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Not Even Past

Could a Muslim – or a Catholic or a Jew – Be President? A 1788 Constitutional Debate

March 24, 2013

The Constitution’s ban on religious tests prompted the nation’s first debate in 1788 about whether a Muslim – or a Catholic or a Jew – might one day become president of the United States.  William Lancaster, a delegate to the North Carolina convention to ratify the Constitution, worried: “But let us remember that we form a government for millions not yet in existence.

Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia by João José Reis (1993)

March 13, 2013

Shortly after 1:00am on January 25, 1835, a contingent of African-born slaves and former slaves emerged from a house at number 2 Ladeira da Praça and overpowered the justice of the peace and a police lieutenant. Throughout the night approximately six hundred rebels ran through the streets fighting and vandalizing a number of municipal buildings.

Elevate (2012)

December 11, 2012

Anne Buford's documentary Elevate focuses on several Senegalese youths and their attempts to make it out of Senegal through basketball.

What’s Missing from ‘Argo’ (2012)

December 1, 2012

Argo is the story of the Americans’ ordeal and their relatively miraculous escape—and in this it delivers. It is unfortunate, however, that the film presents these dramatic events against a simplified backdrop that diminishes the complexity of the Iranian political scene at the time.

The Yacoubian Building by Alaa al-Aswany (2006)

August 14, 2012

Alaa al-Aswany’s novel The Yacoubian Building (2002, Arabic عمارة يعقوبيان‎) tells the story of a group of people loosely bound together by dint of living in the same crumbling building - a real place - in downtown Cairo.

The Eclipse of the Century: A Story of Science, Money, and Culture in Saharan Africa and the American Southwest

June 26, 2012

Universities received large amounts of government funding for scientific research during World War II and the early Cold War. Such assistance allowed the University of Texas’s McDonald Observatory to pursue an ambitious research agenda in the field of astronomy

The Strength of Women in the Iranian Revolution

June 18, 2012

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 affected the lives of all Iranian citizens, especially women. Claudia Espinoza illustrates how Ayatollah Khomeini’s new theocratic government implemented segregationist policies that drastically changed the dress code, legal rights, and professional opportunities available to Iranian women.

History Carnival, May 2012

May 1, 2012

Welcome to the History Carnival for May, 2012.

From Marfa to Mauritania in Forty Years

April 30, 2012

Image of the McDonald Observatory sitting faraway on a shrub covered hill overlooking surrounding grasslands

Four hundred and fifty miles west of the University of Texas at Austin, thirty-seven miles (as the car drives) north of the town of Marfa, Texas, and almost 6,800 feet above sea level sit the white and silver domes of the McDonald Observatory.

Film Review – A Separation (2011)

February 22, 2012

"A Separation" is an Iranian drama directed by Asghar Farhadi. As is indicated by the title, the film focuses on the separation of Nader and Simin, an affluent couple residing in Tehran. Simin wishes to escape Iran’s repressive society and move to Canada, which she believes is a more suitable environment to raise their daughter, Termeh.

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