New in August from the University of Nebraska Press

New this month from the University of Nebraska Press: Mayor Helen Boosalis: My Mother’s Life in Politics by Beth Boosalis Davis. As a 1950s housewife and League of Women Voters volunteer who spearheaded the city of Lincoln’s switch to a "strong mayor" form of government, Helen Boosalis never anticipated that she herself would one day be that strong mayor and chief executive of Nebraska’s capital city. Helen Boosalis’s story, told by her daughter, Beth Boosalis Davis, is the story of a true pioneer of women in politics. The daughter of Greek immigrants, Boosalis achieved national prominence as the first woman … Continue reading New in August from the University of Nebraska Press

This Week in History: July 28 – August 1

This Week in History: July 28-August 1, 2008 This week we say farewell to the month of July.  How does time go by so fast?  Before you know it we will be rushing around trying to get ready for Christmas again!  Well, the good news is that football season is only a month away and we still have some time to enjoy the extreme heat before the extreme cold sets in. But, before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s look back at what was happening this week in history. July 28, 1994: Baseball pitcher Kenny Rogers of the Texas Rangers … Continue reading This Week in History: July 28 – August 1

Neil De Mause on Democracy Now

Field of Schemes: Congress Probes How New Sports Stadiums Turn Public Money into Private Profit Yesterday author Neil DeMause was a guest, along with Representative Dennis Kucinich and Bettina Damiani (Project Director of Good Jobs New York), on Democracy Now! The transcript of the show and links to the audio are at: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/30/field_of_schemes_congress_probes_how Continue reading Neil De Mause on Democracy Now

Linking in Lincoln: July 30, 2008

New this month from the University of Nebraska Press is, Coincidence and Counterfactuality: Plotting time and space in narrative fiction by Hilary P. Dannenberg. This groundbreaking analysis of plot answers the pivotal question of how do we tell good stories?  By charting the development of fiction over history, from the renaissance to today, Dannenberg explores how the novel has changed over time and authors develop complex strategies for piercing the cognitive stricture of the reader with real life experiences. This week Linking in Lincoln will take a look at both coincidence and counterfactuality (as in defining it) and see what … Continue reading Linking in Lincoln: July 30, 2008

Tusday Trivia: July 29, 2008

    Well bloggers, it’s very hot outside (and a little humid), it’s the middle of the summer, and there are no romantic holidays in sight. Now I don’t know if you lament the fact that only one day a year is targeted towards celebrating love, or if you think that’s really one day too many. If you’re the former than to remedy this I present to you a timeless romantic tradition encapsulated into book form for all the world to enjoy, albeit a little off season. If you’re the latter, then may I propose that you keep reading, as … Continue reading Tusday Trivia: July 29, 2008

The Path Home, or Rediscovering Paradise in Authentic Place

When I left Omaha for Philadelphia in June to present a paper on place at the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment symposium "Keyboard in the Garden," I couldn’t have selected a better, more appropriate book to take with me. Paradise is place, the environmental historian John Opie suggests in Virtual America: Sleepwalking through Paradise (UNP, June 2008), but Americans by and large have lost their sense of place–of rootedness–and belonging to and in place. This pervasive feeling of placelessness, as Opie terms it, isn’t new in American history, however. Questions about place have puzzled American artists and … Continue reading The Path Home, or Rediscovering Paradise in Authentic Place

Author in the News

Susan Brownell, author of the University of Nebraska Press title, The 1904 Anthropology Days and Olympic Games: Sport, Race, and American Imperialism, was featured this morning on NPR. Listen to the NPR broadcast as she discusses China and their efforts to enthusiastically support their country at this year’s summer Olympics. Brownell’s title, The 1904 Anthropology Days and Olympic Games, is due out this September.  Continue reading Author in the News

Stephenie Ambrose Tubbs Discusses Her New Lewis and Clark Book

Stephenie_ambrose_tubbs_at_cgps_071Stephenie Ambrose Tubbs, author of Why Sacagawea Deserves the Day Off and Other Lessons Learned from the Lewis and Clark Trail, spoke to a crowd of 50 Lewis and Clark enthusiasts at the Great Plains Art Museum last week. Tubbs discussed the extraordinary symbolism that has been attached to Sacagawea’s legacy as well as the importance of the Lewis and Clark expedition to capturing and developing the lifelong environmental interest of young readers, answered questions from the audience, and read from the title chapter of Why Sacagawea Deserves the Day Off:

"Again I ask that we reconsider the historical Sacagawea and give her credit for who she was. For Why_sacagawea_deserves_the_day_offexample, although in popular culture she is celebrated as a guide, we do not celebrate her greater genius, which would seem to be her memory for landscapes, her ability to translate between highly different languages and worldviews, and her understanding of harvesting foods and moccasin reading. In modern times she might have been an engineer or a crime scene investigator or a foreign correspondent with those skills. In her world landmarks told stories and because of that they stayed fixed in her mind. Think of Beaverhead Rock. She remembered those places because as a young child she would travel there with her people looking for bison and roots. These travels were based on the seasons and the stories associated with the places they went. The landmarks told stories, and Sacagawea must have been a very good listener."

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