By Katrina M. Phillips I joke that I blame my dad for this book, but it’s true. I’m a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, and our reservation sits along the south shore of Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin. The neighboring town of Bayfield hosts an apple festival every year, and trips to the festival form an integral element of my … Continue reading Staging Indigeneity: Salvage Tourism and the Performance of Native American History

By Louis A. DeCaro, Jr. In 1882, a small notice appeared in the Huntsville [Georgia] Gazette, reporting that the skull of Shields Green, one of John Brown’s raiders, was on exhibit at a store in Athens, Georgia. This notice appeared in a few other Southern papers, suggesting the possibility that the skull may have been elsewhere displayed in the South, and that it was at … Continue reading Emperor: Rediscovering an Icon of Black Liberation

By Jeanne E. Abrams, University of Denver My main thesis in A View From Abroad is that the European journeys of John and Abigail Adams expanded their life experiences and honed their analytical skills. It allowed them a breadth of perspective they could not have experienced in America. They came face-to-face abroad with some of the most powerful people in the world (including the French … Continue reading A View from Abroad: The Story of John and Abigail Adams in Europe

By Elissa Zellinger Long before I had children, I came across Mister Dog, a funny little children’s book about a funny little dog named Crispian’s Crispian. He is thusly named because, as he tells us on the first page, he “belongs to himself.” This remark is repeated throughout Mister Dog, emphasizing the joke that dogs belong to themselves, not people. While Margaret Wise Brown intended … Continue reading Lyrical Strains: Lyric, Liberalism, and Women’s Poetry, 1820-1920

By Libra R. Hilde As Americans grapple with the most recent spate of deaths of Black men and women at the hands of the police, we are once again confronting damaging stereotypes about the Black family and Black masculinity rooted in the legacy of slavery. My book, Slavery, Fatherhood, and Paternal Duty, explores the masculine hierarchy of slavery that continues to influence current attitudes. In … Continue reading Slavery, Fatherhood, and Paternal Duty in African American Communities over the Long Nineteenth Century

In October 2020, Sam Watts interviewed Lorena Márquez, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California Davis, about her latest book, La Gente: Struggles for Empowerment and Community Self-Empowerment in Sacramento (The University of Arizona Press, 2020). SW: Tell us about yourself and how you came to writing this book. LM:  I am the daughter of immigrants from … Continue reading Q&A: Lorena V. Márquez