Tag Archives: SCL Picks

New @the SCL: “Experiences of single African-American Women Professors”

Posted on May 22, 2012 by | 1 comment

Newly available at the SCL, today’s staff pick is Experiences of single African-American women professors : With this Ph.D., I thee wed, edited by Eletra S. Gilchrist (c2011. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books). A fascinating collection of essays written by “never-before-married and doctorate degree-holding African-American women professors,” titles include:

  • “Black, educated, and female: A perspective on contemporary courtship,” by Celeste Walls, Ph.D.
  • “‘Acting like a lady and doing me’: Rejecting the ‘strong black woman’ stereotype, sexism, and settling,” by Kandace L. Harris, Ph.D.
  • “The myth and mismatch of balance: Black female professors’ construction of balance, integration, and negotiation of work and life,” by Natalie T. J. Tindall, Ph.D. and Markesha S. McWilliams.
  • “‘I’m in the middle of nowhere!’: The dating experiences of black, female doctoral students and faculty at predominantly white environments,” by Mounira Morris, Ed.D.
  • “Neither an ‘old maid’ nor a ‘Miss Independent’: Deflating the negative perceptions of single African-American women professors,” by Eletra S. Gilchrist, Ph.D.

These are but a sample of the thought-provoking issues raised in this volume, in which “The authors and research participants speak candidly about their experiences, exploring a myriad of topics including dating costs and rewards, relationship challenges, work/life balance, multiple intersecting identities, negative perceptions, and identity negotiation.” A complete summary and further information is available here in the UNC library catalog and we highly encourage you to come by the Library and check it out!

For more on this topic, here are a couple of other titles, also available here at the SCL:

Happy reading!

 

 

 

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New @the SCL: “Super black : American pop culture and black superheroes”

Posted on May 17, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Are you a fan of superhero movies? Then today’s SCL Pick is for you! One of our latest arrivals is Super black : American pop culture and black superheroes, by Adilifu Nama (University of Texas Press, 2011). Check out an excerpt from the publisher’s review below:

“Nama examines seminal black comic book superheroes such as Black Panther, Black Lightning, Storm, Luke Cage, Blade, the Falcon, Nubia, and others, some of whom also appear on the small and large screens, as well as how the imaginary black superhero has come to life in the image of President Barack Obama. Super Black explores how black superheroes are a powerful source of racial meaning, narrative, and imagination in American society that express a myriad of racial assumptions, political perspectives, and fantastic (re)imaginings of black identity. The book also demonstrates how these figures overtly represent or implicitly signify social discourse and accepted wisdom concerning notions of racial reciprocity, equality, forgiveness, and ultimately, racial justice.” (Source: http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/namsue.html)

Looking for more on the topic? Professor Nama has also written Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film, which is available at Davis Library. If you’re looking to broaden your search, subject headings that may be of use include “African Americans in motion pictures” and “Blacks in motion pictures.” There’s also the Stone Center Library’s Guide to the Web, which features sections on Films and Documentaries, as well as Film Festivals. And, as always, we’re happy to provide reference assistance – whether it’s in person, via email, or through chat reference (StoneCenterRef) – come on by for a consultation!

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Posted in Film, New Titles

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SCL Pick for Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month 2012: “Interracial Encounters”

Posted on May 16, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Did you know that May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month? This celebration was established in 1978, and recognizes the contributions of Asian and Pacific Islanders in the United States. “The month of May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869.” (Source: http://asianpacificheritage.gov/about.html)

With this in mind, today’s SCL Pick is the newly-acquired Interracial Encounters : Reciprocal Representations in African American and Asian American Literatures, 1896-1937. Written by Julia H. Lee (2011, New York University Press), this book “explores the diverse ways in which Asian American and African American texts represented racial relations and racial others in an era dominated by a national racial philosophy that presumed, as W.E.B. Du Bois put it, the ‘high civilization of the whites, the lack of culture among the blacks, the apparent incapacity for self-rule in many non-Europeans, and the stagnation of Asia’” (Source: Syndetic Solutions).

Interested in this area of study? Come by the SCL! Today’s pick is but one of several volumes on Afro-Asian topics available here at the Library. For instance, check out last year’s selections here and here. And stay tuned for more SCL Picks this week and next, as we highlight some fabulous new titles that have recently been added to the collection. Happy reading!

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Posted in New Titles, Non-Fiction

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SCL Picks for International Jazz Day

Posted on April 30, 2012 by | Leave a comment

In addition to being National Poetry Month, did you know that April is also Jazz Appreciation Month?

“April was selected by the National Museum of American History, the originator of the tribute, because so many seminal people were born this month. The list includes Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, Tito Puente and Herbie Hancock.” (Source: The Washington Post)
 

In addition, today – April 30th – also marks the inaugural observation of International Jazz Day! Whether you’ve been celebrating all month, all year, or just for today, here’s a sampling of related books available here at the SCL:

For more online resources, keep in mind the Stone Center Library’s Guide to the Web, which includes an ample music section under the category of “Arts.” Enjoy!

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New @the SCL in POETRY

Posted on April 25, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Happy National Poetry Month, y’all! Here are three poetry picks new to the SCL collection:

Coval K, Coval K. 2011. L-vis lives! : Racemusic poems. Chicago, Ill.: Haymarket Books. xvi, 103 ; p.
“From the poet the Chicago Tribune calls the new voice of Chicago, comes L-vis Lives!, a bold new collection of poetry and prose exploring the collision of race, art, and appropriation in American culture. L-vis is an imagined persona, a representation of artists who have used and misused Black music. Like so many others who gained fame and fortune from their sampling, L-vis is as much a sincere artist as he is a thief. In Kevin Coval’s poems, L-vis’ story is equal parts forgotten history, autobiography, and re-imaginings.” (Source: UNC catalog)

Griffiths R Eliza. 2011. Mule & Pear. Kalamazoo, MI: The College of Arts and Sciences Western Michigan Univerisity. 97 p.
“These poems speak to us with voices borrowed from the pages of novels of Alice Walker, Jean Toomer, and Toni Morrison — voices that still have more to say, things to discuss. Each struggles beneath a yoke of dreaming, loving, and suffering. These characters converse not just with the reader but also with each other, talking amongst themselves, offering up their secrets and hard-won words of wisdom, an everlasting conversation through which these poems voice a shared human experience.” (Source: Amazon)

Harriell D. c2010. Cotton : Poems. Detroit, Michigan: Willow Books. 77 ; p.
“In his remarkable debut collection, COTTON, Derrick Harriell has created a mural in poems. The characters that inhabit this vivid tableau step into an active third dimension and allow us to witness the vicissitudes of their daily struggles, triumphs large and small, private desires. The community here is anchored by a specific Midwestern, African-American family which, in spite of both external and internal challenges, maintains its unity, however precarious at times. Death, passion, humor, mother wit, history, place, these are the colors that Harriell mixes and applies with such artistry that readers may not be so sure if they are watching a particular world or if that world is watching them. Harriell is among America’s most exciting new voices in poetry.”–Maurice Kilwein Guevara (Source: Syndetic Solutions)

Looking for more poetry resources? In addition to searching the UNC catalog, don’t forget the Stone Center Library’s Guide to the Web has an extensive literature section, including several poetry-related sites. Happy reading!

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New @the SCL: Head off & split (winner of the 2011 National Book Award in Poetry)

Posted on April 23, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Is it us, or has April just flown by? As National Poetry Month winds down, we thought we’d highlight some recent acquisitions here at the SCL, starting today with a spotlight on Nikky Finney‘s National Book Award-winning anthology Head off & split : poems.

Widely praised, this collection artfully engages with a variety of timely topics. In the words of one reviewer:

“The poems in Nikky Finney’s breathtaking new collection Head Off & Split sustain a sensitive and intense dialogue with emblematic figures and events in African-American life: from Civil Rights matriarch Rosa Parks, to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, from a brazen girl strung out on lightning, to a terrified woman abandoned on a rooftop during Hurricane Katrina. Her poet’s voice is defined by an intimacy, which holds a soft yet exacting-eye on the erotic, on uncanny political and family events, like her mother’s wedding waltz with S.C. Senator Strom Thurmond, and then again on the heart-breaking hilarity of an American President’s final state of the Union address. Artful and intense, Finney’s poems ask us to be mindful of what we fraction, fragment, cut off, dice, dishonor, or throw away, powerfully evoking both the lawless and the sublime.” (Source: http://nikkyfinney.net/books.html).

 

Interested in seeing what all the buzz is about? Be sure to come by the Stone Center Library and check out this book! More information about Head off & split and Nikky Finney herself may also be found on her website, and her acceptance speech for the 2011 National Book Award in Poetry is available on Vimeo.

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Women’s History Month Display Highlights

Posted on March 27, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Have you been by the Stone Center Library lately? If so, you may have noticed our latest display, which features selections in honor of women’s history month, hand-picked by Stone Center Librarian Shauna Collier.

Here are some of the highlights:

Azaransky, Sarah. The Dream Is Freedom : Pauli Murray and American Democratic Faith. Oxford ;: Oxford UP, c2011.

Blair, Cynthia M. I’ve Got to Make My Livin’ : Black Women’s Sex Work in Turn-of-the-century Chicago. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2010.

Haynes, Rosetta Renae. Radical Spiritual Motherhood : Autobiography and Empowerment in Nineteenth-century African American Women. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, c2011.

Johnson, M. Mikell. Heroines of African American Golf : The Past, the Present and the Future. [Bloomington, Ind.]: Trafford Pub., c2010.

Lau, Kimberly J. Body Language : Sisters in Shape, Black Women’s Fitness, and Feminist Identity Politics. Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple UP, 2011.

Musser, Judith. “Girl, Colored” and Other Stories : A Complete Short Fiction Anthology of African American Women Writers in the Crisis Magazine, 1910-2010. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., c2011.

Nevergold, Barbara Seals., and Peggy Brooks-Bertram. Go, Tell Michelle : African American Women Write to the New First Lady. Albany, N.Y.: Excelsior Editions/State U of New York P, c2009.

Perkins-Valdez, Dolen. Wench : A Novel. New York: Amistad, c2010.

Shields, John C., and Eric D. Lamore. New Essays on Phillis Wheatley. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, c2011.

Winn, Maisha T. Girl Time : Literacy, Justice, and the School-to-prison Pipeline. New York: Teachers College P, c2011.

Like what you see? Come on by for these titles and more! The Stone Center Library is open 8am-8pm Monday-Thursday and Fridays 8am-5pm. The Library is on the third floor of the Stone Center on South Rd., near the Belltower.

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SCL Picks for Women’s History Month

Posted on March 20, 2012 by | 1 comment

March is Women’s History Month and here at the Library options abound for those of you interested in women’s studies from a variety of approaches. Perhaps you’ve read the extremely popular novel The Help, have seen the award-winning film, or both. Love it or hate it, this complex work has inspired spirited debate with regard to its portrayal of race relations. Along these lines, today we thought we would feature a couple of our holdings on motherhood and the domestic sphere in the American South. Check out:

Born southern : childbirth, motherhood, and social networks in the old South, by V. Lynn Kennedy (2010).

  • “Kennedy’s unique approach links the experiences of black and white women, examining how childbirth and motherhood created strong ties to family, community, and region for both. She also moves beyond a simple exploration of birth as a physiological event, examining the social and cultural circumstances surrounding it: family and community support networks, the beliefs and practices of local midwives, and the roles of men as fathers and professionals. . . Kennedy’s systematic and thoughtful study distinguishes southern approaches to childbirth and motherhood from northern ones, showing how slavery and rural living contributed to a particularly southern experience.” (Source: http://search.lib.unc.edu/search?R=UNCb6283703)

Cooking in other women’s kitchens : domestic workers in the South, 1865-1960, by Rebecca Sharpless (2010).

  • “Through letters, autobiography, and oral history, this book evokes African American women’s voices from slavery to the open economy, examining their lives at work and at home. Sharpless looks beyond stereotypes to introduce the real women who left their own houses and families each morning to cook in other women’s kitchens.” (Source: http://search.lib.unc.edu/search?R=UNCb6460585)

If this topic piques your interest, don’t forget we’re always happy to provide further recommendations and/or reference assistance – by phone, email, or chat (StoneCenterRef). And in case you missed it the first time, here’s our Women’s History Month Round-Up of previous SCL blog entries and online resources in women’s studies, including the Stone Center Library’s Guide to the Web.

Next up on the SCL blog: Have you come by the Library lately? Make sure you check out our latest display, featuring hand-picked selections by Stone Center Librarian Shauna Collier for Women’s History Month. Stay tuned!

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Posted in Non-Fiction, Slavery, Women's history

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Women’s History Month Round-Up

Posted on March 1, 2012 by | 2 comments

March marks the start of Women’s History Month and this year’s theme is “Women’s Education – Women’s Empowerment.” Before going on  a brief blogging hiatus for Spring Break next week, we thought we’d jump-start the month with a round-up of online resources and pertinent posts from the SCL blog archives. 

For example… did you know our Stone Center Library Guide to the Web contains a wealth of sites related to women’s history, achievements, and issues  across a variety of disciplines? Check out some simple searches here, here, and here.  From science and technology to literature and the arts, we’ve got you covered! 

In addition to these general resources, we’ve periodically featured profiles of compelling women of historical and cultural significance. See, for example, our previous posts highlighting the following female figures: 

Looking for a broader perspective? More of a book person? You’re in luck! Over the last couple of years we’ve taken the time to put together lists of recommendations for Women’s History Month which you may consult at your leisure: here, here, here, and here. 

We hope these links provide some inspiration for whatever your research or reading needs may be, and hope that you will check in after the break for more from us as we continue to celebrate women’s history here at the Stone Center Library. Finally, best of luck to those of you winding your way through midterm exams and assignments – Spring Break is almost here! 

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Posted in Biography, Education, Women's history

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New @the SCL: Military History

Posted on February 28, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Over the course of Black History Month 2012, we’ve posted SCL Picks and new titles on a variety of topics: literature, fine arts, religion, gender, film studies, love, and even the first published novel by an African American woman. As February comes to a close, we thought we would round things out with four  recent titles in the area of military history.

As always, we also encourage you to make use of the Stone Center Library’s Guide to the Web, which includes a section of online resources covering African American military history. Plus, did you know the itself Guide is searchable? In addition to perusing the Guide by topic, the “Search the Guide” bar allows for keyword searching to pull sites listed in the guide from across sections. For example, searching for “Tuskegee” yields this list of websites contained within the Guide: http://bit.ly/wnbZGo. Happy searching!

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Posted in Civil War, Military, New Titles, Non-Fiction, Slavery

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