Illinois Press Book Blog

Liesl Miller Orenic will discuss her new book On the Ground: Labor Struggle in the American Airline Industry at the Open University Of The Left, Lincoln Park Library,
1150 W. Fullerton in Chicago, on September 24 at 6:45 P.M.

David Beito and Linda Royster Beito, authors of the new book Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power, penned an op-ed in today’s Los Angeles Times championing Howard’s influence on the civil rights movement.

Fifty-four years ago today, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicago boy visiting family in Mississippi, was abducted, mutilated and slain after he allegedly whistled at a white woman. Several days later, his horribly disfigured body was fished out of the Tallahatchie River. Many such tragedies had previously happened to black Americans and then been ignored. The Till case was different because of the efforts of a flamboyant and wealthy black planter and surgeon, T.R.M. Howard.

Howard’s place in history has been woefully slighted. Without him, we might never have heard of Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers or Operation PUSH. Howard was the crucial link connecting the Till slaying and the rise of the modern civil rights movement.

Larry Kanfer discusses his forthcoming book Barns of Illinois on WTTW-TV’s Chicago Tonight program.

Kurt Edward Kemper, author of the new book College Football and American Culture in the Cold War Era, was interviewed in today’s edition of Inside Higher Ed.

Q: At institutions like Louisiana State University and the University of Alabama, how did the pressures of being selected for a big bowl game help influence their eventual integration both on and off the field?

A: It became harder and harder, and eventually impossible in the early 1960s, for Southern teams to go to bowl games if they weren’t going to play integrated schools. … They really lost that capacity by the mid 1950s. There was no way schools were going to pull black players just to play Southern teams, and bowl games were not going to limit themselves to all-white teams because that was just too exclusive, particularly in the West, but also in the North when you look at places like Michigan State. That forced Southern schools to play integrated teams even when they didn’t want to. … In terms of integrating their own rosters, it also became important because it was increasingly apparent that Southern teams weren’t going to be able to compete once they had to play these teams with black players. They were not able to acquire the talent of these players themselves, so they had a hard time winning. It was crucial to forcing them to integrate.

Kent Redfield, contributor to the forthcoming book Illinois Politics: A Citizen’s Guide, comments in a Chicago Tribune story on Illinois legislative scholarships.

Hey Chicagoans!  The August 26 edition of WTTW’s Chicago Tonight will include an interview with Larry Kanfer whose new photography book, Barns of Illinois, will be published in October.  Tune in at 7:00 PM.

-Columbia University Press blog highlights another perspective on scholarly publishing.
-Harvard University Press launches site for A New Literary History of America.
-NYU Press’s From the Square features Confessions of a NYU Press Intern.
-Penn State University Press blog considers Yale University Press’s decision not to publish Danish cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammad.
-Princeton University Press blog offers its recipe of the month.

The University of Illinois Press is pleased to announce the launch of the online archive for Visual Arts Research.

The current issue of VAR is available FREE as open access for a limited time.

Visual Arts Research provides a forum for historical, critical, cultural, psychological, educational and conceptual research in visual arts and aesthetic education. VAR remains committed to its original mission to provide a venue for both longstanding research questions and traditions alongside emerging interests and methodologies.

Stefan Bradley, author of the new book Harlem vs. Columbia University: Black Student Power in the Late 1960s, was interviewed in today’s edition of Inside Higher Ed.

Q: In summing up the long-term effects of the Columbia protests, you note that today’s college students are much less inclined to engage in protests than were the students of the 1960s. How do you view the present-day role of political activism on campus, and do you see any signs that it is continuing to evolve (for better or worse)?

A: I thought it was fascinating to watch American students organize for the Obama campaign. It was especially interesting because there had been little that had really moved students to organize since the anti-apartheid campaigns of the 1980s. It was wonderful to see students take an interest in an issue that affected them as citizens, not just as students, but it really stood out in contrast to the apathy that plagued students for a generation.

John Hallwas, author of the book Dime Novel Desperadoes: The Notorious Maxwell Brothers, was interviewed on August 11, 2009, on WGN-TV’s Midday News program.