By Marcia Kupfer (NHC Fellow, 2012–13) A single, monumental mappa mundi (world map), made around 1300 for Hereford Cathedral, survives intact from the Middle Ages. As Marcia Kupfer reveals in her arresting new study, this celebrated testament to medieval learning has long been profoundly misunderstood. Features of the colored and gilded map that baffle modern expectations are … Continued
By Susan L. Einbinder (NHC Fellow, 1999–00) When Crusader armies on their way to the Holy Land attacked Jewish communities in the Rhine Valley, many Jews chose suicide over death at the hands of Christian mobs. With their defiant deaths, the medieval Jewish martyr was born. With the literary commemoration of the victims, Jewish martyrology … Continued
By Joanne Rappaport (NHC Fellow, 2002–03) In Beyond the Lettered City, the anthropologist Joanne Rappaport and the art historian Tom Cummins examine the colonial imposition of alphabetic and visual literacy on indigenous groups in the northern Andes. They consider how the Andean peoples received, maintained, and subverted the conventions of Spanish literacy, often combining them with … Continued
By John R. KelsoEdited by Christopher Grasso (NHC Fellow, 2016–17) While tales of Confederate guerilla-outlaws abound, there are few scholarly accounts of the Union men who battled them. This edition of John R. Kelso’s Civil War memoir presents a firsthand account of an ordinary man’s extraordinary battlefield experiences along with his evolving interpretation of what … Continued
By William H. Sewell, Jr. (NHC Fellow, 2006–07)
Edited by David Strand (NHC Fellow, 1995–96), Sherman Cochran (NHC Fellow, 2002–03), and Wen-Hsin Yeh This volume offers a fresh perspective on how Chinese cities were transformed or "Westernized" in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and how Asian and Western cities received Chinese influences dispatched through the media of commerce and migration. Part 1 … Continued
By Jann Pasler (NHC Fellow, 2006–07) In a book that challenges modernist ideas about the value and role of music in Western society, Composing the Citizen demonstrates how music can help forge a nation. Deftly exploring the history of Third Republic France, Jann Pasler shows how French people from all classes and political persuasions looked to music … Continued
Edited by Charles Stewart (NHC Fellow, 1996–97) Social scientists have used the term "Creolization" to evoke cultural fusion and the emergence of new cultures across the globe. However, the term has been under-theorized and tends to be used as a simple synonym for "mixture" or "hybridity." In this volume, by contrast, renowned scholars give the … Continued
By Sophie de Schaepdrijver (NHC Fellow, 1995–96) On August 4, 1914, the largest invading army to date ever mobilized, invaded a small and unprepared neighboring country. And so the Great War began for Belgium. A war that resembled that of other countries, and yet not. Belgium's First World War took place on two fronts: in the mud of … Continued
By Louise Meintjes (NHC Fellow, 2007–08) In Dust of the Zulu Louise Meintjes traces the political and aesthetic significance of ngoma, a competitive form of dance and music that emerged out of the legacies of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa. Contextualizing ngoma within South Africa's history of violence, migrant labor, the HIV epidemic, and the world … Continued