Most Americans felt helpless after the Sept. 11 attacks. Suddenly there was a new vocabulary to learn, a new political geography and an all-too tangible threat. UNC-Chapel Hill art professor elin o’Hara slavick knew she had to do something. Along with a small group of teachers and community members, the 37-year-old professor swiftly planned a […]
Clancy Nolan
Posted inNews
Cyber-cussing
A friend of mine, an employee at a high-tech company in Research Triangle Park, recently sent an e-mail to his friends warning about his company’s new e-mail software. The computers at his workplace, he wrote, are now so smart that they can catch and block incoming or outgoing e-mails containing offensive or lewd words. Instead […]
Posted inArt
The Personal is Historical
There’s been no period in history–contemporary, ancient or otherwise–which has escaped the close scrutiny of Gerda Lerner. From her first major book, a 1967 biography of abolitionists Angelina and Sarah Grimke, to her work documenting 700 years of women’s bible criticism, Lerner’s scholarship in women’s history has been about a search for what’s missing. It’s […]
Posted inNews
Your Other Mother’s Day
This time of year, with the weather warming up and the azaleas and dogwoods blooming, it’s hard not to appreciate the springtime, pollen and all. But for those of you who are out and about, sandal-clad and basking in the sunshine, it’s also time to give a little back. Now is when every budding environmentalist […]
Posted inArt
Secret Sharers
Fletcher Greel drives a Honda. If not for this detail, and a few others–a conversation about the merits of a Mike Tyson fight, for instance–Suzanne Kingsbury’s The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me could take place in any of the past five decades. Set in a fictional Houser Banks, Miss., in the late 1980s, Kingsbury’s story […]
Posted inGuides
Long-distance Dining
unch should be fun. Eating over the computer’s keyboard in the name of parsimony and corporate efficiency–regardless of what any employer may say–is not fun. Going out to the same tired restaurants, the four or five cheap eats within a mile of the office, eating the same “Speedy Gonzales” lunch special or any random combination […]
Posted inArt
Sin City
It’s 5 p.m. at the Duke Rice Diet Program, situated in a pair of white buildings set back among trees at the corner of Cole Mill and Rose of Sharon roads in Durham. It’s dinnertime, and Marjorie Jacobs is holding court over a bowl of brown rice and stir-fried bok choy in the dining room. […]
Posted inArt
Candid Camera
When Deborah Kogan settled into a friend’s New York apartment in 1998 to begin a memoir of her time as a war photographer, she had no clue how relevant her story would become. Neither did her publisher. In fact, when Shutterbabe: Adventures in Love and War was released in 2000, Kogan was advised to skip […]
Posted inArt
Living Out Loud
Feminist performance poet Alix Olson has always considered herself a loudmouth, and for a while her mouth–and her politics–got her into trouble. But she is quick to point out that the small acts of rebellion that get you sent to the principal’s office (like refusing to pledge allegiance to the flag in ninth grade) are […]
Posted inGuides
A Well-focused 17
Jordan High School junior DeWarren Langley has serious eyes, a firm handshake and an even firmer grasp of local politics. His long list of extracurricular activities reveals a decidedly political bent: He is founder and executive director of Teens Politically Active, chapter leader of the National Student Advocacy Alliance, a member of Jordan High School’s […]