In nineteenth-century America, Catholic sisters, despite disapproval, increasingly pursued opportunities for higher education. They did so to satisfy their personal intellectual interests and to meet new requirements for certification by government agencies. Continue Reading Anne M. Butler: Nuns and the Road to Academic Recognition
Slideshow and interview with Eric L. Muller, editor of Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Incarceration in World War II. Continue Reading Video: “Colors of Confinement” book trailer and event
If you think the past week or so has not gone well for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, then what to say about the U.S. position in the Middle East? Washington’s attempt to remake or at least manage the region has suffered a string of blows that suggests the end is nigh. Continue Reading Michael H. Hunt: The American Project in the Middle East: The End Is Nigh!
When Americans made Jesus white, they gave a racial spin to creation, to redemption in the form of Jesus, and to the future Apocalypse. This is crucial because it allows white people to see whiteness and racial categories as everlasting. Continue Reading Interview: Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey
Murphy attacked the tight-fisted policy of Ford Motor Company (FMC) and its indifference toward unemployed workers. Henry Ford publicly maintained he would never cut wages or jobs, even as he proceeded to do both. Employment at the largest facility of FMC in Dearborn, just outside Detroit, fell nearly 50 percent between 1929 and 1932. But the overwhelming majority of laid-off Ford workers resided in Detroit, raising the question, who bore responsibility for assisting them? Continue Reading Beth Tompkins Bates: What is Society’s Obligation to Those in Distress?
Throughout the fall, we’re offering 50% off selected titles in the disciplines listed below. Enter 01SALE12 at checkout. Spend $75.00 and the shipping is free. Continue Reading The UNC Press fall sale is underway! Save up to 50% on select titles
American exceptionalism, or the idea that the United States is somehow both different and better from all other nations, has a long history. From the decision to put novus ordo seclorum (a new order for the ages) on the back of the Great Seal of the United States to President Barack Obama’s claim during his 2008 inaugural that “we are ready to lead once more,” many Americans have believed that their country is something different from anything that has come before or that has arisen since. A leader. A new order. Continue Reading Sarah E. Ruble: The Newsroom and American Exceptionalism
Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France, by Brett Rushforth”On the one hand I knew that the French were known in North America for their success at forming Indian alliances and learning Native languages, intermarrying with Native women, and fairly successfully integrating themselves into the Native communities for the purposes of the fur trade. But on the other hand, I also knew that there were households in the St. Lawrence Valley and the French colonies that held Native Americans as slaves. And I was interested in how these two things worked together.”—Brett Rushforth Continue Reading Video: Brett Rushforth on Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France
Bland Simpson, author of Two Captains from Carolina: Moses Grandy, John Newland Maffitt, and the Coming of the Civil War, reveals how the stories of two men can tell the saga of race in the antebellum and Civil War-era South. Continue Reading Interview: Bland Simpson on Two Captains from Carolina
This week for our North Carolina Icons series, we’re featuring Muscadine wine and Yadkin Valley wine. They are numbers 28 and 85 on Our State magazine’s 100 North Carolina Icons. Muscadine grapevines are native to the Southeastern United States and have been used to make wine since the sixteenth century. Yadkin Valley stretches from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the North Carolina Piedmont and is full of wineries and vineyards. Continue Reading North Carolina Icons: Muscadine Wine and Yadkin Valley Wine
As a first-time book author facing book-signing events, I’m going to have to sign my name in books that people are buying. (At least I hope so. Otherwise, I’ll get a lot of practice sitting at little tables and smiling cheerfully while people ignore me.) Continue Reading Kathleen Purvis: Preparations of a Book-Signing Novice
A large portion of New Orleans lies below sea level, although the historic and touristic French Quarter, the part of the city that dates to the French period in the mid-eighteenth century, is just barely above sea level and suffered the least from Katrina. The reasons for New Orleans’ vulnerability, and the reasons why the city was established where it is, are revealed in the narrative of Jean-François Benjamin Dumont de Montigny. Continue Reading Gordon M. Sayre: The Founding of New Orleans: A City of Floods
People often ask me how to write cookbooks and where I get my recipes from…. As with all writing, there’s a certain amount of mystery involved. A high number of trips to the kitchen for snacks and other attention-diverting activities are also critical. After writing five cookbooks, I believe I’m qualified to offer seven tips for creating them. Feel free to take notes. Continue Reading Debbie Moose: Confessions of a Crazed Cookbook Author: 7 Tips for Writing a Cookbook
This week in our North Carolina Icons series we’re featuring Asheville and its most famous residence, the Biltmore House. Our State describes Asheville as “A different kind of place. Unless you’re a little different yourself. Make a visit and see.” Continue Reading North Carolina Icons: Asheville and the Biltmore House
In some unexpected ways, it is Mitt and Gwen who have the most in common. For both of them are not only children of immigrants, but children of parents who were themselves children of immigrants. Continue Reading Lara Putnam: Children of Immigrants, the American Way: Mitt, Gwen, and Barack
Most sisters do not wear the once ubiquitous garb any more; many bishops yearn to see the gender-weighted tradition reinstated; nostalgic lay people reminisce about the habit along with such Catholic signposts as fish on Friday or parish bingo. It is time to drop the overdone fascination with the antiquated clothing of an earlier era—the long black veils, starched bonnets, and sweeping serge skirts—that supposedly measured the holiness of cloistered women, or at least made nuns easy to identify. Continue Reading Anne M. Butler: Sisterhoods and Habits
This week in our North Carolina icons series we’re featuring the Great Dismal Swamp, which stretches from Norfolk, Virginia to Elizabeth City, North Carolina. It’s number 80 on Our State magazine’s 100 North Carolina Icons list, where it’s described: “Birds don’t find the swamp dismal at all. More than 200 species of birds can be spotted there during the year. Grab your binoculars and go.” Continue Reading North Carolina Icons: The Great Dismal Swamp
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