By Barbara N. Ramusack (NHC Fellow, 1986–87) Although the princes of India have been caricatured as oriental despots and British stooges, Barbara Ramusack's study argues that the British did not create the princes. On the contrary, many were consummate politicians who exercised considerable degrees of autonomy until the disintegration of the princely states after independence. … Continued
By Norman Sherry (NHC Fellow, 1982–83) Unquestionably one of the greatest novelists of his time, Graham Greene had always guarded his privacy, remaining aloof, mysterious and unpredictable. Nonetheless, he took the surprising step of allowing Norman Sherry complete access to letter and diaries, and gave his consent to this full and frank biography in three … Continued
Edited by Melvin Richter (NHC Fellow, 1989–90) and Hartmut Lehmann
By Bernard McGinn (NHC Fellow, 1999–00) "Perhaps no mystic in the history of Christianity has been more influential and more controversial than the Dominican Meister Eckhart. Few, if any mystics have been as challenging to modern readers and as resistant to agreed-upon interpretation." So begins McGinn's much lauded introduction to the intriguing preacher and philosopher. … Continued
By Susan Crane (NHC Fellow, 1999–00) Medieval courtiers defined themselves in ceremonies and rituals. Tournaments, Maying, interludes, charivaris, and masking invited the English and French nobility to assert their identities in gesture and costume as well as in speech. These events presumed that performance makes a self, in contrast to the modern belief that identity … Continued
By Richard M. Eaton (NHC Fellow, 1979–80) In all of the South Asian subcontinent, Bengal was the region most receptive to the Islamic faith. This area today is home to the world's second-largest Muslim ethnic population. How and why did such a large Muslim population emerge there? And how does such a religious conversion take … Continued
By Julia W. BondEdited by Adam Fairclough (NHC Fellow, 1994–95) The Star Creek Papers is the never-before-published account of the complex realities of race relations in the rural South in the 1930s. When Horace and Julia Bond moved to Louisiana in 1934, they entered a world where the legacy of slavery was miscegenation, lingering paternalism, and … Continued
By Winifred Breines (NHC Fellow, 2001–02) Inspired by the idealism of the civil rights movement, the women who launched the radical second wave of the feminist movement believed, as a bedrock principle, in universal sisterhood and color-blind democracy. Their hopes, however, were soon dashed. To this day, the failure to create an integrated movement remains … Continued
By J. R. Green (NHC Fellow, 1991–92) In Theatre in Ancient Greek Society the author examines the social setting and function of ancient Greek theatre through the thousand years of its performance history. Instead of using written sources, which were intended only for a small, educated section of the population, he draws most of his evidence from … Continued
By Madeleine Dobie (NHC Fellow, 2005–06) In Trading Places, Madeleine Dobie explores the place of the colonial world in the culture of the French Enlightenment. She shows that until a turning point in the late 1760s questions of colonization and slavery occupied a very marginal position in literature, philosophy, and material and visual culture. In an … Continued