, the bland… Continue Reading Michael Hunt: Restrepo: An Oscar for Afghanistan?

Candombe, Cachila, and Afro-Uruguay

Taking place this week and next week in Chapel Hill and Durham is the NC Latin American Film Festival, put on by the Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke. Tomorrow night features a screening of director Sebastián Bednarik’s Cachila: un hombre, una familia y el legado del Candombe/Cachila: a man, a family and the… Continue Reading Candombe, Cachila, and Afro-Uruguay

Karey Harwood: IVF Kids: Are They Really All Right?

On Monday the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to the biologist who helped develop in vitro fertilization (IVF). As a New York Times op-ed noted, the honoree is “a man who was reviled, in his time, as doing work that was considered the greatest threat to humanity since the atomic bomb.” Thirty-two years later, there are millions of healthy,… Continue Reading Karey Harwood: IVF Kids: Are They Really All Right?

Islamophobia and Our Love of Shopping

We welcome a guest post today from Susan Nance, author of How the Arabian Nights Inspired the American Dream, 1790-1835. Americans have always shown a fascination with the people, customs, and legends of the “East,” such as the stories of the Arabian Nights, the performances of Arab belly dancers and acrobats, the feats of turban-wearing vaudeville magicians, etc. In her… Continue Reading Islamophobia and Our Love of Shopping

Malinda Maynor Lowery Named One of HNN’s Top Young Historians

Congratulations to Malinda Maynor Lowery, author of Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation, who was recently named one of History News Network’s Top Young Historians. HNN’s feature on Lowery includes a list of professional accomplishments (did you know she has produced award-winning documentary films?) as well as a personal statement from… Continue Reading Malinda Maynor Lowery Named One of HNN’s Top Young Historians

Lena Horne and the Irony of Cultural Politics

We welcome a guest post today from Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff, author of Black Culture and the New Deal: The Quest for Civil Rights in the Roosevelt Era. In her book, Sklaroff argues that New Deal cultural programs supporting notable black intellectuals, celebrities, and artists (including Lena Horne, Joe Louis, Duke Ellington, and Richard Wright) represent a key moment in the… Continue Reading Lena Horne and the Irony of Cultural Politics

‘Change Comes Knocking’ to air on WUNC-TV tonight

Tonight at 10 p.m. on WUNC-TV will be the broadcast premiere of the documentary film Change Comes Knocking: The Story of the NC Fund. The film explores a bold, biracial initiative to fight poverty in 1960s North Carolina. The anti-poverty project known as the North Carolina Fund is also the subject of a new book by Robert Korstad and James… Continue Reading ‘Change Comes Knocking’ to air on WUNC-TV tonight

To Right These Wrongs: A Groundbreaking Project

The first few books from UNC Press’ Spring|Summer 2010 catalog made it to bookshelves this month, and many more will be debuting in the coming months. One of the books we’re excited to publish, in partnership with Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement, is Robert R. Korstad and James L. Leloudis’ To Right These Wrongs: The North Carolina Fund and… Continue Reading To Right These Wrongs: A Groundbreaking Project

Avatar, Southern Gateways, & Disney Princesses: Around the Internet

Happy Friday, readers! Here at UNC Press, we’re finishing up our book launch week–planning out our titles for Fall 2010. The books we plan to put on the shelves in 2010 have us very excited, and we know you’ll enjoy them. In the meantime though, we thought it would be good to highlight some of the interesting events happening across… Continue Reading Avatar, Southern Gateways, & Disney Princesses: Around the Internet

Miguel Pinero: prisoner, playwright

Today we welcome a guest post from Lee Bernstein, author of America Is the Prison: Arts and Politics in Prison in the 1970s (forthcoming June 2010). In his book, Bernstein explores the forces that sparked a dramatic “prison art renaissance” in the 1970s, when incarcerated people produced powerful works of writing, performance, and visual art. One of the important figures… Continue Reading Miguel Pinero: prisoner, playwright

Web 2.0, Text Wars, and Building the Better Book: How the Internet Changes Everything We Do

Today, The New York Times ran Jones County, Miss. – Civil War Fires Up Literary Shootout, a report by Michael Cieply about two conflicting books and a yet-to-be greenlighted Hollywood movie. At the center of everything lies Newton Knight, a white, landowning, Confederate deserter living deep in Mississippi, who famously tried to secede and form the Free State of Jones.… Continue Reading Web 2.0, Text Wars, and Building the Better Book: How the Internet Changes Everything We Do