By Andrea Adomako/Aeon

In September 1965, an article titled “The All-White World of Children’s Books” appeared in the influential American magazine The Saturday Review of Literature.
Its author, the editor and educator Nancy Larrick, noted that African-American children were learning about the world “in books which either omit them entirely or scarcely mention them.”
In one award-winning volume from 1945, black children were portrayed with bunion-covered feet and popping eyes, living in dilapidated shacks with gun-wielding adults.
Meanwhile, white children were “nothing less than cherubic, with dainty little bare feet or well-made shoes,” Larrick wrote.
After years of complaints, she said, the publisher finally solved the problem by simply removing all black faces from the book.
More than 50 years later, the problem persists. Imaginary black children remain almost as marginalized as real ones, at least in mainstream publishing.

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Posted on July 27, 2017

By David Schlosberg/The Conversation

This article is part of an ongoing series from the Post-Truth Initiative, a Strategic Research Excellence Initiative at the University of Sydney. The series examines today’s post-truth problem in public discourse: the thriving economy of lies, bullshit and propaganda that threatens rational discourse and policy.
The project brings together scholars of media and communications, government and international relations, physics, philosophy, linguistics, and medicine, and is affiliated with the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre, the Sydney Environment Institute and the Sydney Democracy Network.
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I grew up in the Long Island suburbs of New York and have vivid memories of running behind the “fog trucks.” These trucks went through the neighborhoods spraying DDT for mosquito control until it was banned in 1972.
I didn’t know it until much later, but that experience, and exposure, was extended due to the pesticide industry’s lies and tactics – what is now labelled “post-truth.”

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Posted on July 25, 2017

By Ronald W. Pies/The Conversation

When Donald Trump gave the commencement address at Liberty University this spring, he told the graduates that “America has always been the land of dreams because America is a nation of true believers.” Trump argued that, in America, “we don’t worship government; we worship God.”
I suspect the president was unaware that the term “true believer” was made famous more than 65 years ago in Eric Hoffer’s 1951 book, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements.
Hoffer had no academic training, having worked mainly as a longshoreman. He wrote The True Believer in reaction to the rise of fascism, Nazism and communism. Against all odds, the book became a best-seller.

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Posted on July 17, 2017

By SIU Press

Drawing on cultural associations with bodies of water, the spectacle of pretty women, and the appeal of the concept of “family-friendly” productions, performative aquatic spectacles portray water as an exotic fantasy environment exploitable for the purpose of entertainment.
In Swim Pretty, Jennifer A. Kokai reveals the influential role of aquatic spectacles in shaping cultural perceptions of aquatic ecosystems in the United States over the past century.
Examining dramatic works in water and performances at four water parks, Kokai shows that the evolution of these works and performances helps us better understand our ever-changing relationship with the oceans and their inhabitants.

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Posted on July 10, 2017

By SIU Press

In Corn Kings and One-Horse Thieves, James Krohe Jr. presents an engaging history of an often overlooked region, filled with fascinating stories and surprising facts about Illinois’s midsection.
Krohe describes in lively prose the history of mid-Illinois from the Woodland period of prehistory until roughly 1960, covering the settlement of the region by peoples of disparate races and religions; the exploitation by Euro-Americans of forest, fish, and waterfowl; the transformation of farming into a high-tech industry; and the founding and deaths of towns.

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Posted on July 6, 2017