Freedom’s Racial Frontier: African Americans in the Twentieth-Century West
Edited by Herbert G. Ruffin II and Dwayne A. Mack ’02 PhD History
University of Oklahoma Press: 2018
Between 1940 and 2010, the black population of the American West grew from 710,400 to 7 million. With that explosive growth has come a burgeoning interest in the history of the African American West—an interest reflected in the range and depth of the works collected in Freedom’s Racial Frontier that link past, current, and future generations of African American West scholarship. The West is revealed as a place where black Americans have fought—and continue to fight—to make their idea of freedom live up to their expectations of equality. Mack is Carter G. Woodson Chair in African American history and professor of history at Berea College, author of numerous articles on African American history, and coeditor of Beginning a Career in Academia: A Guide for Graduate Students of Color.
Girls on Fire: Transformative Heroines in Young Adult Literature
Sarah Hentges ’06 PhD Amer. Studies
McFarland: 2018
Hentges delves into the dystopian imagination portrayed in some 140 young adult novels. By focusing on the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, and power, Hentges’ “girls on fire” inspire progressive transformation and inspire hope for a better future.
Ludwig Richter: The Story Artist
Martin Brockhaus ’88 Nursing
2018
Nineteenth-century German artist and book illustrator Ludwig Richter’s illustrations were used in novels, children’s books, travel guides, calendars, brochures, and songbooks. In this biography, Richter’s work, and the art of his friends and colleagues, is featured in over 150 color images.