November 8, 2010

Marc Stein: Justice Kennedy and the Future of Same-Sex Marriage

We welcome a guest post from Marc Stein, author of Sexual Injustice: Supreme Court Decisions from Griswold to Roe.  Beyond examining liberal rulings that deal with birth control, abortion, interracial marriage, and obscenity, Sexual Injustice also offers an in-depth account of the profoundly conservative ruling on homosexuality in Boutilier. In a guest post last month, he traced gay rights legal… Continue Reading Marc Stein: Justice Kennedy and the Future of Same-Sex Marriage

Categories Author blog entry/Civil Rights/Current Events/Gay / Lesbian Studies/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers/Law / Legal History/Politics
November 5, 2010

Interview: Adam Lucas Reflects on a Century of Tar Heel Basketball

Here comes Tar Heel basketball! Tonight the Tar Heels hit the court in a pre-season exhibition game against Barton College. To get you warmed up, we’re sharing a conversation we had with Adam Lucas, publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and Tar Heels Today and a columnist on TarHeelBlue.com. He is author of six books on Carolina Basketball, the most recent… Continue Reading Interview: Adam Lucas Reflects on a Century of Tar Heel Basketball

Categories North Carolina/Sports/UNC Press Authors
November 3, 2010

Southern Gateways: The best in southern reading from UNC Press

One of the strengths of UNC Press is our commitment to publishing first-rate books about the region in which we live. From college hoops to environmental history, from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, from the coast to the hills, our books about the South educate and entertain readers within the region and beyond. We’ve recently updated our… Continue Reading Southern Gateways: The best in southern reading from UNC Press

Categories African American History/American History/Art / Architecture/Biography / Autobiography/Biology/Birds & Birding/Civil War/Cooking / Food/Craft/folklore/Gardening/Gender Studies/Hiking/Hurricanes/Jewish Studies/Juvenile/Latino Studies/Literature/Military History/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies/Nature/North Carolina/Politics/Reference/Southern Studies/Sports/Travel/UNC Press News/Weather
November 2, 2010

Let the Month of Murray Begin

A couple years ago some colorful and inspiring murals started popping up in Durham, NC, where I live. On Foster Street, down by the YMCA and the Farmers’ Market. On Chapel Hill Street, on the side of the Durham Food Co-op building. Three more within a stone’s throw of each other on Chapel Hill Road, along the exterior walls of… Continue Reading Let the Month of Murray Begin

Categories African American Studies/Civil Rights/Gay / Lesbian Studies/UNC Press News
October 29, 2010

Election 2010: Making the Wars Go Away

Proponents of military force learned from Vietnam that their freedom of action depended on insulating the public from the effects of war. Contractors were an ingenuous solution to the problem of a public squeamish about fighting and killing. Continue Reading Election 2010: Making the Wars Go Away

Categories American History/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Michael H. Hunt/Military History/Military Studies/Political Science/Public Policy
October 27, 2010

Interview: Graham Russell Gao Hodges

David Ruggles (1810-1849) was one of the most heroic–and has been one of the most often overlooked–figures of the early abolitionist movement in America. Graham Russell Gao Hodges provides the first biography of this African American activist, writer, and publisher who secured liberty for more than six hundred former bond people, including Frederick Douglass. Hodges’s portrait of Ruggles establishes the… Continue Reading Interview: Graham Russell Gao Hodges

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Biography / Autobiography/Civil War/History/Interviews/UNC Press Authors
October 25, 2010

Carolyn de la Pena: What’s that diet soda teaching you?

We welcome a guest post today from Carolyn de la Peña, author of Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda. In her book, de la Pena sheds light on the invention, production, marketing, regulation, and consumption of sugar substitutes such as saccharin, Sucaryl, NutraSweet, and Splenda. In this post, she describes how these “sweet cheats” have… Continue Reading Carolyn de la Pena: What’s that diet soda teaching you?

Categories American Studies/Author blog entry/Cooking / Food/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine
October 14, 2010

American Democracy and the Challenge of Globalization

The midterm election campaign now approaching the home stretch has brought with it striking but fairly empty calls to action–from the Tea Party frenzy over fiscal virtue to a president exhorting his base with the banal promise of “moving America forward.” But this and all the other lamentable features of our democracy, it is worth stressing, are nothing new. Many… Continue Reading American Democracy and the Challenge of Globalization

Categories American History/Current Events/Economics/Guest Bloggers/Michael H. Hunt/Politics/Public Policy
October 12, 2010

The University Day Challenge: Innovate!

As we celebrate the University of North Carolina’s 217th anniversary on this University Day, chancellor Holden Thorp introduces a new project called “Innovate@Carolina: Important Ideas for a Better World” to lead the university forward. This three-year roadmap, described in detail at innovation.unc.edu, is designed to “build a culture of innovation that permeates every corner of campus, from the chemist in… Continue Reading The University Day Challenge: Innovate!

Categories Business/Economics/Education/North Carolina/Public Policy/Science
October 11, 2010

Hannah Gill: Immigrant Youth and the High Stakes of Higher Education

As we celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month, we welcome a guest post from Hannah Gill, author of The Latino Migrant Experience in North Carolina: New Roots in the Old North State. In the book, Gill offers North Carolinians from all walks of life a better understanding of their Latino neighbors, bringing light instead of heat to local and national debates… Continue Reading Hannah Gill: Immigrant Youth and the High Stakes of Higher Education

Categories Civil Rights/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Latino Studies/North Carolina/Politics
October 8, 2010

UNC system honors Mike Walden for helping make economics easier for the rest of us to understand

Congratulations to Michael Walden, author of North Carolina in the Connected Age: Challenges and Opportunities in a Globalizing Economy, who has just been awarded the UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Public Service. The award is intended “to encourage, identify, recognize, and reward distinguished public service and outreach by faculty across the University.” So what has Walden done… Continue Reading UNC system honors Mike Walden for helping make economics easier for the rest of us to understand

Categories Economics/North Carolina/Podcasts/Technology/TSoT/UNC Press Authors
October 7, 2010

Reverby recalls discovery, Hadler puts Guatemala case in context

Earlier this week we posted lots of links to headlines about Susan Reverby’s discovery of U.S. medical experiments on nonconsenting Guatemalans in the 1940s. Today, she wrote in more detail about the discovery of this horrific medical history over at the Hastings Center’s Bioethics Forum: What might have been buried in an historical journal, however, took another step. To make… Continue Reading Reverby recalls discovery, Hadler puts Guatemala case in context

Categories American History/Current Events/Ethics/Health / Medicine/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Public Policy/Science/UNC Press Authors
October 6, 2010

Karey Harwood: IVF Kids: Are They Really All Right?

On Monday the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to the biologist who helped develop in vitro fertilization (IVF). As a New York Times op-ed noted, the honoree is “a man who was reviled, in his time, as doing work that was considered the greatest threat to humanity since the atomic bomb.” Thirty-two years later, there are millions of healthy,… Continue Reading Karey Harwood: IVF Kids: Are They Really All Right?

Categories Biology/Ethics/Film/Gay / Lesbian Studies/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine
October 5, 2010

Susan Reverby Uncovers History of U.S. Medical Testing on Guatemalans

You’ve probably already heard: last Friday President Obama called President Alvaro Colom of Guatemala to apologize for a public health outrage committed 64 years ago.  In 1946, American doctors, with the support of the Public Health Service, conducted experiments on prisoners, the insane, soldiers, and prostitutes, who were initially used to infect the prisoners. Though the institutions and governments involved… Continue Reading Susan Reverby Uncovers History of U.S. Medical Testing on Guatemalans

Categories African American Studies/American History/Ethics/Health / Medicine/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Science/UNC Press Authors
October 4, 2010

Gay Rights and the Supreme Court: The Early Years

As the Supreme Court opens its 2010-2011 session today, we welcome a guest post from Marc Stein, author of Sexual Injustice: Supreme Court Decisions from Griswold to Roe. Focusing on six major Supreme Court cases, Sexual Injustice examines the more liberal rulings on birth control, abortion, interracial marriage, and obscenity in Griswold, Fanny Hill, Loving, Eisenstadt, and Roe alongside a… Continue Reading Gay Rights and the Supreme Court: The Early Years

Categories American History/Civil Rights/Gay / Lesbian Studies/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers/Law / Legal History
October 1, 2010

Highlights from First Amendment Day 2010

UNC celebrated its second annual First Amendment Day yesterday, and as predicted, it was an absolute smasheroo. The day began with the weather exercising its freedom of expression with sheets of rain, but only a few of the events were shifted inside before the drizzling tapered off. The events kicked off with a planting of a symbolic Liberty Tree next… Continue Reading Highlights from First Amendment Day 2010

Categories Events/Law / Legal History/Local Indy Booksellers/Media Studies/Politics/Public Policy/The Book Biz
September 30, 2010

Katie Bowler on the Need to Respect Books That Other Cultures Value

Continuing our special focus on First Amendment Day today, we welcome the following guest post from someone situated at the intersection of law and literature. Poet Katie Bowler places her own experience with book burning in the context of the history of books as weapons used in attempts to devalue the beliefs of others.–ellen The recent threat by a fringe-element… Continue Reading Katie Bowler on the Need to Respect Books That Other Cultures Value

Categories Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Literature/Politics/Religion
September 30, 2010

William Marshall on the Rights and Responsibilities of the First Amendment

As the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus celebrates First Amendment Day today, we welcome a guest post from legal scholar and professor William Marshall, who teaches at the UNC Law School. He reminds us that with our freedom from government intrusion comes the responsibility for public engagement.–ellen Humorist, social critic, and cartoonist Walt Kelly once famously wrote,… Continue Reading William Marshall on the Rights and Responsibilities of the First Amendment

Categories Guest Bloggers/Law / Legal History/Politics
September 29, 2010

See Gus Read: The Retelling of a Classic Banned Book by Gus, History Buff and Dog

Gus, book lover South of Chapel Hill, where James Taylor once wandered the countryside strumming a six-string, there was a small farm.  And it’s on this farm that Larry and I had been busting our humps for almost a week–burying bones, fetching sticks, digging holes under fences, and generally running the place under the supervision of Cookie, the farm owner’s… Continue Reading See Gus Read: The Retelling of a Classic Banned Book by Gus, History Buff and Dog

Categories Fiction/Literature
September 28, 2010

A Womanist Reading of “Service: Panel 8—Dr. King and Ralph Abernathy” or “Anna Julia Cooper and Willa Player”

On July 26, a mural named SERVICE was dedicated at UNC’s School of Government in the Knapp-Sanders Building. The mural depicts a gathering of African-American leaders at the counter of a diner, painted by Colin Quashie as a creative interpretation of the historical 1960 Greensboro, North Carolina sit-in. We are featuring each of the eight panels in a series, highlighting… Continue Reading A Womanist Reading of “Service: Panel 8—Dr. King and Ralph Abernathy” or “Anna Julia Cooper and Willa Player”

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Art / Architecture/Biography / Autobiography/Civil Rights/folklore/Guest Bloggers/History/North Carolina/Southern Studies/Women's Studies