We’ve blogged before about E. Patrick Johnson’s amazing Sweet Tea project–the book, the performances. Johnson is now starring in the one-man-show called Sweet Tea at the Viaduct Theater in Chicago through May 29. Here’s a taste of his preparation with director Daniel Alexander Jones. We have a special website dedicated to Sweet Tea, where you can see clips of Johnson’s… Continue Reading Sweet Tea on the Chicago Stage
We welcome a guest post today from Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff, author of Black Culture and the New Deal: The Quest for Civil Rights in the Roosevelt Era. In her book, Sklaroff argues that New Deal cultural programs supporting notable black intellectuals, celebrities, and artists (including Lena Horne, Joe Louis, Duke Ellington, and Richard Wright) represent a key moment in the… Continue Reading Lena Horne and the Irony of Cultural Politics
Tomorrow’s the big day: the NASCAR Hall of Fame grand opening in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Asheville Citizen-Times gives us a little taste of the place. Later this month, five legendary figures from NASCAR history will be inducted into the Hall of Fame: Dale Earnhardt, Bill France Jr., Bill France Sr., Junior Johnson, and Richard Petty. We’ve got no quarrel… Continue Reading NASCAR Hall of Fame Opens
The U.K. edition of A Vietnam War Reader: A Documentary History from American and Vietnamese Perspectives hits bookstores across the pond today — just as Britons head to the polls to elect a new Prime Minister. In a previous guest post, editor Michael H. Hunt addressed one of the more striking similarities between the Vietnam War and the current conflict… Continue Reading Victory in Vietnam: The Myth That Won’t Die But Can’t Stand Up
When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans is more than a book we’ve just published — it’s a multimedia project based on interviews with dozens of female military veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The book juxtaposes 48 photographs by Sascha Pflaeging with oral histories collected by Laura Browder to provide a dramatic portrait of… Continue Reading When Janey Comes Marching Home – Photo exhibit now in Arlington, Va.
Joe Biden recently announced some changes to Title IX policies to close a loophole opened up by the Bush administration in 2005. Glad to see Title IX taken seriously by this administration. There’s still a ways to go to bring full equality to women’s sports, however. Jennifer Etnier (author of Bring Your “A” Game: A Young Athlete’s Guide to Mental… Continue Reading Recovering lost ground on Title IX
It is night. A lone black woman walks through a cornfield in South Carolina. The stars wink above her. Crickets and cicadas grow quiet as she passes and then resume their orchestral humming, now punctuated by the sound of rustling leaves a little farther off. She moves toward an unpainted one-room building. When she gets there, she will have to… Continue Reading Septima Clark, Freedom’s Teacher
When we got wind of Michael Steele’s recent comments about the Republican Party continuing a “Southern Strategy” for the past 40 years, we turned to an expert on southern politics for insight into Steele’s allusion to the Nixon-era strategy of racial exclusion. Michael Perman is author of Pursuit of Unity: A Political History of the American South, which traces the… Continue Reading The Republicans’ “Southern Strategy” Unmasked?
We welcome a guest post today from Stan Ulanski, author of The Gulf Stream: Tiny Plankton, Giant Bluefin, and the Amazing Story of the Powerful River in the Atlantic. After the deadly explosion on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana last week, thousands of gallons of oil started pouring into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. We… Continue Reading The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: Fate and Behavior
We write today in anticipation of Gerda Lerner’s 90th birthday, coming up Friday, April 30. Her students and colleagues and publishers who know her as the founder of her field all shout “Happy birthday!” But whether you know her by name or not, she has certainly shaped the world of ideas around you. And for that, as well as for… Continue Reading Gerda Lerner’s 90th
We welcome a guest post today from Anne E. Marshall, author of Creating a Confederate Kentucky: The Lost Cause and Civil War Memory in a Border State, which we’ll publish in December 2010. The book traces the development of a Confederate identity in Kentucky between 1865 and 1925 that belied the fact that Kentucky never left the Union and that… Continue Reading Confederate History Month and the Politics of Memory
Congratulations to everyone who participated in our Gazetteer/NC trivia contest. Maybe we’ll have to come up with harder questions next time? Of the 29 people who responded to the contest, 15 got all the answers correct. It all hinged on question #7: How many North Carolina counties take their name from American Indian words or names? The correct answer, according… Continue Reading Gazetteer Contest Winner Announced!
During his scholarly career, Bruce Pauley has built a name for himself as an authority on Austrian history. Pauley’s five books on the subject, including the award winning UNC Press publication From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism, have previously earned the professor a number of awards and distinctions, including the 1994 Austrian Cultural Institute Book Prize and… Continue Reading Pauley Receives Austrian Cross of Honor
It’s a bittersweet day in UNC Press blogland. Today we must say farewell to blogging intern extraordinaire Matt Poindexter, who’s about to take off for one last summer of freedom before starting law school and then working for a living, becoming a major donor to UNC Press, saving the planet and all its women and children, etc. Remember when he… Continue Reading Farewell to Intern Matt
On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day celebrations and teach-ins were held in Philadelphia, PA. Over the forty years since then, Earth Day has spread throughout the United States and around the globe, becoming an observed event in almost every nation worldwide. To recognize this important day, UNC Press would like to welcome author Jennifer Frick-Ruppert to the blog.… Continue Reading Earth Day in the Southern Appalachians
It’s been over forty years since William S. Powell came out with The North Carolina Gazetteer: A Dictionary of Tar Heel Places, which quickly became a hit for its descriptive catalog of cities, towns, crossroads, waterways, mountains, and other places. This spring, UNC Press is excited to publish the revised and expanded 2nd edition of The North Carolina Gazetteer, by… Continue Reading CONTEST: Your knowledge of NC trivia could win you a free book!
Manuscripts are being solicited for a new peer-review journal that incorporates a broad view of the Civil War era. Published in collaboration with The University of North Carolina Press and the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University, The Journal of the Civil War Era will launch its inaugural issue in March 2011. William… Continue Reading Introducing The Journal of the Civil War Era: Call for Papers
From Shane J. Maddock, author of Nuclear Apartheid: The Quest for American Atomic Supremacy from World War II to the Present, we welcome this guest post addressing Barack Obama’s most recent nuclear initiatives. If you missed Maddock’s January guest post, “The Delicate Art of Nuclear Jujutsu,” go back and take a look.–ellen President Barack Obama renewed the U.S. commitment to… Continue Reading Obama’s Nuclear Initiatives: Neither “Sufficient” Nor “Bold”
From Mississippi to Manhattan, I learned that African American postal workers’ decades-long challenge to the post office and postal union status quo–that for years included segregation and discrimination–was a key factor in transforming the post office. Continue Reading A Retired Postal Worker’s Tax Day Recollections
Though the American Civil War was a multi-year event, spanning four years of death and destruction, it seems to be most tied to the month of April. The cruel month was host to the first battle of the war, at Fort Sumter, as well as the Confederate surrender at Appomattox in 1865. However, the most famous April moment associated with… Continue Reading Lincoln’s Legacy
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