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April 15, 2014

Angie Maxwell: The Long Shadow of Scopes

When Bryan agreed to assist the prosecution in the 1925 Scopes trial that would test the Butler Act’s ban of the teaching of evolution in Tennessee, he was anything but new to the debate. Despite his progressive political record on issues such as women’s suffrage, Bryan’s swan song as an anti-evolution crusader was zealous and emphatic. He argued, wrote, and perhaps believed, that this single issue would erode American faith. For Bryan there was no middle, and his readers need only choose sides. His widespread essay on the subject was titled “The Bible and its Enemies,” and he considered the cause the greatest reform of his life. Science and even the experts who defense attorney Clarence Darrow had attempted to call at the trial, were adversaries in a zero-sum game that the world was watching. Continue Reading Angie Maxwell: The Long Shadow of Scopes

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Political Science/Religion/Science
April 10, 2014

Zandria F. Robinson: OutKast Reunion Tour: After Twenty Years, the South Still Got Something to Say

I grew up watching OutKast videos on the now-defunct Video Jukebox Network, affectionately known as “The Box.” Although OutKast received some play on MTV and BET in the early 1990s, it was on The Box, which featured a range of underground southern hip-hop artists, where I could be sure to see André “André 3000” Benjamin, Antwan “Big Boi” Patton, and other southern rappers in regular rotation. Although initially record labels largely ignored southern artists, through homegrown ingenuity, southern rappers soon emerged as a formidable force in the global music industry. By 2005, top spots on music charts were regularly held by southern hip-hop artists, southern R&B singers, or hits produced by southern artists. As Memphis rapper Project Pat noted in 2006: “Now y’all was thinkin’ Dirty South was like, ‘hee-haw, hee-haw’/Is you worth over a hundred mil? We are, we are.” Indeed, the South had something to say. Continue Reading Zandria F. Robinson: OutKast Reunion Tour: After Twenty Years, the South Still Got Something to Say

Categories African American Studies/Author blog entry/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Music/Sociology/Southern Studies
April 7, 2014

Anne Balay: Queer Steelworkers and Labor Unions

I asked him to recall all the people he has worked with—all his union brothers and sisters, down through the years—and count the gay ones. Almost surprised, he said there were none. Of course, he knew as well as I do that there have been many, but that they did not identify themselves as such. My task is then to convince him that their silence was not simply a choice, but rather that it was made in fear, and comes with crippling consequences. Continue Reading Anne Balay: Queer Steelworkers and Labor Unions

Categories American Studies/Author blog entry/Civil Rights/Gay / Lesbian Studies/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers/Labor Studies/Women's Studies
April 3, 2014

K. Stephen Prince: Thinking about Reconstruction at 150 Years

Reconstruction remains one of the most widely misunderstood eras in United States history. Though historians have largely discredited the white supremacist interpretations of William A. Dunning and his students, the Dunning School lives on in the public at large. Otherwise informed and well-meaning individuals unthinkingly parrot early-twentieth-century critiques of Reconstruction, casually dismissing it as an era of federal overreach, northern cruelty, and cynical corruption. My own experience bears out this observation: a friend who claims that Reconstruction failed because it was “too harsh,” or a student who labels the period a “tragedy” without being able to provide a single reason for this characterization. I expect other scholars of the period have had similar experiences. It seems that on an instinctive, knee-jerk level, many Americans respond negatively to Reconstruction, though most could not explain why. The 150th anniversary of Reconstruction offers a perfect opportunity to set the record straight, or at least to give the public a fair accounting of the period’s challenges, its successes, and its failures. Continue Reading K. Stephen Prince: Thinking about Reconstruction at 150 Years

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Civil War/Guest Bloggers/Southern Studies
March 21, 2014

Michael H. Hunt: The Ukraine Crisis and the Rules Great Powers Play By

The United States has championed a values-based approach with a strong missionary impulse behind it. Woodrow Wilson provided its first full-blown articulation, and post-World War II policy saw to its full-blown application. Holding a dominant global position, Washington sought with varying degrees of urgency and determination to advance a basket of ideological goods. U.S. leaders have articulated these goods in a variety of ways such as “democracy,” “free-market capitalism,” and “human rights.” But underlying all these formulations is a strong and distinctly American belief in the autonomy of the individual and a commitment to political liberty and limited state power. In the rhetoric of American statecraft these notions are a leitmotiv. They have generally set the direction of U.S. policy responses to problems of the sort that Ukraine poses. Continue Reading Michael H. Hunt: The Ukraine Crisis and the Rules Great Powers Play By

Categories Author blog entry/Current Events/Michael H. Hunt/Politics
March 19, 2014

Shane J. Maddock: The Case for Nuclear Zero

U.S. military dominance in both the quantity and quality of its weapons has reached a point where it has stopped increasing the nation’s security and has begun to erode it instead. Unable to match the conventional might of the United States, nations who fear American coercion can either seek nuclear weapons to deter a U.S. attack or use the threat of retaliatory terrorist attacks to make Washington pause. U.S. fear that its enemies will resort to either of these two options, in turn, leads to pressure to increase military spending to even higher levels. Continue Reading Shane J. Maddock: The Case for Nuclear Zero

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Military History/Military Studies/Political Science/Politics
March 12, 2014

Anne Balay: The Consequences of Marriage Inequality

For my narrators—the forty transgender, lesbian, and gay steelworkers I interviewed—marriage is complicated. Insurance and survival benefits are not just theoretical issues for them. Continue Reading Anne Balay: The Consequences of Marriage Inequality

Categories Author blog entry/Civil Rights/Gay / Lesbian Studies/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers/Women's Studies
March 11, 2014

Andrea Weigl: One Recipe Leads to Another

One of the things I enjoy most about canning is discovering new recipes. This one for Pear Syrup only happened because I called my mom on the morning before a marathon canning session. I mentioned in passing that I was making Pear Honey. My mother brightened, inquiring about the recipe. She was deflated to hear that Pear Honey was a preserve, like apple butter. She had hoped it was a recipe for a pear syrup that my Grandmother Anna Weigl used to make from the skins of pears. I listened to my mother’s story and decided at that moment to try to recreate my grandmother’s syrup. Continue Reading Andrea Weigl: One Recipe Leads to Another

Categories Author blog entry/Cooking / Food/Guest Bloggers/Recipes
March 10, 2014

Kathryn Shively Meier: A Civil War Soldier Beats the Odds on the Virginia Peninsula

From the summer of 1861 to the spring of 1862, each Confederate or Union soldier was sick an average of three times. It was also the norm for soldiers to shun official army medical care, as they found the medicines loathsome and dreaded being separated from their regiments, often familiar faces from back home. Though contemporary physicians were still caught up in such theories of disease causation as the four humors (the conception that illness occurred when the four main bodily fluids were in need of recalibration), laypeople preferred environmental explanations for sickness that could be confirmed by observation and personal experience. Continue Reading Kathryn Shively Meier: A Civil War Soldier Beats the Odds on the Virginia Peninsula

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Civil War/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine/Military History
March 5, 2014

J. Samuel Walker: The ACC’s Greatest Game

Forty years ago in the ACC tournament finals, the North Carolina State Wolfpack and the University of Maryland Terrapins played a game that experts generally consider the best ever played in conference history. NC State was ranked number one in the country and Maryland was close behind at number four. The game was so memorable not only for the exceptional quality of play but also for the magnitude of the stakes. At that time, only one team per conference qualified for the NCAA tournament, and winning the ACC tournament was essential to compete for the national championship. Continue Reading J. Samuel Walker: The ACC’s Greatest Game

Categories Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Sports
March 4, 2014

Tammy Ingram on the Importance of Roads and the Foundation of the Dixie Highway

At the turn of the 20th century, roads dominated everyday life. They determined where people could and could not travel, as well as whether or not other people, goods, services and even ideas could reach them. Roads dominated conversations around the ballot box and the dinner table, but good roads eluded most Americans and virtually all Southerners Continue Reading Tammy Ingram on the Importance of Roads and the Foundation of the Dixie Highway

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Cultural Studies/Excerpts/Guest Bloggers/Politics
February 26, 2014

Beth Tompkins Bates: What Happened the Last Time Detroit Faced Bankruptcy

In the end, it was the federal government that made the difference between bankruptcy and [Detroit] emerging out of the crisis, as Murphy put it, with credit and honor. Throughout the crisis, Murphy practiced his belief that government’s primary responsibility was to serve the social and economic welfare of people, whose basic needs must not be subordinated to corporate America’s agenda. Continue Reading Beth Tompkins Bates: What Happened the Last Time Detroit Faced Bankruptcy

Categories African American History/American History/Author blog entry/Business/Guest Bloggers/History/Politics
February 21, 2014

Alex Lubin: Malcolm X’s Afro-Arab Political Imaginary

Malcolm’s transition would include rejecting the homegrown and Ahmadiyya-based, heterodox Islam practiced by the Nation of Islam and embracing the intellectual, moral, and political currents of orthodox Sunni Islam, African decolonization, and Arab nationalism. In this way, Malcolm’s political and moral commitments combined sometimes-contradictory political ideologies, including those of Muslim Brothers, secular pan-Africanists, and Nasserist pan-Arabists. Continue Reading Alex Lubin: Malcolm X’s Afro-Arab Political Imaginary

Categories Africa & African Diaspora/African American History/African American Studies/American History/Author blog entry/Global Studies/Guest Bloggers/History/Islamic Studies/Middle Eastern Studies/Religion
February 17, 2014

Jacqueline E. Whitt: Cooperation without Compromise: Military Chaplains’ Responses to the End of DADT

As the movement for the repeal of DADT gained political momentum, dozens of retired military chaplains and civilian religious organizations expressed grave concerns that a repeal of DADT would coerce military chaplains into performing services contrary to the dictates of their religious confession or would effectively silence their protected religious speech about the sinfulness of homosexuality. There were warnings of mass resignations or a mass exodus from the military chaplaincy by evangelical chaplains (who fill most chaplain billets). Ultimately, few chaplains have actually resigned their military commissions as a result of their opposition to the repeal of DADT or the ruling of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional. Continue Reading Jacqueline E. Whitt: Cooperation without Compromise: Military Chaplains’ Responses to the End of DADT

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Christian Studies/Guest Bloggers/Military History/Military Studies/Political Science/Religion
February 10, 2014

Laura Micheletti Puaca: Shopping and the New National Security Frontier

The widespread use of information technology by the military, government, schools, financial institutions, transportation centers, and personal homes (to name just a few) means that nearly every aspect of American society is susceptible to cyber-violations. Hardly limited to the theft of individuals’ personal information, hacking threatens to undermine the nation’s economy and our general safety. Electrical grids, water processing facilities, stock exchanges, and weapons defense systems all depend on computer networks, and any malicious incursions could render disastrous results. Continue Reading Laura Micheletti Puaca: Shopping and the New National Security Frontier

Categories Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Politics/Public Policy
February 6, 2014

Anne Balay: As GLBT freedoms expand, who benefits–and who doesn’t

Queer rights becomes the paradigmatic symbol of the west – in Russia, gay liberation had gained some momentum until Putin linked gay rights with Western values, which then led to the systematic, legal oppression of gays in Russia today. The government is literally going into homes of gay people and taking their children away. And these Russian gays can’t hide, because during the period of comparative freedom, they had come out, and now have public personas. There’s no such thing as going back into the closet – once you’re out, that’s that. Their little window of freedom now targets them for state-sponsored abuse as the freedom and progress queers experience in the USA is used to punish queers globally. Continue Reading Anne Balay: As GLBT freedoms expand, who benefits–and who doesn’t

Categories Author blog entry/Civil Rights/Gay / Lesbian Studies/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers/Labor Studies/Women's Studies
February 3, 2014

Michael H. Hunt and Steven I. Levine: Troubles with Empire

Empire has had a long and troubled career in U.S. politics and culture–and the old angst is still very much with us. Over the last decade or so we have heard the familiar refrain adamantly denying the existence of an American empire, even as some have insisted just as adamantly on the reality or at least the possibility of an American empire. We embarked on our study of the four U.S. wars in Asia with no intention of getting mixed up in what seemed a tired, unproductive debate. We had our hands full working out the contours of our wars and tracing the relationship of each to the others. Continue Reading Michael H. Hunt and Steven I. Levine: Troubles with Empire

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Michael H. Hunt/Military History/Military Studies
January 29, 2014

Beth Tompkins Bates: Will a New Detroit Rise out of the Depths of Despair and Hopelessness?

Will a new Detroit rise out of the ashes of its current crisis? Some cannot imagine the city Forbes recently picked as the nation’s most miserable can reinvent itself. Others place their hopes in the rise of small businesses, including urban farms, manufacturing urban bicycles, hand-made jeans, and even luxury watches. Although new startups have, so far, created only a few hundred jobs, they represent economic diversification, which may prove significant for creating a viable new Detroit after depending on one industry to anchor the community’s welfare for a century.

This is not the first time Detroit has been reinvented. In the early twentieth century the City Council was reorganized and the judicial system was transformed when an autocratic structure that denied the majority access to due process was overturned. The issue of judicial reorganization emerged as the city’s industrial elite attempted to seize control of the courts. It was the last in a series of maneuvers created and led by Henry Ford to regulate and manage the lives of Detroit’s demographically diverse autoworkers. Continue Reading Beth Tompkins Bates: Will a New Detroit Rise out of the Depths of Despair and Hopelessness?

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Author blog entry/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/History
January 23, 2014

Shane J. Maddock: Obama’s Course Correction on Iran

Much of the evidence now available suggests the Bush administration threats reinvigorated a moribund program. A Central Intelligence Agency report contended that Iran had abandoned its weapons program. But after the Bush administration scuttled diplomatic agreements regarding the Iranian program, hardliners took control and argued that Iran needed a nuclear weapon to deter a potential U.S. or Israeli military attack. They argued that Iraq had abandoned its nuclear ambitions under pressure from the West and reaped a brutal invasion for its efforts. North Korea, on the other hand, thwarted Western efforts to end its nuclear weapons program and avoided Baghdad’s fate. Arguments that at least the threat of a nuclear weapon was necessary took on greater persuasiveness given that U.S. military deployments sandwiched Iranian territory. Continue Reading Shane J. Maddock: Obama’s Course Correction on Iran

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Middle Eastern Studies/Military History/Politics