President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Poverty Bill (also known as the Economic Opportunity Act) on Aug. 20, 1964, while press and supporters of the bill look on. LBJ Library photo by Cecil Stoughton, available via Creative Commons. BY JENNA M. LOYDAssistant professor of public health policy and administration, Joseph J. Zilber School of Public … More War, poverty, and the War on Poverty: 50 years later
A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Grant Farred offers a penetrating new analysis of “the event” from a surprising source: Sport. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. BY GRANT FARREDCornell University Sport confounds us. It confounds us for a reason ripe with the following paradox: sport does what it is … More Anything can happen in sport.
BY TONY PEAKEBiographer of Derek Jarman On the 19th of February, it will have been 20 years since Derek Jarman died, at age 52, of HIV-related causes. To mark the occasion, a range of activities have been planned in the UK, kicking off with Derek Jarman: Pandemonium, an exhibition at King’s College, London, where Jarman … More ‘Pandemonium’ and the 20th anniversary of Derek Jarman’s passing
Source: Christiaan Tonnis, Flickr. The following is an excerpt from the lecture of author Jorge García-Robles, delivered today at The Burroughs Century in Bloomington, Indiana. Burroughs became a writer, as he himself tells it in the preface to Queer, on the afternoon of September 5th, 1951, in Apartment 10 of 122 Calle Monterrey, in the … More Where William S. Burroughs became a writer
The original Washington Avenue Bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, circa 1880, photographed from the north, showing the Bohemian Flats neighborhood below the bridge. The area, which is now a park, is the setting for Mary Relindes Ellis’s second novel, The Bohemian Flats. BY MARY RELINDES ELLISAuthor of The Turtle Warrior “The past is … More Mary Relindes Ellis: Why the past is critical to understanding our present.
BY ANTONIO T. TIONGSON JR.Assistant professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico Growing up in the Bay Area in the 1980s proved to be formative in terms of laying the groundwork for the kinds of questions I grapple with in Filipinos Represent. During this period, I came of age deeply immersed in … More On hip-hop, DJs, and racial parameters
BY MICHAEL ORSINI AND JOYCE DAVIDSON We live in a world full of autism. Full of a multiplicity of experiences that remind us of the diversity of autistic experience. Full of moments that teach us about the boundaries of our own knowledge about this complex condition. Full of contradictions about what it means to be … More Navigating the diversity of autistic experience
Download the infographic timeline. BY JACK EL-HAI My book Non-Stop: A Turbulent History of Northwest Airlines covers NWA’s history from its first flights as an airmail carrier in 1926 to its final sad days before its acquisition by Delta Airlines in 2010. Along the way, the book tells countless stories — important and incidental, famous … More 9 unforgettable moments in the history of Northwest Airlines
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, sometime between 1932 and 1934. BY KATHLEEN BATTLESAssistant professor of communication and journalism at Oakland University This weekend, Lifetime Television, A&E, and the History Channel will simultaneously air a two-part television “event” – a miniseries documenting the lives of infamous Depression-era American bandits, Bonnie and Clyde. Publicity for the series … More Bonnie and Clyde: What does our collective fascination with crime say about us?
As the month of November winds down, author Kate Hopper reflects on the stories behind the numbers relating to Prematurity Awareness Month. This post first appeared on her blog. ——- November is Prematurity Awareness Month. According to the March of Dimes, 1 in 9 babies is born prematurely in the United States every year. Worldwide, … More Reflections on Prematurity Awareness Month
