Duke University Press Log

Chuck Brown, "Godfather of Go-Go," Dies

Washington, D.C. is mourning the death of Chuck Brown. The legendary guitarist and singer has come to stand for the city's homegrown musical genre go-go, a funky, percussive music characterized by call-and-response and known for its exciting live shows. In her new book Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City (out next month), Natalie Hopkinson uses the story of go-go music to tell the story of black D.C. from the charred ruins of the 1968 race riots to the gentrification of the 1990s and 2000s. Hopkinson shared an appreciation of Brown's legacy on The Root, writing, "Together with his D.C. fans, Chuck Brown lit the creative spark for the go-go industry -- what remains to this day a multimillion-dollar, almost entirely black-owned business, filled with musicians, promoters, graphic designers, security, bands, managers, recording studios, bootleggers, Web developers, fashion designers and radio personalities." She's also featured in this NPR remembrance. "He was royalty in this city," she says. "It's kind of inconceivable that he's gone because he was such an embodiment of the music that just went and went and went."

Tiya Miles Wins MacArthur Award

We offer a huge congratulations to University of Michigan history professor Tiya Miles, who has won a prestigious MacArthur Foundation "genius grant." Miles is a public historian whose research is on the relationships between African Americans and Cherokee peoples in colonial America. Miles is co-editor, with Sharon Holland, of our book Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds: The African Diaspora in Indian Country. She also contributed a chapter to Haunted by Empire: Geographies of Intimacy in North American History, edited by Ann Laura Stoler. The MacArthur Fellows Program awards $500,000 to individuals of exceptional creativity and accomplishment. Congratulations again to Miles!

Remembering Stetson Kennedy

We are sad to learn of the death of author and folklorist Stetson Kennedy. He was best known for exposing and ridiculing the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s and 1950s.  Stetson was a contributor to White Men Challenging Racism: 35 Personal Stories. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

 

 

 

        

(AP Photo/St. Augustine Record, Daron Dean)

 

Upcoming Author Events in the Triangle

On Friday, July 8th from noon-1:30pm (free, no ticket required, BYO lunch) stop by Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC for "Lunch with the Author: Jimmy Creech, former United Methodist minister discusses his memoir Adam’s Gift."  

Note: Attendees are encouraged to bring their own lunch or call Foster's Market next door and they'll make up a boxed lunch for you. Call in advance or the day of event: 919-967-4383.

 

On Saturday, July 16th at 2pm (open to the public) stop by Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC. Author Jimmy Creech will lead a discussion (book club format) of his book, Adam's Gift: A Memoir of a Pastor's Calling to Defy the Church's Persecution of Lesbians and Gays. How often do you have the author (and subject) of a book lead your club meeting?

 

On Sunday, July 17th from 3-4:30pm stop by the Durham County Library in Durham, NC for "Meet the Author: Karla Holloway." Dr. Karla FC Holloway, James B. Duke professor of English at Duke University, will read from her book, Private Bodies, Public Text: Race, Gender and a Cultural Bioethics. A book signing will follow the reading.

 

Victims of Forced Sterilization Tell Their Stories

From the 1920s through the 1970s, the North Carolina Board of Eugenics oversaw the forced sterilization of nearly 7600 people. Men and women were declared "feeble-minded" or "promiscuous" and many were sterilized without even their knowledge, let alone their consent. Governor Mike Easley issued an official state apology for the sterilizations in 2002, but no compensation has been paid to the victims. Now, decades after the program ended, a task force has been established to hear the victims stories and consider paying restitution.

In her book Private Bodies, Public Texts: Race, Gender, and  Cultural Bioethics, Karla FC Holloway asserts that women of color were particularly vulnerable to forced sterilization efforts. She cites the startling statistic that an "experiment in population control" led to "more thatn one-third of the women of childbearing age in Puerto Rico" being sterilized in the 1950s. And her research cites case after sad case of black, Native American, and poor women being sterilized against their will. Her book calls for medical and research professionals to realize the link between culture and ethics, and to understand that their work is always influenced by the culture at large.

Many North Carolina lawmakers have voiced concern about the cost of possible reparations. Representative Larry Womble has been an outspoken advocate for the victims. He says, "The right thing is the government be responsible for what they did, the government have to pay for what they did." But Karla Holloway is worried that being allowed to "tell their stories" in a public forum is all the victims may get. "Spectacle is substituting for rights and reparations," she says, "and at what cost?"

John P. Bowles Explains Adrian Piper's Work

Check out our latest author interview video! John P. Bowles, author of Adrian Piper: Race, Gender, and Embodiment (2011), explains why he chose to study Adrian Piper's work and shares insight into some of her most powerful pieces.

 

Adrian Piper is an in-depth analysis of Adrian Piper’s work, illustrated with more than ninety images, including twenty-one in color.

Happy Birthday, Randy Weston

On Wednesday, April 6, jazz pianist Randy Weston celebrated his 85th birthday with a concert at Baltimore's Walters Art Gallery. Baltimore Magazine reviewer John Lewis said, it "was one of the most life-affirming, musically dazzling shows I’ve ever seen." Weston continues the celebration with a gala performance at the Kennedy Center on Saturday, April 9. Geoffrey Himes profiles Weston in today's Washington Post. DC area fans have plenty of chances today and tomorrow to catch Weston talking about his recent autobiography, African Rhythms, which he wrote with jazz journalist Willard Jenkins. Before the concert, he'll appear at UDC tonight at 7 p.m., at the Rockville, Maryland public library tomorrow at noon, and at DC's Sankofa bookstore at 5:30 tomorrow afternoon. Check out our events page for full info. And join us in wishing Randy a very happy birthday!

Miller and Litvak Win MLA Prizes

The Modern Language Association announced its 2010 book prize winners today and we were thrilled to see two Duke authors on the list. Monica L. Miller's Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity has won the William Sanders Scarborough Prize for an outstanding scholarly study of African American literature or culture. We might add that this is the third Duke University Press book to win that prize in five years! We also congratulate Joseph J. Litvak,  whose The Un-Americans: Jews, the Blacklist, and Stoolpigeon Culture was an honorable mention for the very prestigious James Russell Lowell prize. We look forward to celebrating with our authors at the MLA convention in January in Los Angeles!

Presidential Commission to Study Human Subjects Protection

Last week President Obama issued a memo calling for calling for the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues to "conduct, beginning in January 2011, a thorough review of human subjects protection to determine if Federal regulations and international standards adequately guard the health and well-being of participants in scientific studies supported by the Federal Government." The call was prompted by revelations earlier this fall that the U.S. Public Health Service conducted STD research on unsuspecting Guatemalans in the 1940s. But, as work by Duke authors attests, that was not an isolated incident.

In his recent book The Professional Guinea Pig, Roberto Abadie details how the pharmaceutical research industry uses human test subjects in sometimes ethically suspect ways. Abadie sees the commission as a positive development. He says, "The Presidential commission on ethics is an important step in understanding the role of the US government in this scandal but also in devising ways to protect current research subjects domestically and also abroad where most research will be conducted in the following years. It is important that the commission moves beyond abstract ethical principles and invocations and towards effective policy recommendations that recognize the changing landscape of human research protection. One important deficit the commission should address, for example, is the lack of a registry of research subjects' participation in clinical trials research covering all phases in clinical trials research both domestically and internationally. Without this instrument we are not able to tell how many trials a research subject has volunteered for, or if he or she is doing more than one trial at the same time, compromising thus, not only their well being but also the validity of the whole trial."

Karla FC Holloway is also working on issues of ethics in medical research. Her book Private Bodies, Public Texts will be out next March. She is also hopeful about the commission, saying  "It's both appropriate and just that the president will convene a particular panel for this discussion. Bioethicists have identified certain subjects as 'vulnerable' for scores of years. But we have been less willing to acknowledge  that that vulnerability is directly tied to social judgments about the quality of personhood, the value of certain lives, and the competition of scientific and research objectives—especially when it is centered on bodies that have less social capital. It's important to tie vulnerability to its source in order to make sure we don't allow our stereotypes to follow us into clinical research paradigms."

 

Authors on the Air

Need some smart conversation? We've got some author interviews for you. First check out Amitava Kumar, author of A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb and Nobody Does the Right Thing, discussing Islamophobia on The Nation's podcast and the politics of terror on Al-Jazeera's Riz Khan Show. Then, for something completely different, listen to jazz pianist Randy Weston on NPR's Talk of the Nation. He talks about his new autobiography, African Rhythms, and about the fiftieth anniversary of his landmark album Uhuru Afrika. He'll be celebrating the anniversary with a concert at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center on November 13. Hope you enjoy hearing from these fascinating authors.