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Spring 1999 |
| "Outside
the Pale" The Architecture of Fay Jones The Department of Arkansas Heritage With a Foreword by Robert Adams Ivy Jr.
This book accompanied a special museum exhibit of Jones's life and work at the Old State House in Little Rock. It traces Jones's development from his early years as a student of Frank Lloyd Wright and Bruce Goff, to the culmination of his ability in such arresting structures as Pinecote Pavilion in Picayune, Mississippi; Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas; and Chapman University Chapel in Orange, California. Through the black-and-white photographs of the homes, chapels, and other buildings that Jones has created and the accompanying captions and interviews of the architect, the reader is allowed a view into this man's remarkable talent. Designing structures that fuse architecture and landscape, the organic and the man-made, Jones has created special places which touch their viewers with the power and subtlety of poetry. Herein we learn why. From the Foreword by Robert Adams Ivy Jr.: "Fay Jones's architecture begins in order and ends in mystery. . . . His role can perhaps best be understood as mediator, a human consciousness that has arisen from the Arkansas soil and scoured the cosmos, then spoken through the voices of stone and wood, steel and glass. Art, philosophy, craft, and human aspiration coalesce in his masterworks, transformed from acts of will into harmonies: Jones lets space sing." 7-1/2" x 9-1/2" |
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| Also
by this author Our Own Sweet Sounds: A Celebration of Popular Music in Arkansas |
Singing
in Zion Music and Song in the Life of One Arkansas Family Robert Cochran
Robert Cochran has constructed a composite portrait of this family for whom music is the center of life. He examines their lived experience as they anchor their history through song, singing, and the playing of musical instruments. The Gilberts are wonderful exemplars of the "mediation of oral tradition," and when approached through their music, they reveal themselves as remarkable individuals with an elaborate and firmly held sense of their unique identities. A decade in the making, Singing in Zion is written with a memoirist's sense of family history and an ethnographer's sense of the rich encounter of worlds. This narrative has a seductive simplicity that conveys much of the Gilbert family's charm while at the same time establishing a broader framework that is firmly academic. It will be enjoyed by all readers. Robert Cochran is the director of the Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies and a professor in the English department at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Winner of several awards and fellowships, his previous publications include Vance Randolph: An Ozark Life (University of Illinois Press, 1985), Samuel Beckett: A Study of the Short Fiction (G.K. Hall Publishers, 1991), and Our Own Sweet Sounds (University of Arkansas Press, 1996, 2005). MAY |
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Guerrillas,
Unionists, and Violence on the Confederate Home Front
Until recently, this localized violence was largely ignored, scholars focusing instead on large-scale operations of the war—the decisions and actions of generals and presidents. But as Daniel Sutherland reminds us, the impact of battles and elections cannot be properly understood without an examination of the struggle for survival on the home front, of lives lived in the atmosphere created by war. Sutherland gathers eleven essays by such noted Civil War scholars as Michael Fellman, Donald Frazier, Noel Fisher, and B. F. Cooling, each one exploring the Confederacy's internal war in a different state. All help to broaden our view of the complexity of war and to provide us with a clear picture of war's consequences, its impact on communities, homes, and families. This strong collection of essays delves deeply into what Daniel Sutherland calls "the desperate side of war," enriching our understanding of a turbulent and divisive period in American history. A professor of history at the University of Arkansas and a nationally renowned Civil War scholar, Daniel E. Sutherland is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and from the Andrew J. Mellon Foundation. He has previously published eight books, including A Very Violent Rebel, (University of Tennessee Press, 1995), Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville (University of Nebraska Press, 1998), and Seasons of War (Free Press, 1995), for which he received both the Douglas Southall Freeman Award and the Laney Award. 6" x 9" |
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Understanding the Little Rock Crisis
In 1997, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock sponsored a gathering of scholars who traced the origins and addressed the legacy of the Central High crisis. Elizabeth Jacoway and C. Fred Williams commissioned a series of original and insightful papers that discussed economic, constitutional, historical, and personal aspects of the crisis and of segregation. Jacoway and Williams have collected the best of these papers, by such authors as Sheldon Hackney, Joel Williamson, and James Cobb and offer them here in the hope of enhancing understanding of, and creating a dialogue about, this defining moment in American history. This collection of accessible and provocative essays on a signal event in civil rights in this nation will resonate broadly and appeal to a diverse audience. A recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Elizabeth Jacoway has published several books on Southern history, including Yankee Missionaries in the South (Louisiana State University Press, 1980) and Southern Businessmen and Desegregation (Louisiana State University Press, 1982). She served on the Planning Committee for Little Rock Central High Museum. A professor of history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, C. Fred Williams has published several books on Arkansas, including Arkansas: An Illustrated History of the Land of Opportunity (Windsor Publishing, 1986). His articles and reviews have appeared in such journals as Agricultural History, the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, and the Journal of Southern History. 6" x 9"
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Bitters in the Honey
Drawing on oral histories, Beth Roy tells the story of Central High from a fresh angle. Her interviews with white alumni of Central High investigate the reasons behind their resistance to desegregation. The alumni, now near retirement age, discuss their lives since Central High and their present insecurities and resentments. The stories tell of the shaping of white identities in the latter half of the twentieth century, of dissatisfaction, even anger, that still lingers after forty years. Our country has not moved beyond matters of race: we have not left intolerance behind. To do so, Roy believes, we must stop demonizing people whose actions, historical or current, we do not fully understand. This elegantly written treatment of the Central High crisis is unique among studies done to date. It will help readers to better comprehend the complexity of racism, not only as it was evidenced at Central High in 1957, but as it continues to impact our lives today. Beth Roy, a trained sociologist and practicing therapist, has published several books on social conflict, including Some Trouble With Cows (University of California Press, 1994) and On a Tree of Trouble (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974). A recipient of a National Science Foundation Grant and a grant from the Fund for Research in Dispute Resolution, she delivered the final paper at the Little Rock Crisis symposium, forty years after the events at Central High. 6" x 9"
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The African-American History of Nashville,
Tennessee, 1780–1930
Bobby L. Lovett presents a complex analysis of black experience in Nashville during the years between 1780 and 1930, exploring the impact of civil rights, education, politics, religion, business, and neighborhood development on a particular African-American community. This study of black Nashville examines lives lived within a web of shifting alliances and interests—the choices made, the difficulties overcome. Fifteen years in the making, illustrated with maps and photographs, this work is the first detailed study of any of Tennessee's major urban black communities. Lovett here collects, organizes, and interprets a large, rich body of data, making this material newly accessible to all interested in the black urban experience. Bobby L. Lovett is a professor of history and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Tennessee State University. His articles and reviews have been published widely in such journals as Tennessee Historical Quarterly and the Journal of Southern History. Together with L. T. Wynn, he edited the book, Profiles of African Americans in Tennessee. 6" x 9" |
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The Wilderness Within
Kristina K. Groover, in examining this question, finds that books by American women writers offer alternative patterns for seeking revelation—patterns which emphasize not solitary journeys, but the sacredness of everyday life. Drawing on the work of feminist theorists and theologians, including Carol Gilligan, Naomi Goldenberg, and Rosemary Ruether, Groover explores the spiritual nature and force of domesticity, community, storytelling, and the garden in the works of such writers as Toni Morrison, Katherine Anne Porter, Kaye Gibbons, and Alice Walker. Ordinary, personal experience in these works becomes a source for spiritual revelation. Wisdom is gained, lessons are learned, and lives are healed not in spite of home and communal ties, but because of them. Thus, American women writers, Groover argues, make alternative literary and spiritual paradigms possible. Similarly, Kristina K. Groover, in this lucid and groundbreaking work, opens up new fields of exploration for any reader interested in women's spirituality or in the rich, diverse field of American literature. Educated at Dickinson College and at the University of North Carolina, Kristina K. Groover currently is an assistant professor of English at Appalachian State University. She is the author of numerous articles, which have been published in such journals as The Kentucky Review and The Southern Quarterly. She lives and works in Boone, North Carolina. 6" X 9" |
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The Last Nostalgia
From the broken hills and drowsy river valleys around Paducah, Kentucky, to Houston diners and Gulf Coast shrimp boats, to the tropical cityscape of Miami, Bolton creates vivid scenes in which his characters confront the loneliness and the "little music" of their lives. With a richly musical voice and an ear for the cadences of everyday speech, Bolton gives his readers not the trappings of love and grief, but the very things themselves, rendered in lines that reverberate with the authority of sincerity and truth. Joe Bolton was born in Cadiz, Kentucky, in 1961 and received an M.F.A. from the University of Arizona. He taught at both the University of Arizona and the University of Florida at Gainesville. His work appeared in numerous magazines, and he published two collections of poetry, Breckinridge County Suite (The Cummington Press, 1987) and Days of Summer Gone (Galileo Press, 1990). Mr. Bolton took his own life in March 1990 at the age of twenty-eight. 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" |
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Selected Poems, 1968–1998
John Wood holds professorships in both photographic history and English literature at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where he is also director of the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing. He is the author of three previous books of poetry and seven books of art and photographic criticism. His books have won the Iowa Poetry Prize twice, the American Library Association's Choice Outstanding Academic Books of 1992, and the New York Times Book Review Best Photo Books of 1995. "Here are the best works—so far—of a gifted, mature poet who, by geography, subject matter, tone, vision, and themes comes out of the South's great literary tradition. Like Ransom, Warren, O'Connor, and Faulkner, Wood insists that the human condition is ironic, that we are fated to live stretched between the bow-ends of the real and the ideal, the earthly and the heavenly, the temporal and the eternal. This is a powerful, richly-textured book." "The most lucid and engaging of the postmodern southern poets is John Wood. . . . [He] begins in a uniquely American charnel house and ends in Tuscany with the angels of Filippo Lippi and Fra Angelico." —The Southern Review "John Wood's imagination, with one foot on the ground and one dipped in the River Jordan, brings unforgettably to life the homely and visionary mind that has yearned for spiritual utopia in the New World. . . . Wood's rhapsodic free verse rises in lyrical, prophetic periods where the visionary harmonizes with the homely and the erotic." —The Hudson Review 5-1/2" x 8-1/2" |
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A
Journal of Travels into the Arkansas Territory during the Year 1819
The account follows Nuttall's route from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, down the Ohio River to its mouth, then down the Mississippi River to the Arkansas Post, and up the Arkansas River with a side trip to the Red River. It is filled with valuable details on the plants, animals, and geology of the region, as well as penetrating observations of the resident native tribes, the military establishment at Fort Smith, the arrival of the first governor of Arkansas Territory, and the beginnings of white settlement. Originally published in 1980 by the University of Oklahoma Press, this fine edited version of Nuttall's work boasts a valuable introduction, notes, maps, and bibliography by Savoie Lottinville. The editor provided common names for those given in scientific classification and substituted modern genus and species names for the ones used originally by Nuttall. The resulting journal is a delight to read for anyone—historian, researcher, visitor, resident, or enthusiast. Thomas Nuttall was a self-educated botanist who came to the United States from Liverpool in 1808 at the age of twenty-two. Nuttall made several scientific expeditions in America during the first half of the nineteenth century. He was recognized in his time for his botanical discoveries, served for many years as a lecturer in natural science and as curator of the Cambridge Botanic Garden at Harvard, and published several books. Savoie Lottinville, a graduate of the University of Oxford, was director of the University of Oklahoma Press for thirty years and was for several years Regents Professor of History. Among the several books he authored or edited are The Rhetoric of History (1976) and Travels in North America, 1822–1824, by Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Wurttemberg (1973), both published by the University of Oklahoma Press. 6" x 9" |
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Honored
with the 1990 American Institute of Architects Gold Medal for a lifetime
of outstanding achievement, Fay Jones is an Arkansas original. In receiving
the medal from Prince Charles of Great Britain, Jones was hailed as
a "powerful and special genius who embodies nearly all the qualities
we admire in an architect" and as an artist who used his vision to
craft "mysterious and magical places" not only in Arkansas but all
over the world.
This
book is a lyrical, scholarly exploration of the connection between
one family's musical traditions and its rural community of Zion, Arkansas.
In 1959, three Gilbert sisters—Alma, Helen, and Phydella—began
compiling songs they remembered as their own and sending them to one
another in letters. Their tendency to center memory in sound rather
than sight reveals an unusual musical birthright.
Much
Civil War violence occurred far away from traditional battlefields like
Shiloh and Sharpsburg. Indeed, some of the war's most intense violence
occurred on the Confederate home front, as families and neighbors were
pitted against one another in bloody struggles for control. 
In
the fall of 1957, Gov. Orval Faubus used the Arkansas National Guard
to prohibit nine black children from entering Little Rock's Central High
School. In the fall of 1997, the "Little Rock Nine" returned to Central
High, this time escorted by President Bill Clinton. In the forty years
that had intervened, the United States witnessed substantial changes
in American race relations, but the city of Little Rock had not overcome
its legacy of strife. The two-year crisis, once over, left behind confusion
and misunderstanding. Racial and class-based mistrust lingers in the
city of Little Rock, and, nationally and internationally, perceptions
of Arkansas are still tied to the decades-old images of hatred and strife
that marked the Little Rock crisis.
The
story of what happened at Little Rock's Central High School in September
of 1957 is one with which most Americans are familiar. Indeed, the image
of Central High's massive double staircase—and of nine black teenagers
climbing that staircase, clutching their schoolbooks, surrounded by National
Guardsmen with fixed bayonets—has become wedded in the American
consciousness to the history of the civil-rights struggle in this country.
The world saw the drama at Central High as a cautionary tale about power
and race.
Since
its founding, Nashville has been a center of black urban culture in the
Upper South. Blacks—slave and free—made up 20 percent of Fort
Nashborough's settlers in 1779. From these early years through the Civil
War, a growing black community in Nashville, led by a small group of
black elites, quietly built the foundations of a future society, developing
schools, churches, and businesses. The Civil War brought new freedoms
and challenges as the black population of Nashville increased and as
black elites found themselves able—even obliged—to act more
openly. To establish a more stable and prosperous African-American community,
the elites found that they had to work within a system bound to the interests
of whites. But the aims of this elite did not always coincide with those
of the black community at large. By 1930, younger blacks, in particular,
were moving towards protest and confrontation. As democratization and
higher education spread, the lines distinguishing Nashville's black elite
became blurred.
America's
literature is notably marked by a preoccupation with the spiritual quest.
Questing heroes from Huck Finn to Nick Adams have undertaken solitary
journeys that pull them away from family and society and into a transformative
wilderness that brings them to a new understanding of the spiritual world.
Women, however, have not often been portrayed as questing heroes. Bound
to home and community, they have been more frequently cast as representatives
of that stifling world from which the hero is compelled to flee. Are
women in American literary texts thus excluded from spiritual experience?
Joe
Bolton studied universal connections—the tension between the transitory
beauty of the physical world and a yearning for the eternal. He turned his
eye to the world, to the cultures and the people around him, and saw reflections
of himself. In this collection, he works in both free verse and traditional
forms, rendering scenes of exquisite detail that pry into the hearts of his
characters and reveal the contradictions that bind father to son, lover to
lover, and person to person.
Selected
Poems, 1968–1998, represents thirty years of John Wood's work,
offering his readers a most comprehensive view of an unusual mind and
spirit that is at once eloquent and humorous. In poems that range from
narratives, lyrics, and elegies, to odes, satires, and even a mini-epic,
his work whips language into intense emotion. Recalled memories tumble
with sense and grace. The homely and the visionary intertwine as the
often stark realities of human experience are infused with love and
light. The prospering genius of these poems is that they seek not so
much to redeem or reclaim what is lost, but to redirect perspectives
with a generous sweep of possibilities. Wood's craft as a wordsmith
gives us a voice that powerfully interprets what it means to be human
and alive.
This
is the famous naturalist Thomas Nuttall's only surviving complete journal
of his American scientific explorations. Covering his travels in Arkansas
and what is now Oklahoma, it is pivotal to an understanding of the
Old Southwest in the early nineteenth century, when the United States
was taking inventory of its acquisitions from the Louisiana Purchase.