May 2, 2016

Interview: Charles O. Pilkey and Orrin H. Pilkey on Lessons from the Sand

Q: Who is the primary audience for this book?

Charles Pilkey: The book is intended for families with kids up to middle school age. We hope parents will do the activities together with their children.

Orrin Pilkey: We also think that the activities herein are a goldmine for high school students doing science projects. The activities could give older kids a start, and they can follow up and proceed into the wild blue yonder as far as their imagination will carry them. Continue Reading Interview: Charles O. Pilkey and Orrin H. Pilkey on Lessons from the Sand

Categories Interviews/Juvenile/Nature/North Carolina/Travel
April 28, 2016

LaKisha Michelle Simmons: Landscapes, Memories, and History in Beyoncé’s Lemonade

Some writers have noted the presence of the “southern gothic” or the “southern porch” in Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s visceral visual album Lemonade. But the landscapes are unambiguously part of the geography of Louisiana; the visual album is haunting because of its specificity to place. Barely visible, in the discussion thus far, is the history of slavery—and its remnants—all over the landscape of the album. Continue Reading LaKisha Michelle Simmons: Landscapes, Memories, and History in Beyoncé’s Lemonade

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Author blog entry/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers/Media Studies/Southern Studies/Women's Studies
April 27, 2016

Benjamin René Jordan: “Free-Range Kids” and the Problem of Children’s Citizenship

Fisher warned that allowing young men to “stumble into citizenship,” assuming it only begins at age twenty-one, leads them to believe that civic responsibility is primarily limited to voting or paying taxes: “A boy cannot live his boy life entirely separate from any sense of responsibility to society and then be expected as a man to live a full-orbed citizenship.” Fisher’s statement suggests that our current social and educational structure in which adolescents are isolated from broader community interactions, mature responsibilities, and opportunities for personal growth endangers the very foundation of America’s democratic society by restricting young people’s awareness of the broader community and experience of citizenship. Continue Reading Benjamin René Jordan: “Free-Range Kids” and the Problem of Children’s Citizenship

Categories American Studies/Gender Studies
April 25, 2016

Steven E. Nash: Who Was Virgil Lusk?

It was a cold, rainy December afternoon when my wife finally asked the question: “Who was Virgil Lusk?” It was a fair question. After all, I had dragged her around Asheville’s historic Riverside Cemetery for well over an hour trying to locate his grave. With each grave adorned with a miniature Confederate battle flag, my frustration mounted. Lusk was a Confederate soldier. So why was my strategy of driving toward those flags not producing any results? Was his flag missing? Who was Virgil Lusk? Continue Reading Steven E. Nash: Who Was Virgil Lusk?

Categories African American Studies/American History/Author blog entry/Civil War/Guest Bloggers/History/North Carolina
April 20, 2016

Catherine A. Stewart: Having an Honest Conversation about Slavery—Now and Then

But this current conversation is not the first time Americans and political leaders have attempted to talk honestly about slavery. In the 1930s, the federal government began an unprecedented and revolutionary discussion of slavery and its legacy by hiring unemployed writers to interview the last living generation of African Americans to have experienced slavery. The Federal Writers’ Ex-Slave Project sparked conversations between direct descendants of Confederate slaveholders and former slaves. This project, with its radical objective of recovering and reclaiming African Americans’ experiences with slavery and freedom, along with its failings and limitations, has much to tell us about why conversations about the past of slavery remain so difficult for Americans today. Continue Reading Catherine A. Stewart: Having an Honest Conversation about Slavery—Now and Then

Categories African American Studies/American History/American Studies/History
April 19, 2016

Robert G. Parkinson: The Shot Heard Round the World Revisited

Sixty years after the battle, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a triumphant hymn to the “embattled farmers” of Concord, Massachusetts who gathered at the “rude bridge that arched the flood” underneath “their flag to April’s breeze unfurled” and “fired the shot heard round the world.” Emerson solemnized the “spirit that made those heroes dare / to die, or leave their children free.” Emerson’s imagery added to the already thick layers of mythology surrounding the events of April 19, 1775, fusing together nature and nation to craft an American pastoral patriotism. Ever since, when Americans think about the start of the Revolution, it is Emerson’s chorus—of heroic white colonists fighting to preserve their liberty—that plays in the background of this nationalist legend.

But that wasn’t how some people thought about the events of that night. In fact, race played a role in how people reacted to the Lexington Alarm. Continue Reading Robert G. Parkinson: The Shot Heard Round the World Revisited

Categories African American Studies/American History/Author blog entry/European History/Guest Bloggers
April 18, 2016

Stan Ulanski: Wanderers of the Pacific Ocean: Sea Turtles

As I researched and studied the myriad organisms that swim in and fly over the California Current for my book on this unique ecosystem, none caught my attention more than Pacific sea turtles—living dinosaurs of the ocean. Theirs is an old story—one of long journeys and nesting rituals performed over the eons. The tale below chronicles the journey and trials of a determined sea turtle. Continue Reading Stan Ulanski: Wanderers of the Pacific Ocean: Sea Turtles

Categories Author blog entry/Environmental Studies/Guest Bloggers/Nature
April 15, 2016

Tamara Plakins Thornton: The Origins of Our “Numerical Neurosis”: Numbering Systems in American Life

April 15: yet another occasion to provide your social security number. It’s just one of many numbers we use to identify ourselves, along with those found on our driver’s licenses, passports, and military ID’s. Being a number instead of a name has become a cliché, but the use of such numbers goes beyond reducing personal identity to a set of numerals. It’s part of a larger world of numbering systems that order people and things alike. Continue Reading Tamara Plakins Thornton: The Origins of Our “Numerical Neurosis”: Numbering Systems in American Life

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Biography / Autobiography/Business/Guest Bloggers/History
April 13, 2016

Elizabeth Hayes Alvarez: Muslims in the Classroom

Donald Trump’s suggested ban on Muslims entering the United States and the creation of a Muslim “registry” has been widely (and wisely) condemned. But from my perspective in the classroom, I see how the ideas are already affecting young people. Amid the rows of Catholics, Jews, agnostics, and evangelicals in my religion courses sit dozens of students hailing from the Middle East and South Asia. Their presence is a very good thing. Like most of my students, they are open, curious, and eager to learn. And they are baffled and intimidated by Trump’s rhetoric. Continue Reading Elizabeth Hayes Alvarez: Muslims in the Classroom

Categories American Studies/Author blog entry/Education/Guest Bloggers/Religion
April 6, 2016

John Shelton Reed: Busting a Barbecue Myth

It’s true that cooking with gas or electricity is cheaper and easier, and the product is more consistent (if not great). But when we ask gassers why they don’t cook with wood, they seldom mention those considerations. Instead, what we almost always hear is stuff like “The city won’t let us,” or “The inspector made us stop,” or “It’s against the Clean Air regulations.” In short, the government made them do it.

But this never comes with specifics. Continue Reading John Shelton Reed: Busting a Barbecue Myth

Categories Author blog entry/Cooking / Food/Guest Bloggers
April 4, 2016

UNC Press Receives Grant to Support System-Wide Publishing Initiatives

In August 2015, with grant funds provided by the office of University of North Carolina president Thomas W. Ross, the University of North Carolina Press launched the Office of Scholarly Publishing Services (OSPS) with the purpose of providing sustainable, mission-driven publishing models and solutions to the campuses of the UNC system. Today, the Press announces a $50,000 one-to-one challenge grant from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust to support the work of the OSPS. Established in honor of President Ross for his vision and support of the OSPS, this eventual $100,000 expendable fund will provide small grants for publishing projects. Continue Reading UNC Press Receives Grant to Support System-Wide Publishing Initiatives

Categories UNC Press News
March 30, 2016

John Sherer: The Cost to Publish a Monograph Is Both Too Low and Too High

The danger with the numbers in this report is that they describe how much it costs presses to put a book into the marketplace using our conventional model. But in order to produce an edition that is openly available in digital format, our activities would look very different. Continue Reading John Sherer: The Cost to Publish a Monograph Is Both Too Low and Too High

Categories The Book Biz
March 21, 2016

Obama Lands in Cuba

With his arrival in Cuba yesterday, President Barack Obama has become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the island nation since 1928. This three-day trip is just one step in the major shift under the Obama administration to begin to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba. For insightful historical perspective on what this trip means, we check in with some UNC Press authors who are providing helpful analysis. Continue Reading Obama Lands in Cuba

Categories Africa & African Diaspora/Cuba/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Politics/Video
March 17, 2016

Excerpt: Chained in Silence, by Talitha L. LeFlouria

For many Americans, Independence Day of 1884 was an occasion for merriment. Sunrise gun salutes, picnics, orations, wheelbarrow races, greased-pig-catching contests, and pulsating fireworks that blistered the sky were popular scenes implanted in America’s nineteenth-century viewfinder. But for fourteen-year-old Mollie White, July 4, 1884, signified the closing of her innocence and the suspension of her liberty and bodily sovereignty; it was the day that marked her dreadful passage into Georgia’s itinerant state penitentiary system. Continue Reading Excerpt: Chained in Silence, by Talitha L. LeFlouria

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Excerpts/History/Women's Studies
March 14, 2016

Excerpt: The Ashley Cooper Plan, by Thomas D. Wilson

Ashley Cooper’s Grand Model was the ultimate product of English colonial policy, political philosophy, and city planning prior to the Enlightenment. The Fundamental Constitutions and “instructions,” products of both Ashley Cooper and Locke, formed a body of law and policy written by two of the most astute minds of the time, tempered to be sure by the diverse opinions of the remaining seven Carolina proprietors. Within those documents, city planning (in the broad sense of the term used throughout) held an essential place in the overall design of the colony’s social structure, economy, and government. Continue Reading Excerpt: The Ashley Cooper Plan, by Thomas D. Wilson

Categories American History/Art / Architecture/History/Political Science
March 7, 2016

John Shelton Reed: The Pig Picker: A Barbecue Cocktail

We North Carolinians love our vinegar-based barbecue sauces. In fact, we love them so much we don’t just splash them on barbecue: East of Raleigh we boil potatoes in sauce-spiked water; west of Raleigh sauce goes in slaw. So why not a cocktail with sauce in it? Continue Reading John Shelton Reed: The Pig Picker: A Barbecue Cocktail

Categories Author blog entry/Cooking / Food/Guest Bloggers/Recipes
March 1, 2016

Help Celebrate an Appalachian Icon: Grandfather Mountain

Your gift will underwrite the considerable production costs for 5,000 copies of this lushly illustrated volume, with 206 images spread throughout 304 pages. Now through March 31, 2016, a generous friend of UNC Press will contribute $1 for every $1 you donate through our power2give.org initiative, up to $6,000! And, all gifts are charitable contributions, so donate today. Continue Reading Help Celebrate an Appalachian Icon: Grandfather Mountain

Categories Hiking/History/North Carolina/Travel/UNC Press News/Video
February 24, 2016

Excerpt: Native American Whalemen and the World, by Nancy Shoemaker

Native Americans were one small constituency in a diverse whaling workforce brought together by ship owners for one purpose only—to cooperate in gathering whale products from the world’s oceans. The merchant investors, who did the initial hiring, sought trustworthy, skilled officers and cheap, hardy, and obedient laborers. With profit as their objective, they were open to hiring any man who could do the job but not if the crew’s social composition threatened orderly collaboration. From the top down, federal laws and industry standards applied measures to enhance productivity by dampening the volatility such diversity produced: they privileged rank over race and regulated the number of foreigners serving on American ships. From the bottom up, seamen brought prejudices on board with them. The color of one’s skin, the land of one’s birth, and the language one spoke inflected how shipmates interacted with each other and at any time could combust in conflict. Even though race had no formal role in how the ship operated, it loitered beneath the surface to bear on who was hired to do what job and shadowed shipboard relations with unspoken assumptions. Continue Reading Excerpt: Native American Whalemen and the World, by Nancy Shoemaker

Categories Excerpts/History/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies