Thursday, February 9, 2012

Texas, Our Texas!


This semester, a Sam Houston State University class will watch snippets of Urban Cowboy and Hollywood iterations of the Alamo, read iconic Texas writers like Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry, see performances by Cajun musicians and cowboy singers, and take a field trip to the Texas Independence Day celebration.

The "idea of Texas"- in literature, culture, politics and even food - is the focus of courses in college campuses around the state. A recent article in the Houston Chronicle highlighted the influx of new classes, emerging at universities from Huntsville to Houston, Abilene to Austin.

“ . . . students are alternately studying, skewering and celebrating the enduring notion of the Lone Star State as a land of mythic proportions and mighty individualists,” writes Rhor.

Read the full article here. http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Colleges-going-deep-in-the-heart-of-Texas-3005748.php

Texas A&M University Press is a leading publisher of Texas history and Texana ─ a genre focusing on Texas culture and history.
Discover Texas culture and history with the following selections:
If you are interested in Texas history and folklore, check out the following Texas A&M Press books!

Just over thirty years ago, Dan Kilgore ignited a controversy with his presidential address to the Texas State Historical Association and its subsequent publication in book form, How Did Davy Die? Now, in this enlarged, commemorative edition, James E. Crisp, a professional historian and a participant in the debates over the De la Peña diary, reconsiders the heated disputation surrounding How Did Davy Die? and poses the intriguing follow-up question, “. . . And Why Do We Care So Much?”


Veteran historian T. Lindsay Baker brings his considerable sleuthing skills to the dark side, leading readers on a fascinating tour of the most interesting and best preserved crime scenes in the Lone Star State. Gangster Tour of Texas traces a trail of crime that had its beginnings in 1918, when the Texas legislature outlawed alcohol, and persisted until 1957, when Texas Rangers closed down the infamous casinos of Galveston. Baker presents detailed maps, photographs of criminals, victims, and law officers, and pictures of the crime scenes as they appear today.


In Why Texans Fought in the Civil War, Charles David Grear provides insights into what motivated Texans to fight for the Confederacy. Mining important primary sources—including thousands of letters and unpublished journals—he affords readers the opportunity to hear, often in the combatants’ own words, why it was so important to them to engage in tumultuous struggles occurring so far from home.

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