Author: john

Will the real Booker T. Washington please stand up?

Source material is the lifeblood of academic research (learn why here), and, courtesy of Michael Scott Bieze and Marybeth Gasman's Booker T. Washington Rediscovered, the JHU Press is now in the business of hosting such valuable content on our website. Students, researchers, and scholars can now read the works of this turn-of-the-century intellectual pioneer as…

Myths about the Baltimore Orioles

Guest post by Frederick E. Taylor Baltimore Orioles fans must feel very frustrated. Their once-great franchise has fallen on hard times—14 consecutive losing seasons, a serious decline in attendance, and no dominant players to reverse their misfortune. Losing records bring lower attendance and less revenue which result in smaller payrolls and fewer impact players. Is there …

City Trees in Spring

Guest Post by Leslie Day Most people are surprised that trees actually flower. Yet this spring ritual of pink cherry blossoms, white clouds of Callery pear blooms, magnolia, apple, and purple leaf plum flowers exploded in March, about 5-6 weeks ahead of schedule. It was so striking that fashion photographer Bill Cunningham of the New…

Unsung heroes

Guest post by Bo Beolens The joy of researching our eponym dictionaries is coming across unsung heroes whose remarkable lives may end up commemorated in a critter’s name. Often the collective memory fades and it is left to later generations to rediscover these heroes. Such a fellow was Richard Lemon Lander (1804–1834)  (Lander's Horseshoe Bat…

Marching out with the Scholarly BIN

Publishing news highlights from March, with a focus on what's important to the world of scholarly publishing: A dozen new positions posted to AAUP jobs board Whether you're looking to break into scholarly publishing or move on up, the Association of American University Presses Jobs List is the best place to find the opportunity that…

The spirit of Emmy Noether

Guest post by Dwight E. Neuenschwander Noether’s Theorem of 1918, which is celebrated in Natalie Angier’s splendid biographical article about Dr. Emmy Noether, is developed in detail in my book, Emmy Noether’s Wonderful Theorem. The theorem makes explicit the connection between a system’s symmetries and conservation laws. Emmy Noether was a mathematician. For her, the…