February 16, 2022

The Song Remains (Mostly) the Same: Relicts of a Beautiful Sea, Eight Years Later

The following is a guest blog post by Christopher Norment, author of Relicts of a Beautiful Sea: Survival, Extinction, and Conservation in a Desert World. Along a tiny spring in a narrow canyon near Death Valley, seemingly against all odds, an Inyo Mountain slender salamander makes its home. “The desert,” writes conservation biologist Christopher Norment, “is defined by the absence… Continue Reading The Song Remains (Mostly) the Same: Relicts of a Beautiful Sea, Eight Years Later

Categories Environmental Studies/Guest Bloggers/Natural History
February 15, 2022

Hot Off The Press: February 2022

We’re publishing some great books this month! Read below to learn more about these exceptional titles. Don’t forget to enter code 01DAH40 at checkout for some savings! You can save 40% on ALL UNC Press print books and if your order totals $75 or more, the shipping is FREE! Published: CLASS INTERRUPTIONS: INEQUALITY AND DIVISION IN AFRICAN DIASPORIC WOMEN’S FICTION… Continue Reading Hot Off The Press: February 2022

Categories Africa & African Diaspora/African American Studies/Gardening/Literature/North Carolina/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News/Women's Studies
February 14, 2022

Black History Month 2022 Reading List: The Black American Experience

Earlier this month, we published the first of our weekly Black History Month reading lists, focused on Black Resistance. This week’s reading list centers the Black American experience and it consists of books written by black authors who touch on a few of the various and infinite lived occurrences we share as Black people in America. We are not a… Continue Reading Black History Month 2022 Reading List: The Black American Experience

Categories African American Studies/Business/Cooking / Food/Labor Studies/Reading Lists/Religion/Sociology/Women's Studies
February 11, 2022

Left of Black web series featuring award-winning author and historian Tanisha C. Ford

In 2016, Tanisha C. Ford, author of Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul was featured on John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute’s Left of Black web series. Left of Black is a web series featuring interviews with Black Studies scholars created and hosted by James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African and African American Studies Mark Anthony Neal. In this… Continue Reading Left of Black web series featuring award-winning author and historian Tanisha C. Ford

Categories Africa & African Diaspora/African American Studies/American Studies/Gender Studies/Video/Women's Studies
February 10, 2022

How Searching for Chex Mix during the Pandemic Heightened my Appreciation for Food Studies

The following is a guest blog post from Jennifer Jensen Wallach, author of Every Nation Has Its Dish: Black Bodies and Black Food in Twentieth-Century America. Jennifer Jensen Wallach’s nuanced history of black foodways across the twentieth century challenges traditional narratives of “soul food” as a singular style of historical African American cuisine. Wallach investigates the experiences and diverse convictions… Continue Reading How Searching for Chex Mix during the Pandemic Heightened my Appreciation for Food Studies

Categories African American Studies/American Studies/Cooking / Food/Guest Bloggers
February 9, 2022

Letelier, Boric, and Social Justice in Chile

The following is a guest blog post from Alan McPherson, author of Ghosts of Sheridan Circle: How a Washington Assassination Brought Pinochet’s Terror State to Justice. On September 21, 1976, a car bomb killed Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean ambassador to the United States, along with his colleague Ronni Moffitt. The murder shocked the world, especially because of its setting–Sheridan… Continue Reading Letelier, Boric, and Social Justice in Chile

Categories Diplomatic History / International Affairs/Guest Bloggers/Latin American & Caribbean Studies/Political Science
February 8, 2022

Black History Month 2022 Reading List: Black Resistance

As you may already now, February is Black History Month. The history of black people should be celebrated at all times, but in February, we shine an extra special light on it. Black History Month began as Negro History Week in February 1926, created by historian Carter G. Woodson. In 1976, the celebration was expanded to a month. We’ll be… Continue Reading Black History Month 2022 Reading List: Black Resistance

Categories Africa & African Diaspora/African American History/African American Studies/American Studies/Education/Environmental Studies/Gender Studies/History/Literature/Music/Political Science/Reading Lists/Southern Studies/Women's Studies
February 7, 2022

Critical Book Spotlight: Dr. Robert Chase

Reblogged with permission from the American Society of Criminology’s Division of Critical Criminology and Social Justice Newsletter Robert T. Chase is associate professor of history at Stony Brook University, State University of New York (SUNY). He is the author of We Are Not Slaves: State Violence, Coerced Labor, and Prisoners’ Rights in Postwar America (UNC, 2020). He is also the editor of Caging… Continue Reading Critical Book Spotlight: Dr. Robert Chase

Categories African American Studies/Guest Bloggers/History/Sociology
February 4, 2022

Author Warren Eugene Milteer Jr.’s Talk With the U.S. National Archives

Last month, the U.S. National Archives hosted a talk with historian Alaina E. Roberts and Warren Eugene Milteer Jr., author of Beyond Slavery’s Shadow: Free People of Color in the South. On the eve of the Civil War, most people of color in the United States toiled in bondage. Yet nearly half a million of these individuals, including over 250,000 in the South,… Continue Reading Author Warren Eugene Milteer Jr.’s Talk With the U.S. National Archives

Categories African American Studies/History/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies
February 3, 2022

The Letelier Assassination and the Power of Non-State Actors

The following is a guest blog post from Alan McPherson, author of Ghosts of Sheridan Circle: How a Washington Assassination Brought Pinochet’s Terror State to Justice. On September 21, 1976, a car bomb killed Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean ambassador to the United States, along with his colleague Ronni Moffitt. The murder shocked the world, especially because of its setting–Sheridan… Continue Reading The Letelier Assassination and the Power of Non-State Actors

Categories Diplomatic History / International Affairs/Guest Bloggers/Latin American & Caribbean Studies/Political Science
February 2, 2022

How Martin Luther King Jr. Mastered the Masters

The following is a guest blog post from Lane Demas, author of Game of Privilege: An African American History of Golf. This groundbreaking history of African Americans and golf explores the role of race, class, and public space in golf course development, the stories of individual black golfers during the age of segregation, the legal battle to integrate public golf… Continue Reading How Martin Luther King Jr. Mastered the Masters

Categories African American Studies/Guest Bloggers/Sports
February 1, 2022

The Hidden Histories of American Food Reform

The following is a guest blog post from Jennifer Jensen Wallach, author of Every Nation Has Its Dish: Black Bodies and Black Food in Twentieth-Century America. Jennifer Jensen Wallach’s nuanced history of black foodways across the twentieth century challenges traditional narratives of “soul food” as a singular style of historical African American cuisine. Wallach investigates the experiences and diverse convictions… Continue Reading The Hidden Histories of American Food Reform

Categories African American Studies/American Studies/Cooking / Food/Guest Bloggers
January 31, 2022

Negotiating Paradise: Mass Tourism, Empire, and Soft Power

The following is an excerpt from Dennis Merrill’s Negotiating Paradise: U.S. Tourism and Empire in Twentieth-Century Latin America. Accounts of U.S. empire building in Latin America typically portray politically and economically powerful North Americans descending on their southerly neighbors to engage in lopsided negotiations. Dennis Merrill’s comparative history of U.S. tourism in Latin America in the twentieth century demonstrates that… Continue Reading Negotiating Paradise: Mass Tourism, Empire, and Soft Power

Categories Diplomatic History / International Affairs/Excerpts/Latin American & Caribbean Studies/Political Science
January 28, 2022

MDAH’s History Is Lunch series featuring author Berkley Hudson, “Pruitt’s Historical Columbus Photographs”

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History recently featured Berkley Hudson, author of O. N. Pruitt’s Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South, in their History Is Lunch series. Sponsored by the John and Lucy Shackelford Charitable Fund of the Community Foundation for Mississippi, History Is Lunch is a weekly lecture series that explores different aspects of the… Continue Reading MDAH’s History Is Lunch series featuring author Berkley Hudson, “Pruitt’s Historical Columbus Photographs”

Categories American Studies/History/Photography/Video
January 27, 2022

Permanent Markers: Geno-Myths

The following is an excerpt from Sarah Abel’s Permanent Markers: Race, Ancestry, and the Body after the Genome. Over the past twenty years, DNA ancestry testing has morphed from a niche market into a booming international industry that encourages members of the public to answer difficult questions about their identity by looking to the genome. At a time of intensified… Continue Reading Permanent Markers: Geno-Myths

Categories African American Studies/Excerpts/Latin American & Caribbean Studies/Political Science/Science
January 26, 2022

Understanding Puerto Rico’s Past: A Recommended Reading List

You may have heard about the recent protest in Puerto Rico that ended in the toppling of a statue in Plaza San Jose. It’s incredibly important to understand that these situations don’t usually happen “out of nowhere.” From various news sources and Twitter, it looks like this happened due to the continued celebration of colonialism in Puerto Rico and the… Continue Reading Understanding Puerto Rico’s Past: A Recommended Reading List

Categories African American Studies/Anthropology/Diplomatic History / International Affairs/Fiction/Latin American & Caribbean Studies/Latino Studies/Literature/Political Science/Reading Lists/Sociology
January 25, 2022

Crossing Jim Crow: Enlisting and Traveling to Boot Camp

The following is an excerpt from David P. Cline’s Twice Forgotten: African Americans and the Korean War, an Oral History. Journalists began to call the Korean War “the Forgotten War” even before it ended. Without a doubt, the most neglected story of this already neglected war is that of African Americans who served just two years after Harry S. Truman ordered the desegregation of the military. Twice Forgotten draws on… Continue Reading Crossing Jim Crow: Enlisting and Traveling to Boot Camp

Categories African American Studies/Excerpts/Military History
January 24, 2022

But for Birmingham: The National Movement

The following is an excerpt from Glenn T. Eskew’s But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle. Birmingham served as the stage for some of the most dramatic and important moments in the history of the civil rights struggle. In this vivid narrative account, Glenn Eskew traces the evolution of nonviolent protest in the city,… Continue Reading But for Birmingham: The National Movement

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Excerpts/History
January 21, 2022

Dr. Melissa Fuster speaks with Dr. William Latimer for BronxNet’s Public Health America series

UNC Press author Dr. Melissa Fuster discusses her book Caribeños at the Table: How Migration, Health, and Race Intersect in New York City with Dr. William Latimer on BronxNet’s Public Health America series. She highlights the importance of social determinants of health among diverse communities in the city. Dr. Fuster also discusses her career trajectory, growing up in Puerto Rico… Continue Reading Dr. Melissa Fuster speaks with Dr. William Latimer for BronxNet’s Public Health America series

Categories Cooking / Food/Latino Studies/Sociology/Video
January 20, 2022

UNC Press Announces New Board Members and Leadership

The Board of Governors for the University of North Carolina System has elected two new members to the UNC Press Board of Governors. Dr. Osamudia James, Professor of Law in the School of Law at UNC Chapel Hill, and Dr. Angela Miles, Associate Professor of Management and Chair of the Department of Business Administration at North Carolina Central University, were… Continue Reading UNC Press Announces New Board Members and Leadership

Categories UNC Press News