For fifty years, American opinion on abortion barely moved.  Then the Dobbs decision happened. 

Posted on May 6, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, Laurel Elder, Steven Greene, and Mary-Kate Lizotte, coauthors of Not Going Back: Public Opinion on Abortion in Post-Dobbs America, explain how and why public opinion has shifted since the Dobbs decision. 

June 2026 marks four years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion access. This anniversary provides an important opportunity to assess how public opinion has evolved in the wake of this seismic shift.

We have spent our careers researching gender and public opinion, from the gender gap, to the politics of parenthood, to views on candidate spouses. It was a natural extension of our work to examine abortion, one of the most visible and consequential gender-related issues in American politics.

Our research on abortion attitudes began well before Dobbs. What initially drew our attention was the remarkable stability of public opinion on the issue. While political debates often framed the issue as a stark divide between “pro-life” and “pro-choice,” most Americans held more nuanced, situational views, supporting legal access to abortion in some circumstances but not others. Despite high-profile political battles and public debate, aggregate public opinion on abortion remained strikingly stable for nearly half a century.

Dobbs disrupted that equilibrium. In Not Going Back we examine how and why public opinion has shifted and how American politics has been changed as a result.

As policy moved sharply to the right in the wake of Dobbs, with more than a dozen states enacting near-total abortion bans and others enacting strict limitations, public opinion moved in the opposite direction. More Americans now identify as pro-choice and support legal access to abortion under all circumstances. The result is a growing disconnect between law and public sentiment, one that is reshaping the political landscape.

One of our most notable findings is the emergence of a gender gap in abortion attitudes. Contrary to common assumptions, men and women held very similar views on abortion for decades. After Dobbs, however, women have become significantly more supportive of abortion rights than men.

This shift is driven in part by personal experience and exposure. Individuals who know someone who has struggled to access abortion care, who worry about losing access themselves, or who have a deeper understanding of reproductive health are more likely to support abortion rights. In the post-Dobbs environment, exposure to these realities has increased, especially among women.

We also find a notable reversal in issue prioritization. For decades, Republicans and those identifying as pro-life were more likely to rank abortion as a top political issue. After Dobbs, that dynamic flipped. The energy and urgency now lie with those who support expanded access to abortion.

This shift reflects, in part, divisions within the Republican coalition. While Democratic voters are largely aligned with their party’s pro-choice stance, Republicans are more internally divided. Roughly one-third of Republicans identify as pro-choice, creating a sizable group of cross-pressured voters. Our research shows that such cross-pressures are associated with lower voter turnout in the post-Dobbs era, posing an ongoing challenge for the GOP.

Our findings also highlight a key political reality: there is no widely accepted “moderate” abortion ban. In survey experiments, Americans did not view a 12-week ban as meaningfully more acceptable than a 6-week ban. In the post-Dobbs context, a ban is a ban, and bans are broadly unpopular. This creates a difficult strategic landscape for Republican candidates seeking to find more moderate positions on abortion.

The phrase that became our title—Not Going Back—emerged from the data. The forces reshaping public opinion, from policy change to increased personal exposure, are not temporary. As a result, public opinion is unlikely to return to its pre-Dobbs equilibrium. This new landscape will shape how candidates campaign, who wins elections, and how they govern. In short, Dobbs did not simply change policy; it set in motion a lasting transformation in American public opinion and politics.

We invite you to explore these findings in our new book.

Filed under: american studies, civil rights, Education, ethics, gender studies, health, History, law & criminology, Mass Media and Communications, political science, sexuality, sociology, women's studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Time to Remember French AIDS Activism

Posted on April 29, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, we repost the February 12, 2020 blog entry by Christophe Broqua, author of Action = Vie, about Act Up-Paris.

Since the end of 2018, large-scale mobilizations in France by activist groups have challenged the authorities and demanded more social justice. The “Yellow Vest” movement holds demonstrations every Saturday in Paris. Among the streets that they have regularly occupied—sometimes without providing advance notice to the Prefecture (as prescribed by French law)—is the famous Avenue des Champs-Élysées, which stretches from Place de la Concorde to Place de l’Étoile, where the Arc de Triomphe is located, an area largely inaccessible for street demonstrations.

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Twenty-five years earlier, on December 1, 1993, the AIDS organization Act Up-Paris braved the difficulty of demonstrating in this same area by placing a giant condom on the Obélisque de la Concorde. They also blocked the top of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées on December 1, 1994, an action illustrated by the photo on the cover of Action = Vie: A History of AIDS Activism and Gay Politics in France. At the time, Act Up-Paris was considered one of the major social movements in France. The organization met with considerable success in terms of mobilization as well as media coverage and political impact—contrary to the predictions of failure that it had initially inspired.

Indeed, when Act Up-Paris was formed in 1989, the vast majority of local commentators thought the organization, based on the American model, could not succeed. They reproached it for being a lame copy, unsuited to the French context. That it was linked to the gay and lesbian community undoubtedly added to mistrust and discrediting of the organization. The success of Act-Up-Paris, however, continues the long French protest tradition—it reached its peak in the mid 1990s. The criticism was indicative of the tense relationship between the French and the United States, rather than of the relevance (or not) of political activism in the face of the epidemic in France. Indeed, France is dominated by an ideology that claims to reject “communitarianism” in favor of “republican universalism,” but which, in reality, fears political organization of oppressed or stigmatized minorities more than anything.

Nevertheless, the success of Act Up-Paris had some limitations, particularly when new treatments led to a drop in HIV/AIDS-related mortality, at least in the Global North. Little by little, without ever disappearing, the organization got smaller, while the other dominant AIDS organization in France, AIDES—inspired by the Gay MHC (New York) and the Terrence Higgins Trust (London)—succeeded due to their commitment to helping individuals. In contrast, Act Up defined its actions as strictly political. In the 1990s, Act Up-Paris had become a major player in the AIDS fight and gay rights movements, but lost its media visibility in the following decade and was virtually unknown to new generations.

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This progressive erasure and oblivion slowed in 2017 with the release of the film, BPM (Beats Per Minute). Directed and co-written by Robin Campillo a former member of Act Up-Paris, the film retraced the first years of the organization in a fictional but very realistic way. It also included a tragic love story between two activists, Nathan (Arnaud Valois) and Sean (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart). Debuting at the Cannes Film Festival, the film won the prestigious Jury Grand Prize. From the outset, critics were ecstatic in their support of the film and the emotions it stirred. When it was released in cinemas, it was a huge success; in just a few months more than 800,000 tickets were sold. This tremendous response to a past that was largely forgotten, especially among the new generation, was impressive. For younger viewers, it was the discovery of a heroic past that many people did not know about; for older viewers, the film stirred memories of difficult times or the feeling of having missed out on history.

Overall, the film enabled society to indulge in a kind of collective redemption in the face of what it had not wanted to see—i.e., an epidemic affecting stigmatized minorities who used forms of political action to survive. Far from being an isolated phenomenon, the movie success was part of a larger remembrance process affecting both the history of the fight against AIDS as well as the mobilization of sexual and gender minorities in various European and North American countries.

Alas, this rediscovery of Act Up-Paris was focused mainly in France, as the film BPM did not enjoy the same commercial success in the United States, though it fared well critically.

French history is strongly connected to American history: the founder and several important activists of Act Up-Paris went through Act Up New York, which also represented an important model for the French group. Later, Act Up-Paris became the largest Act Up group in the world.

Now that time has passed, will its history finally be discovered beyond the French borders?

Filed under: Anthropology, cultural studies, Education, gender studies, health, History, LGBT studies, Mass Media and Communications, political science, sexuality, sociology, transnational politics, Urban Studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Celebrating Independent Bookstore Day!

Posted on April 22, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, we honor the independent bookstores that support Temple University Press. Please visit them on April 25 for Independent Bookstore Day!

Celia Bookshop, 102 Park Avenue in Swarthmore, PA, will host Remission Quest author Virginia Adams O’Connell on Saturday, April 25 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm as part of their Independent Bookstore Day celebration.

Harriet’s Bookshop, 258 East Girard Avenue in Philadelphia, PA, celebrates women authors, women artists, and women activists. While you’re there, grab a copy of Lynn Matluck Brooks’ Theatres of the Body.

Inkwood Books, 108 Kings Highway East in Haddonfield, NJ, a charming indie bookstore specializing in regional nonfiction, contemporary literature, and romance. Pick up Ray Didinger’s The Eagles Encyclopedia: Champions II.

booked. 8511 Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia, PA. Surround yourself with books at this cozy store that promotes the joy of reading. Treat yourself to The Battles of Germantown, by David Young.

Headhouse Books, 619 South 2nd Street, in Philadelphia, PA, was founded in 2005 on the belief that no community is complete without the inspiration and exchange of ideas that only a locally owned, independent bookstore can provide. Shop there for Jim Murphy’s Real Philly History, Real Fast.

Wooden Shoe Books, 704 South Street in Philadelphia, PA, is an all-volunteer collectively run anarchist bookstore “functioning within a system we oppose.” Support the store by purchasing a copy of Kate Eichhorns’ The Archival Turn in Feminism.

Narberth Bookstore, 221 Haverford Avenue in Narberth, PA, is designed for a community of readers, writers, and lifelong learners. Check out a copy of A Century of Music Under the Stars, by Jack McCarthy at checkout.

Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee and Books, 5445 Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia, PA, offers Cool People, Dope Books, Great Coffee. Swing by to get Amy Jane Cohen’s Black History in the Philadelphia Landscape.

Main Point Books, 116 North Wayne Avenue in Wayne, PA, because every town deserves its own indie bookstore. Stop by and buy Anndee Hochman’s Parent Trip.

Open Bookstore, 7900 High School Road in Elkins Park, PA, is your friendly neighborhood indie bookstore in the Philly burbs. Drop in and order a copy of Monument Lab: Re:Generation, edited by Paul Farber and Sue Mobley.

The Doylestown Bookshop, 16 South Main Street in Doylestown, PA, is a locally owned and operated bookstore dedicated to preserving the heritage and traditions of independent bookstore ideals. Pick up Rebecca Yamin’s Digging in the City of Brotherly Love.

Giovanni’s Room, 345 South 12 Street in Philadelphia, PA, Philadelphia’s historic queer and LGBTQ+ bookstore. Shop titles and genres of LGBTQ+ online and in-store. Browse the shelves for a copy of The City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves, by Marc Stein.

A Novel Idea on Passyunk, 1726 East Passyunk Avenue in Philadelphia, PA, fosters a better Philadelphia community with their small bookstore. Meet the staff and request a copy of Salut!, by Lynn Miller and Therese Dolan.

Filed under: african american studies, american studies, art, cultural studies, Education, gender studies, History, Labor Studies, law & criminology, LGBT studies, literature, Mass Media and Communications, Music, Philadelphia, political science, race and ethnicity, racism, sexuality, sociology, Urban Studies, women's studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Reimagining what we think we know about race, gender, sexuality, nation, diaspora, and empire

Posted on April 1, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes Thomas Xavier Sarmiento, author of The Heartland of U.S. Empire, wrotes about the queer Filipinx Midwest.

In the fall of 2010, I decided to watch an episode of Glee, a popular comedy-drama about members of a high school glee club who sing pop hits (among other genres). Incidentally, my first episode was the season two premiere, which featured a character named Sunshine Corazon, a new exchange student from the Philippines. As a queer Filipinx person, I reveled in watching a Filipina belt out lyrics to Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s sapphic anthem “Telephone.” I was already a fan of the actor playing Corazon, Jake Zyrus, because of his single “Pyramid,” recorded under the name Charice. After this episode, I wanted to see more.

As I started watching more episodes, backtracking to season one, I learned that the show was set in Ohio and the high school was named after President William McKinley. I found it ironic that a Filipina exchange student was enrolled at a high school named after the person responsible for the annexation of her country in 1898. More puzzling was her presence in the middle of the country—a place not readily associated with Filipinx America. And yet, I was also living in the Midwest, starting my third year in the American Studies Ph.D. program at the University of Minnesota and being advised by a queer and trans Filipinx scholar. Nevertheless, being queer and Filipinx in the Midwest can feel like being a unicorn, a unique, beautiful, mythical creature that stands out of place.

Thus began my quest to understand the queer Filipinx presence in America’s heartland, resulting in my book, The Heartland of U.S. Empire: Race, Region, and the Queer Filipinx Midwest. I narrowed my research to literary and cultural representations, given their power to shape perception regardless of actual reality. And given the vastness of the Midwest region, such texts are more accessible. Although some of the texts I analyze feature queer identity, most would be not readily classified as LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and related identities); rather, I frame them as queer for their nonnormative orientation to both Filipinx America and the Midwest. That is, queerness names that sense of being strange and out of place. Filipinxs in the Midwest are neither part of mainstream Filipinx America, which is oriented to the West Coast, nor part of the mainstream Midwest, which is perceived as White. But as my book shows, the middle can be a productive space and place to reimagine what we think we know about race, gender, sexuality, nation, diaspora, and empire.

The book makes a case for both the Midwest as central to the story of the United States’ colonization of the Philippines (1898–1946) and Filipinx Midwesterners as reconfiguring the bounds of the U.S. Filipinx diaspora. Examples include

  • Museum exhibits in Kansas about the Spanish– and Philippine–American Wars and the Pacific front of World War II
  • Poems (Aimee Suzara’s Souvenir), an experimental film (Marlon Fuentes and Bridget Yearian’s Bontoc Eulogy), and a short story (Jesse Lee Kercheval’s “The Dogeater”) about the display of over 1,000 native Filipinxs at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair
  • Photographs and unpublished memoirs of White and Black civilian Kansans living in the Philippines during the early twentieth century
  • Filipinx handwritten student essays from 1904 housed at the University of Michigan
  • Filipinx Minnesotan student perspectives on Philippine independence during the 1920s
  • Bienvenido Santos’s literature (Scent of Apples and The Man Who (Thought He) Looked Like Robert Taylor) and memoir (Memory’s Fictions) that capture his time in the Midwest
  • Short stories about Filipinas growing up in Chicago and suburban Milwaukee during the 1970s and 1980s (M. Evelina Galang’s Her Wild American Self)
  • A play about Filipinx siblings growing up on a non-working farm in Middle America in the 1990s (A. Rey Pamatmat’s Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them)
  • Filipinx characters and actors on television shows set in the contemporary Midwest (Glee and Superstore)

What these numerous examples revealed to me, and what I hope they reveal to you, is that Filipinxs in the Midwest are not anomalies, but rather appear so because of dominant narratives about race and region. This constellation maps the queer Filipinx Midwest: a counter-narrative of America’s heartland and the U.S. Filipinx diaspora that places queerness, Filipinxs, and the Midwest in dialogue with one another.

The Heartland of U.S. Empire invites you to dive into the middle and to see that “flyover country” is not as bland as you might think.

Filed under: american studies, asian american studies, Asian Studies, civil rights, cultural studies, Disability Studies, drama, Education, environment, gender studies, History, immigration, LGBT studies, literature, Mass Media and Communications, political science, race and ethnicity, racism, Religion, sexuality, sociology, transnational politics, Urban Studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

The Door That Was Never Closed

Posted on March 25, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, Michael E. Sawyer, author of The Door of N̶o̶ Return, writes about “Being-as-Black.”

As I live with this book, I realize that I am still learning from it.

That starts with the title. The “No” in The Door of N̶o̶ Return is stricken through. Not erased, but crossed out, remaining visible. This turns out to matter enormously, because a stricken “No” has no phonetic form. You cannot say it. If you treat it as simply deleted, you get “The Door of Return,” which misses the point entirely. If you try to say “the No-stricken-but-still-there Return,” you’ve demonstrated only how badly language can fail. The title is, strictly speaking, unsayable.

After reading and re-reading this book, I realized that the sonic version of the title, its spoken form, had been there the whole time. I just hadn’t heard it. In the text, in thinking about the discourse of Love under conditions of subjective instability, I linger with August Wilson’s Fences. I’ve always been preoccupied with the scene where the son, Cory, asks his father, Troy, “How come you ain’t never liked me?” Read strictly, the double negative, “ain’t never” produces its opposite: How come you always liked me? Wilson gives Cory language that is structurally available to him but ontologically impossible. A question that cannot be asked within the architecture of the anti-Black world pressing down on father and son alike. The double negative doesn’t cancel itself out. It creates something else: a passage. The Door of Ain’t Never Return.

The title I thought I’d written turns out to be a hieroglyph. The title I actually wrote turned out to be a vernacular utterance in Black English that had been waiting, patiently, for me to hear it.

I think about this now, in 2026, when the political landscape feels like pure foreclosure. The fortress is going up. The “No” feels absolute and permanent. What I want to suggest and what the book argues systematically, is that Black cultural production has never accepted the permanence of that “No.” Not as optimism. Not as resistance narrative. But as ontological fact: The door was never actually closed.

Toni Morrison knew this. August Wilson knew this. Ralph Ellison knew this. And on a January night in 1972, Aretha Franklin demonstrated it.

In the book, I linger with that night at New Bethel Baptist Church in Los Angeles and specifically with Aretha Franklin’s performance of “Never Grow Old” on the second night of what would find itself presented on the Amazing Grace album and in the documentary that was finally released in 2018. Viewers will recall that Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts take a break from their own recording project to be observers rather than observed that night. What the two Rolling Stones witness is the journey to the threshold of the door of ain’t never return. Aretha pulls the audience to a place where observation of Morrison’s third, if you will pardon the expression, world is possible. Where we are led to is a place of competing forces. The resistance of anti-Blackness fights its extinction, and the pull of another world seems foreign, even to those who are also participants in Aretha’s expedition to another world. Reverend Cleveland throws a towel at Aretha to disrupt the journey and Gospel icon Clara Ward has to be physically restrained from ending Aretha’s performance.

What Aretha did with that song was mine its technology to get across that barrier. She took the word “Never” and turned it, probed it, refused to let it resolve into simple negation. She built, note by note, a sonic space constructed entirely of refusal of the refusal that “never,” like the “No,” asserts, and then filled that space of negation of negation with what the refusal of refusal makes possible. When she finally has cleared the necessary sonic space, Aretha gives Toni Morrison’s world a name. Not a theoretical concept. Not a philosophical category. A name for the place: The Beautiful Home of the Soul.

That’s what this book is about. Not the Door of No Return as permanent closure that is the commonly understood consequence of the catastrophic fact of the Middle Passage and everything it created. But the door Aretha’s voice found in 1972 that Wilson’s language had been pointing toward and that Morrison’s novels had been mapping: the Door of Ain’t Never Return. The one that was never truly closed. The one that was, as Morrison wrote, “already made for me, both snug and wide open, with a doorway never needing to be closed.”

I didn’t know I’d written that title until after the book was finished. I think that’s exactly as it should be. The work teaches even its author what it’s about.

Filed under: african american studies, american studies, cultural studies, drama, Education, ethics, literature, Mass Media and Communications, Music, philosophy, political science, race and ethnicity, racism, sociology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

The Superglue of Social Life

Posted on March 4, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, Sébastien Tutenges and Philip Smith, editors of Collective Effervescence, write about human connection in today’s alienating, over-individualized world.

Something is happening to “collective effervescence.” The concept is no longer confined to dusty volumes of classical French sociology. Today podcast hosts, public intellectuals, and best-selling authors routinely invoke it when discussing belonging, ritual, awe, and the need for more human connection in today’s alienating, over-individualized world. The concept was formulated over one hundred years ago by the French founder of sociology, Émile Durkheim. His original understanding emphasized the positive impacts of high-energy gatherings involving physically co-present groups engaged in religious ritual activity. These events pivoted around dance, music, and chanting. There was a sense of buzz as isolated individuals became a “society” with purpose and meaning.

The truth of Durkheim’s analysis seems self-evident. We’ve all experienced collective effervescence in our everyday lives – at a concert, drinking with friends, during a wedding party, or in a sports stadium. But many questions remain. Can collective effervescence occur without physical co-presence, for instance, in live-streamed events or online gaming communities? Can it emerge in low-energy or silent group practices such as meditation or prayer? Can it be generated in the routine spaces of everyday life: courtrooms, workplaces, and bookshops? Can it be slow-burning and long-lasting rather than ecstatic and transitory? Most crucial of all, when does it generate positive solidarity and when does it fuel exclusion, deviance, or violent evil?

These questions motivated us to put together the edited volume Collective Effervescence. Although the title might be simple and unimaginative, the contents are anything but. They challenge expectations. We reached out to leading scholars to stress test the concept rather than make predictable applications. Drawing upon their latest research, the book identifies and examines for the first time the varied forms of effervescence: loud and quiet, sacred and secular, co-present and digitally mediated, euphoric and dark.

Taken together, the book shows that collective effervescence is neither a relic of ancient religion nor simply a fancy word for the excitement of crowds. It is a social superglue, adaptable and sticking to almost anything. Not only can it be squeezed out of the tube in ecstatic gatherings, it can also quietly bond  those engaged in shared contemplation, stick to the depths of the personality, catalyse crazy and criminal behaviors, bind colleagues in the workplace, and fuse with the social anxieties of our age. In a world marked by polarization, digital mediation, and armed conflict, collective effervescence is not only ubiquitous but also constantly taking new forms as it brings people together. The urgent task for our age is to understand how it is generated, when it binds, and when it burns like the droplet that got in your eye. This book takes up that challenge.

Filed under: american studies, Anthropology, cultural studies, Education, Mass Media and Communications, Music, Religion, sociology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Celebrating Black History Month

Posted on February 18, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, we highlight various Temple University Press titles for Black History Month.

The Door of No Return: Being-as-Black, by Michael E. Sawyer
Presents an alternative system of Black Radical Thought

Foundations of Black Epistemology: Knowledge Discourse in Africana Philosophy, by Adebayo Oluwayomi
Engaging with epistemological questions concerning the object and subject knowledge from the black philosophical perspective

Reel Freedom: Black Film Culture in Early Twentieth-Century New York City, by Alyssa Lopez
Explores Black New Yorkers’ early engagement with film and what it meant in the Black struggle for equality, inclusion, and modernity

Redefining the Political: Black Feminism and the Politics of Everyday Life, by Alex J. Moffett-Bateau
Assessing the political power of low-income Black women

Toni Morrison and the Geopoetics of Place, Race, and Be/longing, by Marilyn Sanders Mobley
Connects Toni Morrison’s cultural politics and narrative poetics through the lens of spatial literary studies

Black History in the Philadelphia Landscape: Deep Roots, Continuing Legacy, by Amy Jane Cohen
Philadelphia’s Black history as seen through historical markers, monuments, murals, and more

BLAM! Black Lives Always Mattered!: Hidden African American Philadelphia of the Twentieth Century, by Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection; Foreword by Lonnie G. Bunch III
This graphic novel tells the inspiring stories of 14 important Black Philadelphians

It Was Always a Choice: Picking Up the Baton of Athlete Activism, by David Steele
Examining American athletes’ activism for racial and social justice, on and off the field

Black Identity Viewed from a Barber’s Chair: Nigrescence and Eudaimonia, by William E. Cross Jr.
On Blackness, identity formation, and the deconstruction of the deficit perspective on Black life

Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery, by Deborah Willis and Barbara Krauthamer
What freedom looked like for black Americans in the Civil War era

Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America, by Daniel R. Biddle and Murray Dubin
Celebrating the life and times of the extraordinary Octavius Catto, and the first civil rights movement in America

Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith, by Tommie Smith and David Steele
The story of the most famous protest in sports history, written by one of the men who staged it

And forthcoming in 2026

Declaration House, edited by Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Paul M. Farber, and Yolanda Wisher
Expanding our ideas and notions about who is counted among our American founders

The Power We Need Right Now: Black Sororities and Black Radical Movements of the 1970s, by Aisha A. Upton Azzam
Examines diverging Black sorority responses to activism in the post-civil rights era

Filed under: african american studies, american studies, art, civil rights, cultural studies, Education, ethics, gender studies, History, literature, Mass Media and Communications, Philadelphia, philosophy, photography, political science, race and ethnicity, racism, Religion, sexuality, sociology, sports, Urban Studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Scammers Be Damned!

Posted on February 11, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, as part of our “resources for authors,” we warn authors not to fall for publicity scams

Temple University Press as well as its authors are frequently contacted by scammers keen to exploit writers eager to get their book out in the world. 

Many of the emails, offer:

·      Publicity assistance/campaigns,

·      Book club opportunities,

·      Social media influencers,

·      Movie rights opportunities,

·      Amazon visibility/optimization or Goodreads Listopia promotion

For new authors especially, it all sounds very exciting! And many of these promised services are inexpensive; most of these scammers request a modest fee for what sound like helpful services.

But they are also not real. 

With AI becoming prevalent, scams are increasing and fake requests can look very “real,” and we caution authors about getting catfished (even if no money is initially requested). These scammers prey on your fears—of Amazon dropping your book, or authors selling their rights, or sending copies that will be uploaded for free to the internet. 

Authors should forward any “too good to be true” come-ons  to our staff for review before responding.

Tips on how to spot a scammer:

  • If the email seems disconnected from its source or seems to come from an obscure and unlikely  location, delete the message.  
  • If it seems too good to be true, it surely is too good to be true.  
  • If you feel the flattery in the message might have been generated by a Chatbot, you’re right!  

Want to know more? This article from Electric Lit is especially useful: 
https://electricliterature.com/that-personalized-email-about-loving-and-marketing-your-book-is-a-scam/

This blog https://writerbeware.blog/ focuses on how to spot scams

The Author’s Guild website has an article about publishing scam alerts:  https://authorsguild.org/resource/publishing-scam-alerts/ 

We value your book as much as you do. Trust us to promote it widely.

Filed under: economics/business, Education, law & criminology, literature, Mass Media and Communications, sociology, transnational politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Deport This! Arab American Public History and the Powerful Resistance of Memory

Posted on January 28, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, Edward E. Curtis, IV, editor of Arab American Public History, writes about immigration, xenophobia, and the importance of history and memory.

Professors sometimes sit, stand, and yell on the front lines of great moral conflicts. It’s happening now. Again.

This week, one of my colleagues in Arab American studies wrote that several of her students in Minnesota had been maced and detained by ICE during the protests against the roundups of Black and brown U.S. citizens, visa holders, and foreign visitors throughout the state.

This colleague asked for help as she prepared to join a general strike, to feed and house those affected, to offer basic legal guidance to them, and to sue in federal court to stop ICE from its detentions of tens of thousands.

Anyone familiar with U.S. history knows that deportation of immigrants is a longstanding pattern of xenophobia, an endemic part of the American experience championed by a portion of the American people and legally enacted by branches of the federal government.

For those of us in Arab American studies, our awareness of its 9/11 manifestations in government-sponsored Islamophobia is revived every electoral cycle or when an act of political violence involving Muslims occurs. Since 9/11, foreign and U.S. Arabs and Muslims have been “banned,” lost their citizenship through proxy denaturalization, been the victims of counter-intelligence sting operations, harassed by Homeland Security at the border, rounded up as material witnesses, and even tortured at CIA black sites, Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib prison.

Many of us in the field of Arab American studies have organized as citizen activists in response to anti-Arab animus.

But as academics, we have also used our scholarship to expose, analyze, and understand not just the prejudice, discrimination, and violence faced by Arabs and Muslims in the United States and abroad but also the resilience of our community. We are more than victims, and some of us write and teach to highlight the strength, the joy, and the (gallows) humor of our community.

We celebrate our humanity in the same public spaces where we are being dehumanized. We claim our place in a nation that has always been home to speakers of Arabic—most of them were enslaved Muslims at first. My ancestors, including my great-great-grandparents and their children, arrived here in the late 1800s. Even as various governmental and popular voices insist that they are “taking their country back” from people like us, my family elders taught me how we have always been part of this country.

For the first time, a group of us have written a book, Arab American Public History, that examines our community’s work outside the traditional classroom in museums, television, film, local communities, libraries, and on the Internet, among other places, to inform ourselves and others about our accomplishments and our challenges.

History done with and for the community is not the same kind of resistance as direct action but, as we know from other minoritized communities in the country, people’s ideas about history shape their politics and their policies. The idea that Arab people and culture are new to the country informs a lot of anti-Arab prejudice.

Arab American Public History is not only an analysis but also an instruction manual for those who want to help us acknowledge the long presence and contributions of my community in the United States. Readers learn about community efforts among Arabs and non-Arabs to unearth the history of Little Syria in Boston, to enjoy the many Arab cuisines of Greater Detroit, to preserve precious archives in Houston, to make a documentary film about Arab Indianapolis, to create walking tours in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and to trace Arab American genealogies, among other topics.

This is history-making that everyone can participate in.

This is a history that stubbornly refuses to yield the space of memory to those who wish that we were never here. No matter what is done to our bodies, and we have come to fear the worst since 9/11, this is a history that, if others help us tell it, resists the terror of contemporary times. You can’t deport our memory.

Filed under: american studies, civil rights, cultural studies, Education, ethics, History, Mass Media and Communications, political science, race and ethnicity, racism, Religion, sociology, transnational politics, Urban Studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Announcing Temple University Press’ Spring/Summer 2026 Catalog

Posted on January 21, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, we present our exciting list of titles from our Spring/Summer 2026 Catalog

To read the full catalog online, please click here.

Declaration House, edited by Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Paul M. Farber, and Yolanda Wisher
Expanding our ideas and notions about who is counted among our American founders

Native Americans and Pennsylvania: Revised and Expanded Edition, by Daniel K. Richter
An up-to-date survey of regional Indigenous history from earliest times to the present

The Mighty WMMR: An Oral History of Philadelphia’s Rock Radio Revolution, by Erin Riley
An insider’s behind-the-scenes look at how WMMR grew to rule Philadelphia’s rock radio world in the 1970s and 1980s

Elected American: From Red China to Blue Maryland, by Lily Qi
An immigrant’s journey from Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution to the Maryland State House

Torn from the Root: A Memoir of a Black Transracial Adoptee, Rhonda M. Roorda
A powerful journey of identity and belonging

Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey out of Hasidism, by Zalman Newfield
An affecting memoir about moving away from a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community

Your Own Will Leave You: My Mother’s Dementia, by Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee
An intense—and intensely moving—account of the impact of his mother’s dementia on the author’s life

Stories of Raising Boys: Masculinity, Disability, Gender Expansiveness, and Anxiety, by Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock
Exploring the complexity and cultural intersections of parenting and masculinity

Not Going Back: Public Opinion on Abortion in Post-Dobbs America, by Laurel Elder, Steven Greene, and Mary-Kate Lizotte
How American opinion on abortion has undergone a profound shift following the Dobbs decision

The Power We Need Right Now: Black Sororities and Black Radical Movements of the 1970s, by Aisha A. Upton Azzam
Examines diverging Black sorority responses to activism in the post-civil rights era

Searching for Democracy: Women, Domestic Work, and Social Reproduction in Latin America, by Leda M. Pérez
How fully enfranchising women in the lowest tiers of employment can help close the equality gap in Latin America

How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America, by Catherine Reyes-Housholder
Explaining the paths women must take—and the barriers they face—to become President

Diseases Have No Eyes: Valley Fever and Environmental Health Justice, by Sarah M. Rios
Explores how marginalized communities organized to combat a public health crisis

Tautua: Service and Disability Activism in Sāmoa, by Juliann Anesi
A feminist ethnography that explores how women established two schools for students living with disabilities in 1970s Oceania

Asian Ameritopias: Asian American Speculative Fictions, by Stephen Hong Sohn
Analyzing themes of social justice for Asian Americans in a literary supergenre

The Heartland of U.S. Empire: Race, Region, and the Queer Filipinx Midwest, by Thomas Xavier Sarmiento
Queers the conventional understandings of region, nation, diaspora, and empire by analyzing literary and visual cultural representations of Filipinxs in the Midwest

Activism, Majority Rule, and Local Democracy: Rethinking Public Influence, Brian E. Adams
Is more local activism a solution to our political ills?

Women and Regulation: Challenging the Status Quo, edited by Sara R. Rinfret and Michelle C. Pautz
What is it like to be a woman in a regulatory environment?

Between Belonging and Exclusion: The Intersections of Integration and Anti-Discrimination Politics, by Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi
Highlights the lived experiences of refugee women in the German labor market

Governing Genealogies of International Film Education, edited by Hadi Gharabaghi and Terri Ginsberg
A multifaceted forat into the complexities and contradictions of educational cinema and cinema education

Action = Vie: A History of AIDS Activism and Gay Politics in France, by Christophe Broqua with a Foreword by David M. Halperin
Chronicling the history and accomplishments of Act Up-Paris

Filed under: african american studies, american studies, Anthropology, art, asian american studies, Asian Studies, civil rights, cultural studies, Disability Studies, drama, economics/business, Education, environment, ethics, gender studies, health, History, immigration, Jewish, Labor Studies, Latin American studies, latinos, law & criminology, LGBT studies, literature, Mass Media and Communications, Music, Philadelphia, philosophy, photography, political science, race and ethnicity, racism, Religion, sexuality, sociology, transnational politics, Urban Studies, women's studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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