History Professor Laurie Mercier (WSU Vancouver) specializes in labor issues and says the growing disconnect between unions and the public is apparent in her classrooms.
Working with students, she’s developed about a dozen narrative and photo panels displayed in a new exhibit at Clark County Historical Museum.
Do-gooder or scoundrel – in the wake of the early February announcement that the skeleton found beneath a parking lot in central England is that of King Richard III, how much does it matter? After all, he reigned for only two years and died more than a half-millennium ago at the age of 32.
There’s also the question of how much a long-buried skeleton can tell us about the person’s actions and behaviors back in the 15th century, said Jesse Spohnholz, associate professor of European history. “While the bones confirm that he suffered wounds in battle and also resolve the puzzle of where he was buried, they are silent when it comes to telling us how he reigned.”
Months of onsite investigative journalism by Washington State University English professor Peter Chilson into al-Qaeda’s takeover of northern Mali last spring have recently put him in high demand with the national and international media.
The flurry began when France intervened in the Malian crisis last week in an attempt to halt a further incursion by Islamists to gain control of Bamako, Mali’s capital city, and the rest of the country. The French intervention has received support from the international community, including the United States and several European nations.
The incursion coincided with the release of Chilson’s e-book, “We Never Knew Exactly Where: Dispatches from the Lost Country of Mali,” published by Foreign Policy magazine and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a media clearinghouse supporting writers who cover global conflicts for the U.S. media. The e-book, announced in Foreign Policy’s January/February issue, examines the implications of al-Qaeda’s newest base of operation and decries their devastation of ancient cultural icons. Links to selected Chilson radio interviews and to the e-book are available below.
“Peter Chilson’s work in Mali is some of the finest crisis reporting we’ve seen in a long time,” said Tom Hundley, senior editor, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. “Peter’s graceful writing, his deep knowledge of the subject, his gift for storytelling and willingness to go to where the real story was unfolding – all of this has made for a very rewarding piece of journalism…that will inevitably inform policy discussions on the future of Mali.”
Months of onsite investigative journalism by English professor Peter Chilson into al-Qaeda’s takeover of northern Mali last spring have put him in high demand with the national and international media.
“Peter Chilson’s work in Mali is some of the finest crisis reporting we’ve seen in a long time,” said Tom Hundley, senior editor, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. “Peter’s graceful writing, his deep knowledge of the subject, his gift for storytelling and willingness to go to where the real story was unfolding – all of this has made for a very rewarding piece of journalism…that will inevitably inform policy discussions on the future of Mali.”
In his e-book, Chilson recounts how the Tuareg nationalist campaign, mounted with support from al Qaeda-affiliated jihadist groups…
By Darin Watkins, WSU News
The U.S. presidential race has captured the attention of people around the world, especially in Europe. As millions of Americans head to the polls, foreign media have ramped up their coverage.
Washington State University’s Matthew Sutton has found himself at the center of this interest in American politics. An associate professor of history, Sutton is on a Fulbright scholarship in Ireland lecturing on American cultural, political, and religious history at the University College Dublin.
What has attracted the media to Sutton is his background in writing about American politics.
In an interview on “RTE Morning Ireland,” Sutton was asked why the two presidential candidates seem to be avoiding the big issues rather than facing up to them in their campaigns. Continue story →