By Lisa A. Lindsay (NHC Fellow, 2004–05) A decade before the American Civil War, James Churchwill Vaughan (1828–1893) set out to fulfill his formerly enslaved father’s dying wish that he should leave America to start a new life in Africa. Over the next forty years, Vaughan was taken captive, fought in African wars, built and … Continued
By Moshe Sluhovsky (NHC Fellow, 2002–03) From 1400 through 1700, the number of reports of demonic possessions among European women was extraordinarily high. During the same period, a new type of mysticism—popular with women—emerged that greatly affected the risk of possession and, as a result, the practice of exorcism. Many feared that in moments of … Continued
By William M. Banks (NHC Fellow, 1981–82)Edited by William M. Banks (NHC Fellow, 1981–82) Black Intellectuals offers a centuries-deep analysis of black life, beginning with the arrival of Africans as slaves, when medicine men and conjurers held ancient, powerful wisdom. Author William Banks goes on to discuss prominent figures ranging from black pioneers like Alexander … Continued
By Philip Rupprecht (NHC Fellow, 2005–06) British Musical Modernism explores the works of eleven key composers to reveal the rapid shifts of expression and technique that transformed British art music in the post-war period. Responding to radical avant-garde developments in post-war Europe, the Manchester Group composers – Alexander Goehr, Peter Maxwell Davies, and Harrison Birtwistle … Continued
Edited by Grant Ramsey (NHC Fellow, 2015–16) and Charles H. Pence Humans, however much we would care to think otherwise, do not represent the fated pinnacle of ape evolution. The diversity of life, from single-celled organisms to multicellular animals and plants, is the result of a long, complex, and highly chancy history. But how profoundly … Continued
By Marjorie Curry Woods (NHC Fellow, 1999–00) With an unusually broad scope encompassing how Europeans taught and learned reading and writing at all levels, Classroom Commentaries: Teaching the Poetria nova across Medieval and Renaissance Europe provides a synoptic picture of medieval and early modern instruction in rhetoric, poetics, and composition theory and practice. As Marjorie Curry Woods convincingly argues, … Continued
Edited by Franklin W. Knight (NHC Fellow, 1986–87) and Teresita Martínez-Vergne The Caribbean ranks among the earliest and most completely globalized regions in the world. From the first moment Europeans set foot on the islands to the present, products, people, and ideas have made their way back and forth between the region and other parts … Continued
By David Ellis (NHC Fellow, 1991–92) Originally published in 1998, the final volume of the Cambridge Biography of D. H. Lawrence chronicles his progress from leaving Europe in 1922 to his death in Venice in 1930. Based on much previously unfamiliar material, it describes his travels in Ceylon, Australia, the USA and Mexico in an … Continued
By Jiwei Ci (NHC Fellow, 1991–92) Behind the profound social and economic changes now taking place in China is a complex history of communism's invention and loss of meaning. This history, from 1949 to the present, has been extensively studied by scholars using the methods of history and political science. Dialectic of the Chinese Revolution … Continued
Edited by Paula McDowell (NHC Fellow, 1999–00) This volume makes available for the first time the complete surviving works of the London printer-author Elinor James (c.1645-1719). Uniquely in the history of early modern women, James wrote, printed and distributed more than ninety pamphlets and broadsides addressing political, religious and commercial concerns. Written over a period … Continued