The University of Illinois Press supports the mission of the university through the worldwide dissemination of significant scholarship, striving to enhance and extend the reputation of the university. Through its publishing programs, the Press promotes research and education, enriches cultural and intellectual life, and fosters regional pride and accomplishments. The Press serves the university as a source for scholarly publishing knowledge and standards. As an innovator in the scholarly publishing community, the University of Illinois Press diligently pursues the best and most innovative technology to meet the needs of our readers.
How James Cleveland and the Angelic Choir Created a Gospel Classic
In September of 1963, Reverend Lawrence Roberts and the Angelic Choir of the First Baptist Church of Nutley, New Jersey, teamed with rising gospel star James Cleveland to record Peace Be Still. The LP and its haunting title track became a phenomenon. Robert M. Marovich draws on extensive oral interviews and archival research to chart the history ......
Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK
In 1960, University of Illinois professor Leo Koch wrote a public letter condoning premarital sex. He was fired. Four years later, a professor named Revilo Oliver made white supremacist remarks and claimed there was a massive communist conspiracy. He kept his job. Matthew Ehrlich revisits the Koch and Oliver cases to look at free speech, the ......
An icon of global Punjabi culture, the dhol drum inspires an unbridled love for the instrument far beyond its application to regional vernacular music. Yet the identities of dhol players within their local communities and the broadly conceived Punjabi nation remain obscure. Gibb Schreffler draws on two decades of research to investigate dhol's ......
Eugene England championed an optimistic Mormon faith open to liberalizing ideas from American culture. At the same time, he remained devoted to a conservative Mormonism that he saw as a vehicle for progress even as it narrowed the range of acceptable belief.Kristine L. Haglund views England's writing through the tensions produced by his ......
Raised by devout Mormon parents, Vardis Fisher drifted from the faith after college. Yet throughout his long career, his writing consistently reflected Mormon thought. Beginning in the early 1930s, the public turned to Fisher's novels like Children of God to understand the increasingly visible Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His ......
Hampton surveys a diversity of sources to demonstrate that British theories of the press were intimately tied to definitions of the public and the emergence of mass democracy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
From Afro Sheen to Theaster Gates and from Soul Train to Chance the Rapper, Black Chicago draws sustenance from a culture rooted in self-determination, aspiration, and hustle. In Energy Never Dies, Ayana Contreras embarks on a journey to share the implausible success stories and breathtaking achievements of Black Chicago's artists and ......
How Girls of Color Find and Define Themselves in the Digital Age
What does is it mean for girls of color to become techno-social change agents--individuals who fuse technological savvy with a deep understanding of society in order to analyze and confront inequality? Kimberly A. Scott explores this question and others as she details the National Science Foundation-funded enrichment project COMPUGIRLS. This ......