Category: Guest Bloggers

Irfan Ahmad: Beyond Trump’s Notion of the “Pathetic Critic”

Today we welcome a guest post from Irfan Ahmad, author of Religion as Critique:  Islamic Critical Thinking from Mecca to the Marketplace.  Professor Ahmad is an anthropologist and senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Studies in Göttingen, Germany. In Religion as Critique, Irfan Ahmad makes the far-reaching argument that potent systems and… Continue Reading Irfan Ahmad: Beyond Trump’s Notion of the “Pathetic Critic”

Megan Raby: Ecology and U.S. Empire in the Caribbean

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Megan Raby, author of American Tropics:  The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science. Biodiversity has been a key concept in international conservation since the 1980s, yet historians have paid little attention to its origins. Uncovering its roots in tropical fieldwork and the southward expansion of U.S. empire at the turn of the twentieth… Continue Reading Megan Raby: Ecology and U.S. Empire in the Caribbean

Mary Elizabeth Basile Chopas: The Lessons of World War II Selective Internment

Today, we welcome a guest post from Mary Elizabeth Basile Chopas, author of Searching for Subversives:  The Story of Italian Internment in Wartime America. When the United States entered World War II, Italian nationals living in this country were declared enemy aliens and faced with legal restrictions. Several thousand aliens and a few U.S. citizens were arrested and underwent flawed… Continue Reading Mary Elizabeth Basile Chopas: The Lessons of World War II Selective Internment

Elaine Maisner: Announcing a Multimedia Collaboration between UNC Press and Mavcor on Material Religion

Elaine Maisner is Executive Editor at UNC Press.  A Communion of Shadows: Religion and Photography in Nineteenth-Century America, is available now in both print and e-book editions. ### As the UNC Press editor responsible for our list in religious studies, I am delighted to announce that Rachel McBride Lindsey’s book, A Communion of Shadows: Religion and Photography in Nineteenth-Century America,… Continue Reading Elaine Maisner: Announcing a Multimedia Collaboration between UNC Press and Mavcor on Material Religion

Joan Marie Johnson: November 6, 1917 — Women Win the Right to Vote in New York State

Today we welcome a guest post from Joan Marie Johnson, author of Funding Feminism: Monied Women, Philanthropy, and the Women’s Movement, 1870–1967, on how women won the right to vote in New York State. In Funding Feminism, Joan Marie Johnson examines an understudied dimension of women’s history in the United States: how a group of affluent white women from the… Continue Reading Joan Marie Johnson: November 6, 1917 — Women Win the Right to Vote in New York State

Eve E. Buckley: The Power and Paucity of Primary Documents for Latin American Historians

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Eve E. Buckley, author of Technocrats and the Politics of Drought and Development in Twentieth-Century Brazil, on drought and regional development in Brazil. Eve E. Buckley’s study of twentieth-century Brazil examines the nation’s hard social realities through the history of science, focusing on the use of technology and engineering as vexed instruments of… Continue Reading Eve E. Buckley: The Power and Paucity of Primary Documents for Latin American Historians

M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska: Consuming History

Today, we welcome a guest post from M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska, author of History Comes Alive:  Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s, on throwback jerseys and limited edition cereal boxes. During the 1976 Bicentennial celebration, millions of Americans engaged with the past in brand-new ways. They became absorbed by historical miniseries like Roots, visited museums with new exhibits that immersed… Continue Reading M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska: Consuming History

Jessica Ziparo: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Equal Pay

Today we welcome a guest post from Jessica Ziparo, author of This Grand Experiment:  When Women Entered the Federal Workforce in Civil War–Era Washington, D.C., looking back on the first debates about equal pay for equal work. In the volatility of the Civil War, the federal government opened its payrolls to women. Thousands of female applicants from across the country… Continue Reading Jessica Ziparo: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Equal Pay

Jeffrey J. Crow: Rethinking North Carolina History

Today, we welcome a guest post from Jeffrey J. Crow, co-editor (along with Larry E. Tise) of New Voyages to Carolina:  Reinterpreting North Carolina History, on a new way to view North Carolina history. New Voyages to Carolina offers a bold new approach for understanding and telling North Carolina’s history. Recognizing the need for such a fresh approach and reflecting… Continue Reading Jeffrey J. Crow: Rethinking North Carolina History

Larry E. Tise: A New Narrative for North Carolina History

Today, we welcome a guest post from Larry E. Tise, co-editor (along with Jeffrey J. Crow) of New Voyages to Carolina:  Reinterpreting North Carolina History, on a new way to view North Carolina history. New Voyages to Carolina offers a bold new approach for understanding and telling North Carolina’s history. Recognizing the need for such a fresh approach and reflecting… Continue Reading Larry E. Tise: A New Narrative for North Carolina History

Anthony Chaney: The Royal Scam

Today, we welcome a guest post from Anthony Chaney, author of Runaway:  Gregory Bateson, the Double Bind, and the Rise of Ecological Consciousness, on Steely Dan, Columbia House and the negative-option record club. The anthropologist Gregory Bateson has been called a lost giant of twentieth-century thought. In the years following World War II, Bateson was among the group of mathematicians,… Continue Reading Anthony Chaney: The Royal Scam

Stephanie Hinnershitz: Before Loving: How the Naim v. Naim Case Challenges Civil Rights Narratives

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Stephanie Hinnershitz, author of A Different Shade of Justice: Asian American Civil Rights in the South, on the global nature of struggles over civil rights. From the formation of Chinese and Japanese communities in the early twentieth century through Indian hotel owners’ battles against business discrimination in the 1980s and ’90s, Stephanie… Continue Reading Stephanie Hinnershitz: Before Loving: How the Naim v. Naim Case Challenges Civil Rights Narratives

Douglas Hunter: Dighton Rock, Leif Eriksson, and the Origins of Scientific Racism

Today we welcome a guest post from Douglas Hunter, author of The Place of Stone:  Dighton Rock and the Erasure of America’s Indigenous Past, on the contested history of Dighton Rock and it’s petroglyphs. Claimed by many to be the most frequently documented artifact in American archeology, Dighton Rock is a forty-ton boulder covered in petroglyphs in southern Massachusetts. First… Continue Reading Douglas Hunter: Dighton Rock, Leif Eriksson, and the Origins of Scientific Racism

Anthony Chaney: Movie Monsters That Disturb Our Sleep

Today, we welcome a guest post from Anthony Chaney, author of Runaway:  Gregory Bateson, the Double Bind, and the Rise of Ecological Consciousness, who ruminates on nature, evolution, and the mind of movie sharks and dinosaurs. The anthropologist Gregory Bateson has been called a lost giant of twentieth-century thought. In the years following World War II, Bateson was among the… Continue Reading Anthony Chaney: Movie Monsters That Disturb Our Sleep

Nicholas Grant: Apartheid South Africa and the 1957 Little Rock Crisis

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Nicholas Grant, author of Winning Our Freedoms Together: African Americans and Apartheid, 1945–1960, on the South African government’s reaction to the 1957 crisis over the integration of Little Rock Central High School. Winning Our Freedoms Together examines how African Americans engaged with, supported, and were inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement. Bringing… Continue Reading Nicholas Grant: Apartheid South Africa and the 1957 Little Rock Crisis

Karen R. Roybal: Do You Swear to Tell Nothing but the Truth?

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Karen R. Roybal, author of Archives of Dispossession:  Recovering the Testimonios of Mexican American Herederas, 1848–1960, on the importance of archival research. One method of American territory expansion in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands was the denial of property rights to Mexican landowners, which led to dispossession. Many historical accounts overlook this colonial impact on… Continue Reading Karen R. Roybal: Do You Swear to Tell Nothing but the Truth?

Andrew C. McKevitt: Globalization’s Heroes in the Age of Trumpism

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Andrew C. McKevitt, author of Consuming Japan: Popular Culture and the Globalizing of 1980s, on the popularity and impact of anime and manga in America today. Consuming Japan explores the intense and ultimately fleeting moment in 1980s America when the future looked Japanese. Would Japan’s remarkable post–World War II economic success enable the East Asian… Continue Reading Andrew C. McKevitt: Globalization’s Heroes in the Age of Trumpism

Eve E. Buckley: Science and the Challenges of Social Transformation

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Eve E. Buckley, author of Technocrats and the Politics of Drought and Development in Twentieth-Century Brazil, on drought and regional development in Brazil. Eve E. Buckley’s study of twentieth-century Brazil examines the nation’s hard social realities through the history of science, focusing on the use of technology and engineering as vexed instruments of… Continue Reading Eve E. Buckley: Science and the Challenges of Social Transformation

Andrew C. McKevitt: UAW’s Defeat at Nissan and the Path Forward

On August 4, 2017, workers at Nissan’s assembly plant in Canton, Mississippi, voted to reject representation by the United Auto Workers union. The loss stung, to be sure, but the once-powerful UAW has become accustomed to failure in its efforts to organize auto production facilities operated by foreign companies. Twice previously, in 1989 and 2001, workers rejected the union at Nissan’s plant in Smyrna, Tennessee,—the company’s first North American plant, and only the second Japanese-owned plant in the United States. Continue Reading Andrew C. McKevitt: UAW’s Defeat at Nissan and the Path Forward

Mr. Seashell’s Legacy Lives On

There are few people in North Carolina who know seashells as well as Hugh Porter. Born in Ohio, he came to North Carolina in the mid 1950s and quickly earned the nickname “Mr. Seashell” for his extensive knowledge and passion for mollusks. This summer, North Carolina Sea Grant and the University of North Carolina Press are honoring Porter’s contributions to the state and celebrating the 20th year of his book, Seashells of North Carolina.
Continue Reading Mr. Seashell’s Legacy Lives On