Category Archives: Culture

Behind the Surface: 19th-Century Haitian Paintings Provide Link to Past

Behind the surface of a painting lies the history of its making. Scholars now know more about the histories of some 19th-century Haitian paintings held in Yale’s collections, thanks to the collaborative efforts of colleagues from Yale, the Smithsonian Institution, and Haiti. (more…)

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A New Vision of Democratic Individualism in ‘Awakening to Race’

Jack Turner, UW assistant professor of political science, is the author of “Awakening to Race: Individualism and Social Consciousness in America,” published this month by University of Chicago Press. He answered a few questions about his book for UW Today.

What’s the central concept behind “Awakening to Race”?

The book addresses the challenge of racial justice by asking, “What does it mean to be a self-aware human being? What does it mean to be awake to reality?”

In part, it means confronting the worst aspects of ourselves and our lives. Being awake to reality in the United States means confronting the ways America’s history of slavery, Jim Crow and white supremacy still shapes the present — the opportunities we have or we lack, the confidence we have in ourselves or fail to have in others, the ways our chances for success are still color coded. (more…)

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Female Pulitzer Prize Winners Require Higher Qualifications, MU Study Finds

Gender disparity in journalism still exists, but is improving

COLUMBIA, Mo. ­—The Pulitzer Prize in Journalism is one of the world’s most prestigious awards. Despite progress in the last few decades, gender disparities in the field of journalism have existed as long as the profession has. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found that female Pulitzer Prize winners are more likely to have greater qualifications than their male counterparts in order to win the coveted award.

In a study to be published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Yong Volz, an assistant professor of journalism studies in the MU School of Journalism, along with Francis Lee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, studied biographical data from all 814 historical winners of the Pulitzer Prize from 1917 to 2010. They found that the majority of the 113 female Pulitzer Prize winners enjoyed access to greater resources than the average male winner. (more…)

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Nettles — it’s what’s for dinner!

UCLA scholar, culinary historian champions foraged foods in new book

Today, delicacies like capers, arugula and fennel are at home at Dean & Deluca, Whole Foods and fancy restaurants, but they haven’t always lived the high life.

These and other darlings of the foodie set started out as peasants’ fodder, foraged from rocky outcroppings, empty fields and roadsides, according to a new book by a UCLA professor.

Luigi Ballerini revisits this distant past in “A Feast of Weeds: A Literary Guide to Foraging and Cooking Wild Edible Plants” (University of California Press), which celebrates the foraged foods that are currently enjoying a renaissance in Italy and elsewhere. (more…)

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‘Earth Perfect?’

Professor’s new book examines nature, utopia and the garden

“the result of humanity’s attempt to carve out an ideal place in nature, thereby fashioning a ‘perfect’ earth” — is the subject of a new book, co-authored and edited by the University of Delaware’s Annette Giesecke.

Earth Perfect? Nature, Utopia, and the Garden is a lushly illustrated, 303-page volume that brings together essays from writers and experts across disciplines to study the relationship — historical, present and future — between humanity and the garden. (more…)

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Common Reader Author Visits

Katherine Boo talks of hope and struggle in Annawadi, India

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Katherine Boo found that despite having to struggle daily to survive, the people who live in Annawadi, India, also share the common hopes, dreams and aspirations of people everywhere in seeking to better themselves and their children. (more…)

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