UNT Dallas Library News - UNT Dallas Library at UNT Dallas

Image descriptions:

Image one: Happy Halloween

Image two: E-book titled Horror in the Heartland: Strange and Gothic Tales from the Midwest (2017) - synopsis: In Horror in the Heartland, historian Keven McQueen offers a guided tour of terrible crimes and eccentric characters; haunted houses and murder-suicides; mad doctors, body snatchers, and pranks gone comically--and tragically--wrong. From tales of the booming grave-robbing industry of late 19th-century Indiana to the story of a Michigan physician who left his estate to his pet monkeys, McQueen investigates a spooky and twisted side of Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Exploring burial customs, unexplained deaths, ghost stories, premature burials, bizarre murders, peculiar wills and much more, this creepy collection reveals the region's untold stories and offers intriguing, if sometimes macabre, insights into human nature.

Image three: E-book titled Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost (2016) - synopsis: Satoko Shimazaki revisits three centuries of kabuki theater, reframing it as a key player in the formation of an early modern urban identity in Edo Japan. Shimazaki argues that kabuki instilled a sense of shared history in the inhabitants of Edo (present-day Tokyo) by invoking “worlds,” or sekai, derived from earlier military tales, and overlaying them onto the present. She then analyzes the profound changes that took place in Edo kabuki toward the end of the early modern period, which witnessed the rise of a new type of character: the vengeful female ghost. Shimazaki’s bold reinterpretation of the history of kabuki centers on the popular ghost play Tōkaidō Yotsiya Kaidan (Ghost Story of Yotsuya in Takaido) by Tsuruya Nanboku IV. Drawing not only on kabuki scripts but also on a wide range of other sources, from theatrical ephemera and popular fiction to medical and religious texts, she sheds light on the development of the ubiquitous trope of the vengeful female ghost and its illumination of new themes at a time when the samurai world was losing its relevance.

Recent Posts

Hispanic Heritage Month - eBooks

Image description:Image one: E-book titled Latina/os and World War II: Mobility, Agency, and Ideology (2014) - synopsis: The first book-length study of Latina/o experiences in World War II over a wide spectrum of identities and ancestries--from Cuban American, Spanish American, and Mexican American segments to the under-studied Afro-Latino experience – Latina/os and World War II probes the controversial aspects of Latina/o soldiering and citizenship in the war, the repercussions of which defined the West during the twentieth century. Spanning imaginative productions, such as vaudeville and the masculinity of the “soldado razo” theatrical performances; military segregation and the postwar lives of veterans; Tejanas on the home front; journalism and youth activism; and other underreported aspects of the wartime experience, the essays collected in this volume showcase rarely seen recollections. Image two: E-book titled After the Blessing: Mexican American Veterans of WWII Tell Their Stories (2022) - synopsis: Many Catholic families blessed their children before they left home. After the Blessing tells the stories of many young Mexican Americans who left home to fight for their country. During the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), many families fled Mexico to prevent their underage sons from being forced to fight. Ironically, the offspring of these immigrants often ended up across the ocean in a much larger war. Despite the bias and mistreatment most Mexican Americans faced in the US, some 500,000 fought bravely for their country during World War II....

Hispanic Heritage Month - eBooks

Image descriptions:Image one: E-book titled Discovering the Olmecs: An Unconventional History (2014) - synopsis: The Olmecs are renowned for their massive carved stone heads and other sculptures, the first stone monuments produced in Mesoamerica. Seven decades of archaeological research have given us many insights into the lifeways of the Olmecs, who inhabited parts of the modern Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco from around 1150 to 400 BC. Beginning with the first modern explorations in the 1920s, David Grove recounts how generations of archaeologists and local residents have uncovered the Olmec past and pieced together a portrait of this ancient civilization that left no written records. Image two: E-book titled Island at War: Puerto Rico in the Crucible of the Second World War (2015) - synopsis: Despite Puerto Rico being the hub of the United States’ naval response to the German blockade of the Caribbean, there is very little published scholarship on the island’s heavy involvement in the global conflict of World War II. Recently, a new generation of scholars has been compiling interdisciplinary research with fresh insights about the profound wartime changes, which in turn generated conditions for the rapid economic, social, and political development of postwar Puerto Rico. Island at War brings together outstanding new research on Puerto Rico, covering ten distinct topics written by nine distinguished scholars from the Caribbean and beyond. ...

Hispanic Heritage Month - eBooks

Image descriptions:Image one: E-book titled Univision, Telemundo, and the Rise of Spanish-Language Television in the United States (2020) - synopsis: In the most comprehensive history of Spanish-language television in the United States to date, Craig Allen traces the development of two prominent yet little-studied powerhouses, Univision and Telemundo. Allen tells the inside story of how these networks fought enormous odds to rise as giants of mass communication within an English-dominated society, beginning in San Antonio, Texas, in 1961 with the launch of the first Spanish-language station in the country.Image two: E-book titled Sounds of Belonging: U.S. Spanish-Language Radio and Public Advocacy (2014) - synopsis: Bringing together theories on the immigration experience with sound and radio studies, Dolores Inés Casillas documents how Latinos form listening relationships with Spanish-language radio programming. Using a vast array of sources, from print culture and industry journals to sound archives of radio programming, she reflects on institutional growth, the evolution of programming genres, and reception by the radio industry and listeners to map the trajectory of Spanish-language radio, from its grassroots origins to the current corporate-sponsored business it has become....

Hispanic Heritage Month - eBooks

Image descriptions:Image one: E-book titled Your Brain on Latino Comics: From Gus Arriola to Los Bros Hernandez (2009) - synopsis: Your Brain on Latino Comics illuminates the world of superheroes Firebird, Vibe, and the new Blue Beetle while also examining the effects on readers who are challenged to envision such worlds. Exploring mainstream companies such as Marvel and DC as well as rising stars from other segments of the industry, Frederick Aldama provides a new reading of race, ethnicity, and the relatively new storytelling medium of comics themselves. Overview chapters cover the evolution of Latino influences in comics, innovations, and representations of women, demonstrating Latino transcendence of many mainstream techniques. Image two: E-book titled Razabilly: Transforming Sights, Sounds, and History in the Los Angeles Latino/a Rockabilly Scene (2021) - synopsis: Vocals tinged with pain and desperation. The deep thuds of an upright bass. Women with short bangs and men in cuffed jeans. These elements and others are the unmistakable signatures of rockabilly, a musical genre normally associated with white male musicians of the 1950s. But in Los Angeles today, rockabilly’s primary producers and consumers are Latinos and Latinas. Pairing a decade of participant observation with interviews and historical research, author Nicholas F. Centino explores the reasons behind a Rockabilly renaissance in 1990s Los Angeles and demonstrates how, as a form of working-class leisure, this scene provides Razabillies with spaces of respite and conviviality within the alienating landscape of the urban metropolis....

Happy Halloween!

Contact Us:

Social Media:

Visit Us: