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December 18, 2013

Jacqueline E. Whitt: Merry Chrismahanukwanzakah from Uncle Sam

The difference between the two positions is stark—but the key to understanding the divergence rests in recognizing the different assumptions and interpretations of the First Amendment. For groups such as the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the establishment clause is at the heart of the argument. And for [Tony] Perkins and many other religious groups and individuals, the free exercise clause is central to the question. The problem, of course, is that the First Amendment doesn’t give primacy to one clause over the other. They are co-equal and held in tension. Continue Reading Jacqueline E. Whitt: Merry Chrismahanukwanzakah from Uncle Sam

Categories American Studies/Author blog entry/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Military Studies/Religion
April 17, 2013

David W. Stowe: A Conversation about the Jesus Movement with Malcolm Magee

The Jesus music had a visceral effect on my peers and me. Music was all around us and a constant emotional and intellectual force in the 1970s. It was very much the vehicle for communicating this faith. Music identified us. It captured the emotion that was largely absent in the churches that emerged from the 1950s. The music communicated both an identity and a mission. We all felt like we were going to somehow change the world. Music, however could be exploited. Continue Reading David W. Stowe: A Conversation about the Jesus Movement with Malcolm Magee

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Christian Studies/Guest Bloggers/History/Music/Religion
February 14, 2013

Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: Jesus Jokes and Racial Pain

Jesus has had a long, exciting, funny, and painful life in America. From the slave ships of the Atlantic Ocean to the Hollywood sets along the Golden Coast, from the visions out of Indian country to the artwork of children, from the firing of bullets to the construction of billboards, Jesus has been born, crucified, and resurrected in America’s racial sagas. Those of the twenty-first century laugh because there is so much to cry over. Continue Reading Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: Jesus Jokes and Racial Pain

Categories African American Studies/American Studies/Author blog entry/Christian Studies/Guest Bloggers/Religion
January 22, 2013

Marc Stein: Five Myths about Roe v. Wade

On 22 January 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Roe v. Wade, the abortion rights case that culminated in one of the most controversial legal rulings in the country’s history. Forty years later, numerous myths continue to circulate about the contents and meanings of Roe. Here are five of the most significant. Continue Reading Marc Stein: Five Myths about Roe v. Wade

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Biology/Ethics/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine/History/Law / Legal History/Politics/Religion/Women's Studies
January 16, 2013

Edward J. Blum & Paul Harvey: The KKK and Jesus Christ

To justify their more rigorous white supremacy that stood against racial segregation and for immigrant restriction and conservative politics, the Klan in the 1910s and ’20s turned to the white Jesus. Continue Reading Edward J. Blum & Paul Harvey: The KKK and Jesus Christ

Categories American History/American Studies/Christian Studies/History/Interviews/Religion
December 5, 2012

Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: White Jesus and the Publius Lentulus Letter

The most fascinating thing about the letter is that before the Civil War, just about everyone knew that it was a fraud. Whenever Americans discussed it, such as the President of Yale University Ezra Stiles, they admitted that it was a fake and that the Bible said nothing of what Jesus looked like. But then between the Civil War and the Great Depression, white Americans transformed it into a believed truth. Continue Reading Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: White Jesus and the Publius Lentulus Letter

Categories American History/American Studies/Christian Studies/History/Interviews/Religion
November 7, 2012

Fall sale wrap-up: new categories 50% off, sale ends soon!

Announcing our last four sale subjects, all at 50% off, with free shipping for orders over $75 for the next two weeks. Continue Reading Fall sale wrap-up: new categories 50% off, sale ends soon!

Categories African American Studies/American History/American Studies/Art / Architecture/Biography / Autobiography/Business/Civil War/Craft/History/Latino Studies/Literature/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies/Political Science/Religion/Sale/Southern Studies/UNC Press News/Women's Studies
November 5, 2012

Interview: Daniel W. Patterson on The True Image

A thousand unique gravestones cluster around old Presbyterian churches in the piedmont of the two Carolinas and in central Pennsylvania. Most are the vulnerable legacy of the Bigham family, Scotch Irish stonecutters whose workshop near Charlotte created the earliest surviving art of British settlers in the region. In The True Image, Daniel Patterson documents the craftsmanship of this group and the current appearance of the stones. In two hundred of his photographs, he records these stones for future generations and compares their iconography and inscriptions with those of other early monuments in the United States, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Continue Reading Interview: Daniel W. Patterson on The True Image

Categories American History/American Studies/Art / Architecture/folklore/History/Interviews/North Carolina/Religion
October 24, 2012

UNC Press Fall Sale: New categories

New Fall sale categories: business history and southern history. Throughout the fall, we’re offering 50% off selected titles in the disciplines listed below. Enter 01SALE12 at checkout. Spend $75.00 and the shipping is free. Continue Reading UNC Press Fall Sale: New categories

Categories African American History/American History/American Studies/Art / Architecture/Biography / Autobiography/Business/Civil War/Craft/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Literature/Religion/Sale/Southern Studies/Women's Studies
October 22, 2012

Sarah E. Ruble: All Americans Are Missionaries

2012 marks the two hundredth anniversary of the first Protestant American foreign missionaries. Over the course of those years, the movement’s fortunes and its public presence have waxed and waned. In 1812, the movement boasted five missionaries sailing to the Indian subcontinent. One hundred years later, its most prominent members were recruited for diplomatic missions. Yet whatever the public perception of missionaries, their work raises significant questions, even for people who might have little interest in the movement itself. Continue Reading Sarah E. Ruble: All Americans Are Missionaries

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Christian Studies/Guest Bloggers/History/Religion
October 10, 2012

Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: The Christ-less Revolution

Jesus was part of the Revolution and formation of the United States, but not as much as one might expect. As a physical presence, he was almost completely absent. And in the language of law and legislation for the new republic, he was virtually as nonexistent. In comparison to how prominent Jesus would become in the United States of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Revolution and founding of the new nation were profoundly Christ-less. Continue Reading Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: The Christ-less Revolution

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Christian Studies/Guest Bloggers/History/Religion
September 27, 2012

Anne M. Butler: Nuns and the Road to Academic Recognition

In nineteenth-century America, Catholic sisters, despite disapproval, increasingly pursued opportunities for higher education. They did so to satisfy their personal intellectual interests and to meet new requirements for certification by government agencies. Continue Reading Anne M. Butler: Nuns and the Road to Academic Recognition

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Christian Studies/Education/Guest Bloggers/History/Religion/Women's Studies
September 24, 2012

Interview: Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey

When Americans made Jesus white, they gave a racial spin to creation, to redemption in the form of Jesus, and to the future Apocalypse. This is crucial because it allows white people to see whiteness and racial categories as everlasting. Continue Reading Interview: Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey

Categories African American Studies/American History/American Studies/Christian Studies/History/Interviews/Religion
September 19, 2012

The UNC Press fall sale is underway! Save up to 50% on select titles

Throughout the fall, we’re offering 50% off selected titles in the disciplines listed below. Enter 01SALE12 at checkout. Spend $75.00 and the shipping is free. Continue Reading The UNC Press fall sale is underway! Save up to 50% on select titles

Categories African American History/American History/American Studies/Art / Architecture/Biography / Autobiography/Civil War/Craft/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Literature/Religion/Sale/UNC Press News/Women's Studies
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
August 29, 2012

Anne M. Butler: Sisterhoods and Habits

Most sisters do not wear the once ubiquitous garb any more; many bishops yearn to see the gender-weighted tradition reinstated; nostalgic lay people reminisce about the habit along with such Catholic signposts as fish on Friday or parish bingo. It is time to drop the overdone fascination with the antiquated clothing of an earlier era—the long black veils, starched bonnets, and sweeping serge skirts—that supposedly measured the holiness of cloistered women, or at least made nuns easy to identify. Continue Reading Anne M. Butler: Sisterhoods and Habits

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Christian Studies/Guest Bloggers/History/Religion
July 19, 2012

Video: Jesus Christ at Comic-Con

In The Color of Christ, Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey discuss America’s perceptions of the race of Jesus Christ. To observe some popular opinions, an interviewer and a camera went to Comic-Con, where they asked attendees about their views of Jesus. From questions about who would win in a fight, Jesus or the Joker? to popular perceptions of Jesus’ race, see the colorful answers from the even more colorful Comic-Con goers. Continue Reading Video: Jesus Christ at Comic-Con

Categories American History/American Studies/Christian Studies/History/Religion/Video
June 25, 2012

Excerpt: Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement, by Randal Maurice Jelks

Mays’s own life took him from the nadir of Jim Crow in the Deep South, to the long march of civil rights agitation and education, to the culmination of the Black Freedom struggle in the late 1960s. Long before King began his ministry in Montgomery, Mays had advocated that black churches become centers of civil rights activism, and he was delighted when they nurtured a democratic movement that brought down the walls of racial segregation in the United States. Continue Reading Excerpt: Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement, by Randal Maurice Jelks

Categories African American Studies/Biography / Autobiography/Civil Rights/Excerpts/Religion/Southern Studies
May 11, 2012

Excerpt: Dixie Dharma, by Jeff Wilson

Pluralistic attitudes toward Buddhism can be found in many parts of the United States, but it is no accident that this unusually institutionalized example of Buddhist pluralism emerged in the South, where practitioners are relatively isolated from the American Buddhist strongholds in the North and West and must work together in order to maintain a presence on the landscape. Continue Reading Excerpt: Dixie Dharma, by Jeff Wilson

Categories Asian Studies/Excerpts/Religion/Southern Studies