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March 28, 2014

UNC Press & NCPedia Launch Free Online Edition of The North Carolina Gazetteer

In partnership with NCPedia and the N.C. Government and Heritage Library, UNC Press is now making the entirety of The North Carolina Gazetteer available online at ncpedia.org. The North Carolina Gazetteer documents and defines North Carolina’s geographical places by describing their location, history, and origins. UNC Press first published the encyclopedia, compiled by noted North Carolina historian William S. Powell, in 1968. Michael Hill of the N.C. Office of Archives and History updated and expanded the volume in a revised edition in 2010. Hill explains, “The key is that, whereas other sources list just the name, Powell’s book included the stories and derivations behind the names. No other state has anything like it.” Continue Reading UNC Press & NCPedia Launch Free Online Edition of The North Carolina Gazetteer

Categories North Carolina/Southern Studies/UNC Press News
December 10, 2013

Video: Rebecca Sharpless on Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens

A video of Rebecca Sharpless’s talk on the history of African American women cooks in white households in the South, given at the 16th annual Southern Foodways Symposium, October 2013. Video produced by the Southern Foodways Alliance. Continue Reading Video: Rebecca Sharpless on Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Civil Rights/Cooking / Food/History/Southern Studies/Video/Women's Studies
December 5, 2013

The Best of Enemies: Durham History from Page to Stage

Durham’s ManBites Dog Theater hosts “The Best of Enemies,” a play based on the book by Osha Gray Davidson about the unlikely friendship between a poor white member of the KKK and a poor black civil rights activist in 1960s North Carolina. Continue Reading The Best of Enemies: Durham History from Page to Stage

Categories African American Studies/American History/Civil Rights/Events/History/North Carolina/Sociology/Southern Studies/Theatre & Performing Arts/Video
November 14, 2013

University Press Week 2013: Blog Tour Day 4: Mark Simpson-Vos: Remembering Region

I’m convinced region matters more than ever. And indeed, we need university presses more than ever to work in concert with authors, booksellers, and reading communities to build conversations that scale from the local to the global and back again. Continue Reading University Press Week 2013: Blog Tour Day 4: Mark Simpson-Vos: Remembering Region

Categories North Carolina/Southern Studies/The Book Biz/UNC Press News
September 17, 2013

Twelve Years a Slave: The Narrative Behind the Film

The film tells the story of Solomon Northrup (Ejiofor), a free man and fiddle-player from New York who was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in Louisiana. It explores Northrup’s efforts to retain his dignity in the face of inhumanity as he longs for the family he was taken from and hopes for freedom throughout time in the employ of three different masters, ranging from a kindly preacher (Benedict Cumberbatch) to a cruel plantation owner (Fassbender). Remarkably, and horrifically, the story is a true one. Continue Reading Twelve Years a Slave: The Narrative Behind the Film

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Biography / Autobiography/Film/History/Literature/Southern Studies
September 10, 2013

William Ferris: Comfort in My Mother’s Stories

Our daily conversations help me understand Mother’s story. Her long life is filled with tales, like a library with shelves of books. Each day we select a story that reminds me of who I am and why family and place are so important in my life. Continue Reading William Ferris: Comfort in My Mother’s Stories

Categories Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Literature/Southern Studies
August 6, 2013

William Ferris: A Little Bit of Story in Everything

My grandfather loved to tell me the long, frightening story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. When he finished telling the tale, I would ask him, “Grandad, tell it again.” And he would patiently tell me the story again. No memory from my childhood burns brighter than this story and its telling by my grandfather. Continue Reading William Ferris: A Little Bit of Story in Everything

Categories Art / Architecture/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Literature/Southern Studies
July 25, 2013

Video: Bland Simpson on NC Bookwatch

In Two Captains from Carolina, Bland Simpson twines together the lives of two accomplished nineteenth-century mariners from North Carolina–one African American, one Irish American. Though Moses Grandy (ca. 1791- ca. 1850) and John Newland Maffitt Jr. (1819-1886) never met, their stories bring to vivid life the saga of race and maritime culture in the antebellum and Civil War-era South. With his lyrical prose and inimitable voice, Bland Simpson offers readers a grand tale of the striving human spirit and the great divide that nearly sundered the nation.

In this interview on NC Bookwatch, Simpson speaks with host D.G. Martin about Two Captains from Carolina and the fascinating lives led by Grandy, former slave turned Boston abolitionist, and Maffit, a midshipman in the U.S. Navy at age thirteen turned legendary blockade runner. Simpson also explains his reasons for contrasting these two men with each other in this “nonfiction novel.” Continue Reading Video: Bland Simpson on NC Bookwatch

Categories Civil War/History/Interviews/North Carolina/Southern Studies/Video
November 30, 2012

Southern Gateways: essential southern reading that makes a great gift

Our Holiday Sale is now underway! If you need some gift ideas for the folks on your list, our Southern Gateways catalog is a great place to start. Southern Gateways is where we collect of all our general interest books about this region we call home. Continue Reading Southern Gateways: essential southern reading that makes a great gift

Categories Art / Architecture/Biography / Autobiography/Birds & Birding/Cooking / Food/Craft/Hiking/History/Juvenile/Literature/Military Studies/Music/Nature/North Carolina/Photography/Sale/Southern Studies/Sports/Travel/UNC Press News/Weather
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
October 25, 2012

Tobe: Tracking down the storybook family

Where are they now? Historian Benjamin Filene seeks information about the people involved in the 1939 children’s book “Tobe,” about an African American sharecropping family in NC. Continue Reading Tobe: Tracking down the storybook family

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Documentary Studies/Fiction/History/Juvenile/Literature/North Carolina/Photography/Southern Studies/UNC Press Authors
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
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
June 11, 2012

Altina L. Waller: The Hatfield-McCoy Feud

What is missing here is any social and economic context. True, the Civil War is the film’s encompassing social explanation, but it leaves me wondering why the set of social and economic circumstances that confronted folks in post war Appalachia is completely ignored. In the Tug Valley, as in all Appalachia and even the entire South, economic decline was a serious threat to almost everyone. Continue Reading Altina L. Waller: The Hatfield-McCoy Feud

Categories American History/American Studies/Appalachian Studies/Author blog entry/Film/Guest Bloggers/History/Southern Studies
June 5, 2012

Excerpt: Crossroads at Clarksdale, by Francoise N. Hamlin

As a Delta town, Clarksdale typified many movement sites, yet for many reasons it is unique. Clarksdale’s movement was more homespun than in other Delta towns—the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had its strongest branch there, founded in the early 1950s by local people. Continue Reading Excerpt: Crossroads at Clarksdale, by Francoise N. Hamlin

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Civil Rights/Excerpts/History/Southern Studies
May 25, 2012

The History of the Hatfield-McCoy Feud

The History Channel will be airing a three-part miniseries about the Hatfield and McCoy families starting on Memorial Day. The miniseries stars Kevin Costner, Bill Paxton, Mare Winningham, and lots and lots of guns and violence. Historian Altina L. Waller, author of Feud: Hatfields, McCoys, and Social Change in Appalachia, 1860-1900, was interviewed extensively for the accompanying documentary to the miniseries. Continue Reading The History of the Hatfield-McCoy Feud

Categories American History/Appalachian Studies/History/Southern Studies