Howard Risatti: Monetary Motivations in Art and Perceptions of Craft

Evidently money and marketing, which support these biennials, are a big part of this change. They have transformed art into a high-profile activity in which the elite now collect contemporary art instead of old masters as they did at the beginning of the last century. Continue Reading Howard Risatti: Monetary Motivations in Art and Perceptions of Craft

Award-winning books from UNC Press (updated)

We are honored and delighted to share the news of some of our most recent award-winning books. Hope you’ll join us in congratulating these fine authors. And you may want to consider using some of these books in your classroom or kitchen. Click the cover images or book titles to go to the book page on the UNC Press website,… Continue Reading Award-winning books from UNC Press (updated)

New Enhanced E-book: Blowout! Sal Castro and the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice

Produced with the cooperation of numerous individuals and institutions, the enhanced e-book features more than 150 interview excerpts, documents, and photographs, each embedded in the text where it will be most meaningful. Continue Reading New Enhanced E-book: Blowout! Sal Castro and the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice

Lisa Materson: African American Women, the Great Migration, and the Obama Presidency

The political influence of black Chicago emerged decades before Obama announced his first candidacy for president, during the years of the Great Migration when tens of thousands of southern blacks relocated to northern cities. Continue Reading Lisa Materson: African American Women, the Great Migration, and the Obama Presidency

Laura Browder: Women’s Gun Culture in America

The image of the armed woman as white, suburban-looking, and thoroughly domesticated is but one aspect of women’s gun culture, and women’s relationship to guns, in the United States. Continue Reading Laura Browder: Women’s Gun Culture in America

Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: Jesus Jokes and Racial Pain

Jesus has had a long, exciting, funny, and painful life in America. From the slave ships of the Atlantic Ocean to the Hollywood sets along the Golden Coast, from the visions out of Indian country to the artwork of children, from the firing of bullets to the construction of billboards, Jesus has been born, crucified, and resurrected in America’s racial sagas. Those of the twenty-first century laugh because there is so much to cry over. Continue Reading Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: Jesus Jokes and Racial Pain

Fiona Deans Halloran: Thomas Nast, Horace Greeley, and the Gift of Gaffe

Where did he find his inspiration? Frequently in what we would call gaffes. Those little slips that so reveal the true character of any politician helped to inspire Nast’s pencil to new heights. Continue Reading Fiona Deans Halloran: Thomas Nast, Horace Greeley, and the Gift of Gaffe

Nicole Fabricant: Santa Cruz Civic Leaders and New Strategic Alliances with Indigenous Protestors in Bolivia

I was back in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the lowland agro-industrial capital of Bolivia for the months of July and August 2012 in order to understand a new political conflict that had exploded between the government of Evo Morales and lowland Indigenous groups in 2011. Continue Reading Nicole Fabricant: Santa Cruz Civic Leaders and New Strategic Alliances with Indigenous Protestors in Bolivia

Michael H. Hunt: The New Foreign Policy Concensus: A Word of Caution

The new consensus has been confirmed since Obama’s victory. His inaugural address announced the end of a decade of war and the start of a process of national reinvention meant to address challenges on the home front. However sensible this new consensus may be, it suffers from a major flaw: its profound vulnerability. Continue Reading Michael H. Hunt: The New Foreign Policy Concensus: A Word of Caution

Lara Putnam: Families and the Cost of Borders

Some of the deepest costs of our prohibitionist immigration system have to do with family. And they’re not just emotional costs—they’re economic costs as well. Continue Reading Lara Putnam: Families and the Cost of Borders

Alexandra Harmon: Economic Disparities in Native American Communities

Along with the growth of tribal bureaucracies, this turn toward tribal capitalism has given Indians new reasons to articulate, ponder, and debate some of the basic principles that guide or should guide their economic affairs—to consider in particular whether economic aims and relations in Indian communities do or should differ from those that predominate in the United States. Continue Reading Alexandra Harmon: Economic Disparities in Native American Communities

Marc Stein: Five Myths about Roe v. Wade

On 22 January 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Roe v. Wade, the abortion rights case that culminated in one of the most controversial legal rulings in the country’s history. Forty years later, numerous myths continue to circulate about the contents and meanings of Roe. Here are five of the most significant. Continue Reading Marc Stein: Five Myths about Roe v. Wade

Excerpt: Two Captains from Carolina, by Bland Simpson

In an excerpt from Bland Simpson’s nonfiction novel Two Captains from Carolina, we get a glimpse of Moses Grandy’s early career as a boatman—the freedom he felt on the water and the opportunities that lay ahead. Continue Reading Excerpt: Two Captains from Carolina, by Bland Simpson

Edward J. Blum & Paul Harvey: The KKK and Jesus Christ

To justify their more rigorous white supremacy that stood against racial segregation and for immigrant restriction and conservative politics, the Klan in the 1910s and ’20s turned to the white Jesus. Continue Reading Edward J. Blum & Paul Harvey: The KKK and Jesus Christ

Rod Andrew Jr.: Wade Hampton, One of the Last Confederate Generals to Surrender

Before the war began, few would have foreseen Hampton emerging as a die-hard Confederate. After President Abraham Lincoln called for troops to suppress the Southern rebellion, however, Hampton no longer hesitated. Continue Reading Rod Andrew Jr.: Wade Hampton, One of the Last Confederate Generals to Surrender