Humanities

Summer 2002

The Cayton Legacy: An African American Family

Set in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, The Cayton Legacy chronicles the evolution of a remarkable African American family. From the Civil War to the present, generations of the Horace and Susie Cayton family helped illuminate the black and white experience and the troubled course of race relations in the United States.

The Caytons sought to define themselves in relation to their family traditions and to society as a whole. In the process, the distinguished family attained financial success and influence, both regionally and nationally. Family members published newspapers, wrote books, and were elected to public office. They worked for civil and human … » More …

Summer 2008

Bunion Derby: The 1928 Footrace Across America

Charles B. Kastner ’81
University of New Mexico Press, 2007

For generations, the 1920s have provided fodder for authors. The super-hyped sensationalism of those ballyhooed years seems a bottomless pool of entertaining topics. The decade of Lindbergh, Valentino, Capone, and Ruth, of flappers, Mah Jong, crossword puzzles, and marathon dances, also produced the Bunion Derby, a marathon footrace across America. It is to his credit that Seattle author Charles Kastner (’81 M.A. History) not only uncovered this nearly forgotten story, but also that he treats it with respect, for it would have been easy to … » More …

Summer 2007

Domesticating the West: The Re-creation of the Nineteenth-Century Amer

In Domesticating the West, Brenda K. Jackson ’02, a Washington State University history Ph.D., explores the settlement of the West by the 19th-century middle class. Specifically, Jackson presents a dual biography of Thomas and Elizabeth Tannatt, middle-class migrants from Massachusetts to Washington Territory in the late 1800s. Jackson begins her book by examining the middle-class backgrounds of the Tannatts and their experiences prior to and during the Civil War. Jackson effectively demonstrates that both Thomas and Elizabeth grew up solidly middle class, in terms of relative wealth, status, and privilege, though Thomas’s situation was a bit more precarious. As a result, Jackson argues, “throughout his … » More …

Fall 2003

Classical Turkey

Much of what we think of as ancient Greece lay in fact within the modern borders of Turkey. » More ...

Spring 2003

Resilient Cultures—A new understanding of the New World

The history of European and Indian interactions is being dramatically rewritten. In a new book, a WSU historian produces an update. » More ...

Spring 2003

Between humor and menace: The art of Gaylen Hansen

Gaylen Hansen paints his alter ego as he confronts giant grasshoppers and a buffalo lurking behind the bed. » More ...

Fall 2002

A common reader: Overcoming inertia

I’d like you to meet someone. He’s a vulnerable fellow, rather too open to the joys and despairs of deep remembering. His life, therefore, is disordered but rich, evocative but dangerously reflective. He gets along, he thinks too well, he cuts corners, he sighs great sighs. Wisteria blooms and withers while he gouges his summer with indolent harrow thrusts. He regrets memory’s hold on him, yet memory, a vast overgrown archive, secrets vital news. He has a hunger there to lose himself, and a trough of youth to do it in. The luxuriant foliage thins with the approach of life’s winter, clarity trumps extremes and, … » More …

Fall 2002

Thames Voices

As a literary scholar wanders London's streets, he can hear the doubts and questions and skeptical musings of the 16th-century stage. » More ...

Spring 2002

A salon of their own

Good conversation should bring about a transcendental melding of minds and dissolve class and ideological differences.

The funniest things Washington State University historian Steve Kale ran across in researching his latest book were the accounts of how much early 19th-century French women hated going to England. For England was much like the provinces. In other words, it was not Paris.

On social occasions, English men and women would eat dinner together, but not talk much. Afterwards, the men would retire to the salon, where they would smoke cigars and talk politics. English women would drink tea and chat. “The French women,” says Kale, “found it … » More …

Spring 2002

The liberal art of judgment

Effective judgment asks us to go beyond ourselves, beyond our assumptions, and beyond the comfort of our traditions.

With little effort, we can now garner information about any part of the globe, society, legal system, health care remedy, religious belief, scientific discovery, business product, or service almost instantly. But having all this information does not guarantee that we’ll use it effectively or wisely. That requires judgment. And the responsibility for instilling judgment lies largely with the university.

Two basic ingredients assure that our universities develop and preserve judgment: faculty committed to and supported in their efforts to seek truth and discover new knowledge, and a … » More …