Tag Archive for American History

Wesleyan University Press’ Antiracist Reading Lists!

by mkolson • August 18, 2020

To celebrate the continuous struggle for freedom and equality in America, Wesleyan University Press has compiled a few antiracist reading lists in order to amplify BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) voices, experiences, and histories. Below are just a few of the fantastic titles Wesleyan University Press has published by BIPOC authors or about the Black historical legacy. Poetry, music and dance, autobiography, science fiction, historical novels, and more show the breadth of these lyrical, literary, and scholarly contributions. We are dedicated to supporting Black authors and stories, to listening and learning through publishing and reading. This moment is highlighting just how much work there is to be done in order to dismantle systemic racism in our country; these books help show us why that work is so important and how we can begin to integrate it into our daily lives and reading practices. Black lives matter!

To order books and view our full list of titles, please visit https://www.hfsbooks.com/publishers/wesleyan-university-press/ or click on the below cover images to visit a book page directly. And don’t forget to look out for Beyoncé in the World: Making Meaning with Queen Bey in Troubled Times edited by Christina Baade and Kristin McGee– forthcoming in Spring 2021!

The following list includes poetry, science fiction, historical novels, and non-fiction.

A Hubert Harrison Reader

Five Black Lives

African American Connecticut Explored

100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof

The Little Edges by Fred Moten	The Book of Landings by Mark McMorris	Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip
Un-American by Hafizah Geter	The Lazarus Poems by Kamau Brathwaite	Magic City by Yusef Komunyakaa
The Peacock Poems by Sherley Anne Williams	semiautomatic by Evie Shockley	In the Language of My Captor by Shane McCrae
To See the Earth Before the End of the World by Ed Roberson	Butting Out: Reading Resistive Choreographies Through Works by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Chandralekha by Ananya Chatterjea	Trophic Cascade by Camille T. Dungy
The Age of Phillis by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers	Fela: Kalakuta Notes by John Collins	The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas
Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae by Michael E. Veal	Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post-Quake Chronicle by Gina Athena Ulysse	Come home Charley Patton by Ralph Lemon
Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America by Tricia Rose	The Logbooks: Connecticut’s Slave Ships and Human Memory by Anne Farrow	The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany
How to Dress a Fish by Abigail Chabitnoy	Blue Ravens by Gerald Vizenor	In Mad Love and War by Joy Harjo

Announcing “Country Acres and Cul-de-Sacs”

by sshehreen • November 6, 2018

Classic magazine captures New England state on the brink of transformation

In Country Acres and Cul-de-Sacs, Jay Gitlin revisits Connecticut’s dramatic mid-twentieth century changes, through the pages of Connecticut Circle magazine.

In 1938, the first year of its publication, Connecticut Circle magazine covered the opening of the Merritt Parkway in June, a devastating hurricane in September, and a transformative election in November that saw Raymond Baldwin replace Governor Wilbur Cross on the brink of WWII. Covering the news, recreation, literary figures, and politicians, and above all—the achievements and products of the state, Connecticut Circle entertained, promoted, and projected the image of a bustling state with more than its share of creative citizens and renowned institutions of higher learning.

With an illuminating introduction and context-setting headnotes for its thirteen sections, this volume provides a wealth of fascinating articles for anyone seeking to reminisce, and understand the values that pushed Connecticut into the postwar world.

Jay Gitlin teaches history at Yale University. He is the author of The Bourgeois Frontier: French Towns, French Traders & American Expansion and co-author of Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America’s Western Past. He lives in North Branford, Connecticut.

December 3, 2018
328 pp., 9 x 12”
Paperback, $29.95 978-0-999-7935-0-3

Marking the 214th Anniversary of the Hamilton-Burr Duel

by selliott • July 11, 2018

Weehawken, New Jersey, 11 July 1804

Two-hundred-fourteen years ago today, Alexander Hamilton was mortally wounded by Aaron Burr, in a wooden pistol duel that was the culmination of years of personal and political conflict. Hamilton succumbed to his wounds on July 12th. The incident helped to further legislation banning duels, and Burr was indicted for murder in the states of New York and New Jersey. Charges were dropped.

Incidentally, Alexander’s son, Philip Hamilton, was killed in a duel at age 19, in 1801, shot at the very same location where his father would also be fatally shot. Philip is pictured above, right.

First published in 1960, Wesleyan has reissued Interview in Weekhawken: The Burr-Hamilton Duel as Told in the Original Documents. The volume houses a closely annotated thread of documents, providing a riveting account of the lead-up to and aftermath of the disastrous duel. There is the fiery correspondence between Hamilton and Burr, notes and accounts from their seconds-in-command, and other documents that provide an immediate sense of the personalities and times. If the Broadway sensation Hamilton has left you wanting to learn more about this chapter in history, pick up a copy of Interview in Weehawken. It is a great resource for teachers of American history, and a perfect gift for a US history buff.

In the mean time, please enjoy these highlights from Drunk History‘s take on Alexander Hamilton, featuring Wesleyan’s own Lin-Manuel Miranda! Play Video.

Aubrey Plaza and Aliashawkat Hamilton, in “Drunk History”