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Category: Media Studies

April 26, 2023

Circulating Specters: An Excerpt from “Seeing Things”

The following is an excerpt from Seeing Things: Technologies of Vision and the Making of Mormonism by Mason Kamana Allred which is available wherever books are sold. Allred articulates in this ambitious entry some fascinating connections between Latter-day Saint theology, technology, and identity formation . . . . Deeply conversant in critical theory, the author establishes inventive arguments supported by… Continue Reading Circulating Specters: An Excerpt from “Seeing Things”

Categories Excerpts/Media Studies/Religion
August 23, 2022

We The Dead – On Sale Now

We The Dead: Preserving Data at the End of the World by Brian Michael Murphy, is available now wherever books and ebooks are sold. Locked away in refrigerated vaults, sanitized by gas chambers, and secured within bombproof caverns deep under mountains are America’s most prized materials: the ever-expanding collection of records that now accompany each of us from birth to… Continue Reading We The Dead – On Sale Now

Categories American Studies/Media Studies
August 22, 2019

Author Interview: Eric Muller on “The Terror: Infamy”

Eric Muller, editor of Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Incarceration in World War II, offers a historical perspective on the opening episodes of the “The Terror: Infamy,” airing now on AMC. ### Q: What were your general impressions of the second episode of the AMC anthology series, “The Terror: Infamy,” which is set in part in a Japanese… Continue Reading Author Interview: Eric Muller on “The Terror: Infamy”

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Interviews/Media Studies/UNC Press News
November 5, 2018

Benjamin T. Smith: Fake News, Chinese Boxes, and the Mexican Art of Manipulating the Press

Today we welcome a guest post from Benjamin T. Smith, author of The Mexican Press and Civil Society, 1940–1976:  Stories from the Newsroom, Stories from the Street, just published by UNC Press. Mexico today is one of the most dangerous places in the world to report the news, and Mexicans have taken to the street to defend freedom of expression.… Continue Reading Benjamin T. Smith: Fake News, Chinese Boxes, and the Mexican Art of Manipulating the Press

Categories Author blog entry/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Media Studies/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
October 2, 2018

Benjamin T. Smith: Por Qué, Por Qué?

Today we welcome a guest post from Benjamin T. Smith, author of The Mexican Press and Civil Society, 1940–1976:  Stories from the Newsroom, Stories from the Street, just published by UNC Press. Mexico today is one of the most dangerous places in the world to report the news, and Mexicans have taken to the street to defend freedom of expression.… Continue Reading Benjamin T. Smith: Por Qué, Por Qué?

Categories Author blog entry/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Media Studies/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
February 5, 2018

Kenneth Joel Zogry: The First Battle to Remove Confederate Symbolism from UNC

February marks the anniversary of the founding of the Daily Tar Heel, the daily student newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Today we welcome a guest post from Kenneth Joel Zogry, author of Print News and Raise Hell:  The Daily Tar Heel and the Evolution of a Modern University. For over 125 years, the Daily Tar Heel… Continue Reading Kenneth Joel Zogry: The First Battle to Remove Confederate Symbolism from UNC

Categories Civil Rights/History/Media Studies/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
September 25, 2017

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

Categories Anthropology/Author blog entry/Cultural Studies/Film/Media Studies/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
September 20, 2017

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

Categories American Studies/Asian Studies/Author blog entry/Cartoon/Cultural Studies/Global Studies/Media Studies/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
November 18, 2016

University Press Week 2016 Blog Tour Day 5: #FF UNC Press Publishing Partners

We have celebrated the theme of Community for the past several days with our sibling publishers in the Association of American University Presses’ #UPweek. Today we invite you into our own virtual rolodex to introduce you to just some of the many partner organizations with whom we have collaborated to make many of your favorite books and journals possible. Continue Reading University Press Week 2016 Blog Tour Day 5: #FF UNC Press Publishing Partners

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Biography / Autobiography/Civil Rights/Documentary Studies/History/Journals/Media Studies/Music/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies/North Carolina/Photography/Southern Studies/The Book Biz/Travel/UNC Press News/Women's Studies
May 6, 2016

Jeff Porter: The Many Lives of Orson Welles

If he were still alive, Orson Welles (1915-1985) would be 101 years old today. Welles is remembered as one of America’s most important filmmakers, but before he became famous for his movies, Welles ruled the airwaves. Continue Reading Jeff Porter: The Many Lives of Orson Welles

Categories American Studies/Author blog entry/Film/Guest Bloggers/Literature/Media Studies
April 28, 2016

LaKisha Michelle Simmons: Landscapes, Memories, and History in Beyoncé’s Lemonade

Some writers have noted the presence of the “southern gothic” or the “southern porch” in Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s visceral visual album Lemonade. But the landscapes are unambiguously part of the geography of Louisiana; the visual album is haunting because of its specificity to place. Barely visible, in the discussion thus far, is the history of slavery—and its remnants—all over the landscape of the album. Continue Reading LaKisha Michelle Simmons: Landscapes, Memories, and History in Beyoncé’s Lemonade

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Author blog entry/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers/Media Studies/Southern Studies/Women's Studies
April 16, 2015

David Gilbert: The Streaming Music Debate: Some Historical Context

It is certainly an interesting time for the creation, selling, and distribution of popular music (not to mention less-popular music, like jazz and classical, which encounter even more drastic dilemmas, as recently pointed out at Salon.com). Many of the artists taking a stand against the new status quo in recorded music allude to the history of music making in the United States, often referring back to earlier eras wherein musicians received unfair deals from recording companies and large majorities of performers struggled to make a living, even as a “top 1%” of musicians dominated sales and marketing. This look back to history makes sense. Continue Reading David Gilbert: The Streaming Music Debate: Some Historical Context

Categories African American Studies/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Media Studies/Music
May 6, 2014

Introducing: Saving Community Journalism book and website

In addition to the book, which is available now in hardcover and ebook, there are online resources for learning more, staying up to date, and continuing the conversation. Visit SavingCommunityJournalism.com to find lessons for publishers and editors, helpful videos, links to social media communities, and blog posts about how to build sustainable community journalism for the 21st century. Continue Reading Introducing: Saving Community Journalism book and website

Categories Business/Media Studies/UNC Press News
November 22, 2013

50 Years Ago: Historians on the Legacies of JFK

Blair L. M. Kelley and Kathryn Cramer Brownell consider the assassination of JFK in the contexts of the civil rights movement, media spectacle, and shifting political structures. Continue Reading 50 Years Ago: Historians on the Legacies of JFK

Categories African American Studies/American History/American Studies/Civil Rights/History/Media Studies/Politics
September 17, 2012

Sarah E. Ruble: The Newsroom and American Exceptionalism

American exceptionalism, or the idea that the United States is somehow both different and better from all other nations, has a long history. From the decision to put novus ordo seclorum (a new order for the ages) on the back of the Great Seal of the United States to President Barack Obama’s claim during his 2008 inaugural that “we are ready to lead once more,” many Americans have believed that their country is something different from anything that has come before or that has arisen since. A leader. A new order. Continue Reading Sarah E. Ruble: The Newsroom and American Exceptionalism

Categories American Studies/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Media Studies/Political Science/Religion/Video
July 30, 2012

Miles Orvell: From Mayberry to Dogville: The Small Town as Microcosm

Mayberry, Lake Wobegon, Hadleyburg, Dogville—these are extreme representations of the small town and they are in direct conflict with one another. Taken together, they reveal the contradictions of the American twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Continue Reading Miles Orvell: From Mayberry to Dogville: The Small Town as Microcosm

Categories American Studies/Author blog entry/Fiction/Film/Guest Bloggers/Literature/Media Studies
April 19, 2012

Karen L. Cox: Black Domestic in a Can: A South Carolina Ad Agency “Helps” Glory Foods

Who is the company trying to reach with these commercials except, perhaps, all those white women who read ‘The Help’ and are looking to recapture some of that for themselves? It’s certainly an interesting marketing ploy. Perhaps that is the point. Continue Reading Karen L. Cox: Black Domestic in a Can: A South Carolina Ad Agency “Helps” Glory Foods

Categories African American Studies/American Studies/Author blog entry/Columnists/Cooking / Food/Guest Bloggers/Karen L. Cox/Media Studies/Southern Studies
March 15, 2012

Karen L. Cox: Republican Candidates in the South: A Confederacy of Dunces. So, too, MSNBC’s Martin Bashir & Co.

[This article is cross-posted from Pop South.] Oh, for goodness sake! The Republican candidates for president went South and the next thing you know Mitt Romney touted “cheesy grits” and practiced saying “ya’ll,” and Rick Santorum adopted a hick accent and told people “I got kin here in Mississippi. I’m not sure. . . (don’t say “what I think about it!”). .… Continue Reading Karen L. Cox: Republican Candidates in the South: A Confederacy of Dunces. So, too, MSNBC’s Martin Bashir & Co.

Categories American Studies/Author blog entry/Columnists/Guest Bloggers/Karen L. Cox/Media Studies/Politics/Southern Studies
December 14, 2011

Joseph Genetin-Pilawa: “Documented Rights” & Representations of Indigenous History in the Archive

The virtual exhibit “Documented Rights” raises some interesting challenges for scholars and museum professionals alike. It also reminds us that the struggle “for personal rights and freedoms” means something different for Indigenous people. While NARA should be congratulated for its attempt to do some justice to representing the Native experience, “Documented Rights” sheds light on the difficulty of doing so without replicating settler-colonial/archival patterns of organizing, categorizing, and flattening those histories. Continue Reading Joseph Genetin-Pilawa: “Documented Rights” & Representations of Indigenous History in the Archive

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Media Studies/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies