With Good Reason

Passionate debate about the ethics and effectiveness of torture is nothing new.  Medieval literature professor Larissa Tracy (Longwood University) says torture was actually outlawed in many countries during Middle Ages, and when it was used, there were strict rules governing how and when it could be applied.  Although there were many depictions of torture in [...]

Passed at the height of the eugenics movement, the Racial Integrity Act proclaimed the existence of only two racial categories in Virginia—”colored” and white.  The law stripped Native Americans, and members of other groups with dark skin, of their land, voting rights, and legal identity.  David Smith (Longwood University) and anthropologist Helen Rountree (Old Dominion [...]

New research examines how postwar German history textbooks addressed the traumatic events of the Second World War.  Brian Puaca (Christopher Newport University) explores how the textbooks first depicted Germans as victims and how these books gradually incorporated a frank and honest account of National Socialism and Nazi atrocities. He challenges those who have argued that [...]

James Farmer was the leader of the 1961 Freedom Rides that desegregated transportation in the South. His skilled oratory was shaped in part as a member of the legendary 1935 debate team portrayed in Denzel Washington’s 2007 feature film, The Great Debaters. Timothy O’Donnell (University of Mary Washington) is leading an effort to help historically [...]