Books published by University of Illinois Press

An enriching, interpretive mode that focuses on the transnational connections between subjects of African descent as the central pole for investigation. This journey of radical new process invites readers to see creations by artists of African descent as legible within the context of African diasporic historical and cultural debates.

Draws on current philosophy, literary history, and political events to confront the grim fact that divested boys become terrifying men.

Captures the story of the beloved American music - Bluegrass. This work includes an introduction that describes and traces the development of the music from its origins in Anglo-American folk tradition, overlaid with African American influences, to the popularity of Ralph Stanley, Alison Krauss, and the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack.

Investigates the notion of ethnic identity as it relates to Scandinavian Americans and political affiliations in Wisconsin, from 1890-1914. The author explains the change by looking at several important Scandinavian-American institutions, including the church, mutual aid fraternities, the temperance movement, and the Scandinavian-language press.

Details Black women as liberal reformers, from suffrage to civil rights

Includes essays that use close readings of speeches, letters, historical archives, diaries, and memoirs of policymakers and newly available FBI files to confront much-neglected questions related to race and foreign relations in the United States.

The most complete record ever assembled of the landmark Lincoln-Douglas debates, published on their 150th anniversary

Charts the evolution of black consciousness on predominately white American campuses during the critical period between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s, with the Black student movement at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign serving as an illuminating microcosm of similar movements across the country.

Reconceptualises the orphanage as day care

Reveals a spiritual middle way, an approach native to the long-standing traditions in which faith and doubt are interwoven in constructive and dynamic ways.

In How Free Can the Press Be? Randall P. Bezanson explores contradictions embedded in understanding press freedom in America by discussing nine of the most pivotal and provocative First Amendment cases in U.S. judicial history.

Crucial insights into effective ethnographic research

Presents the racism, history and unique drive behind the changing roles of Latin baseball players.

Gathers the uncollected work on Lincoln by Benjamin P Thomas, regarded as the greatest Lincoln historian of his generation. This diverse collection is enhanced by an introduction by Michael Burlingame, himself a leading biographer of Lincoln, who provides a portrait of Thomas and his circuitous path toward writing history.

Departing from simple observations of the people and setting around him-- neighbors, friends, and lovers in New York City--Stephen Cramer's Shiva's Drum explores personal and familial relationships set to the rhythms of jazz in an urban landscape. Though comfortable at the edge, these poems deal with reality and move forward by transforming pain into beauty.

A book to celebrate the life and writing of one of the Southern leaders of the middle twentieth century, Don West (1906-1992). It provides a comprehensive collection of his poetry, spanning five decades of his literary career.

This is the first comprehensive study in the English language of the commentaries of Didymus the Blind, who was revered as the foremost Christian scholar of the fourth century and an influential spiritual director of ascetics.   The writings of Didymus were censored and destroyed due to his posthumous condemnation for heresy. This study recovers the uncensored voice of Didymus through the commentaries among the Tura papyri, a massive set of documents discovered in an Egyptian quarry in 1941.   This neglected corpus offers an unprecedented glimpse into the internal workings of a Christian philosophical academy in the most vibrant and tumultuous cultural center of late antiquity. By exploring the social context of Christian instruction in the competitive environment of fourth-century Alexandria, Richard A. Layton elucidates the political implications of biblical interpretation.   Through detailed analysis of the commentaries on Psalms, Job, and Genesis, the author charts a profound tectonic shift in moral imagination as classical ethical vocabulary becomes indissolubly bound to biblical narrative. Attending to the complex interactions of political competition and intellectual inquiry, this study makes a unique contribution to the cultural history of late antiquity.

This provocative exploration of the internal logic of lesbian relationships argues that they are not patterned after heterosexual ones but rely on the interplay of psychosexual differences between women.

In 1959, when Un Negre a Paris first appeared, the French still held West Africa under colonial rule. Dadie's observations and subtle parodies of Parisian manners and morals are entertaining and poignant, charming yet profound.