Genesis, chapter 31
In which Jacob and his family go on the lam.
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Office Hours
Monte Bute on Death and Dying
This episode we talk with Monte Bute, a backstage sociologist at Metropolitan State University. Last year, Monte was diagnosed with stage three pulmonary lymphoma. Rather than retreating quietly, however, Monte has turned his illness into a learning experience for students (he’s continued to teach) and into an opportunity to revisit some of the core questions of the human experience. We talk about the effect of Durkheim on sociology’s impoverished understanding of dying, and the ways in which literature and the humanities do a better job of grasping the existential realities of dying. Other topics include Monte’s Facebook page, his take on the Minnesota state shutdown, and why Monte has changed his opinion on Tuesdays with Morrie (following up on his discussion with John Hines).
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Shrink Rap RadioUnlocking Psychological Wealth with Robert Biswas-Diener, PhD
Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener is widely known as the Indiana Jones of Positive Psychology because his research on happiness has taken him to such far flung places as Greenland, India and Kenya. He is a part-time instructor at Portland State University and sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Happiness Studies and Journal of Positive Psychology. Robert is a Certified Mentor Coach (CMC) and has worked with clients on four continents. Robert is author of Practicing Positive Psychology Coaching (2010), Happiness: Unlocking the mysteries of psychological wealth (2008) and Positive Psychology Coaching (2007). He is also co-founder of the charitable mission The Strengths Project.
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New Books in Native American Studies
Malinda Lowery, “Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation”
When an Atlantic Coastline Railroad train pulled into Red Springs, North Carolina, the conductor faced a difficult dilemma. Whom to allow in coach class with whites and whom to relegate to the back? In an effort to clarify the matter, the mayor of neighboring Pembroke demanded that the railroad build three separate waiting rooms at the town train station.
Such confusion was common place in Robeson County, North Carolina, during the height of the Jim Crow era. That’s because Robeson is home to the Lumbee People, the largest Indian nation east of the Mississippi River and a thorn in the side of those who sought to maintain a simple black/white dichotomy in the South.
Malinda Mayor Lowery’s new book Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation (University of North Carolina Press, 2010) dramatically rewrites accepted Jim Crow narratives. Not only did Indian communities persist in the U.S. South after the Removal – the period of ethnic cleansing generally cited as the denouement of indigenous peoples in the region – but they complicated the racial landscape in unexpected ways, negotiating a space of autonomy and independence with the forces of white supremacy in 20th century North Carolina.
Lowery, a Lumbee herself and assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, offers us that unique combination of scholarly rigor and passionate prose, exploring the complex process of identity formation in the face of – and occasionally in concert with – segregation, federal bureaucracy and the discourse of “race” and “blood.” For students and scholars of Native American Studies, Southern history, and the Jim Crow era, it is essential reading.
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