Do You Teach History?

Dear Educator, Teachers from across the country have written to me in the past year, facing pressure because they teach Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner. In some cases, their jobs were being threatened over their decision to bring this seminal book into their classrooms. That’s where the idea for this kit came from: to

By Camryn Banks Mónica Guzmán, author of I Never Thought of it That Way sat down with Elon News Network ahead of her lecture on Sept. 21   Photo by Max Wallace | Elon News Network Mónica Guzmán, author of Elon University’s 2023-24 Common Reading book: I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly

Dear Reader, A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens began in Nebraska. I remember that I was trying to nap, more from despair than exhaustion, but all I could think was: How did I get here—so far from Miami and in such debt? I was a third-year PhD student, writing stories and studying abstract theories while my

Todd Rogers and Jessica Lasky-Fink offer the most valuable practical writing advice today. Building on their own research in behavioral science, they outline cognitive facts about how people actually read and distill them into six principles that will transform the power of one’s writing: Less is more Make reading easy Design for easy navigation Use

After his father’s death, Esau McCaulley went back through his family history, seeking to understand the community that shaped him: someone who, through hard work, faith, and determination, overcame childhood poverty, anti-Black racism, and an absent father to earn a job as a university professor and a life in the middle class. With profound honesty

The Last Colony is the moving, inspiring David-and-Goliath true story of freedom and justice involving one tiny nation in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa, and the extraordinary woman, a descendant of enslaved people, who dared to take on the Crown and the United Kingdom—and win a historic victory.   Part One 1945

Explaining Life through Evolution tells the origin story of life on this planet and how we arrived at the tremendous diversity among organisms that we see around us today. In the excerpt below, Prosanta Chakrabarty emphasizes the importance of understanding evolution in everyday contemporary life.   Our Genealogy and Ancestry Why should you care about

From The Revenge of Geography author Robert D. Kaplan, The Loom of Time is a stunning exploration of the Greater Middle East, where lasting stability has often seemed just out of reach but may hold the key to the shifting world order of the twenty-first century.   Chapter 1 Time and Terrain Between Europe and the

You can search for books across this discipline through our course lists, which cover LGBTQIA+ Literature, Feminist Theory and Literary Criticism, Science Fiction, Immigrant and Refugee Literature, Mythology and Folklore, and more. Here is a small selection of the books available: LGBTQIA+ Literature Feminist Theory and Literary Criticism Science Fiction Immigrant and Refugee Literature   Mythology

Quiet Street is a bold and moving exploration of the American elite that exposes how the ruling class perpetuates cycles of wealth, power, and injustice. Searing and precise yet always deeply human, Quiet Street examines the problem of America’s one-percenters, whose vision of a more just world never materializes. Who are these people, how do they hold

The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan’s war on drugs, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey’s exacting analysis in When Crack Was King traces the path from the last triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement to the devastating realities we

For the last eight years, I’ve welcomed students to Writing About American Comedy, the class I teach at NYU, with a challenge of sorts.  After our introductions and hellos and our perusal of the syllabus, I pop open the portable DVD player attached to my laptop and cue up Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.