In a recent article published in The Conversation and The Washington Post, American Studies Lecturer Clifford Murphy wrote about his research documenting New England’s country music history and traditions in order to understand how the region once home to a robust country music culture merely sixty years ago now has a much different country music scene.

“In short, the arrival of television compromised the profit margins of radio, replacing live musicians with disc jockeys. Meanwhile, the country music industry consolidated in Nashville, where country format radio was born,” Murphy wrote. He discussed the culture shift away from “the people” to more centralized commercial broadcasts and how the concept has extended into other spheres of regional American life.

Murphy, who is Program Director of Folk & Traditional Arts at the Maryland State Arts Council, turned his research into a new book titled Yankee Twang, which was published this month by University of Illinois Press. For more information, click here. To read Murphy’s full article titled “Country pop is having a moment in the Northeast. But its soaring popularity is threatening to kill regional music,” click here.

On October 30, the New York Times  published an article about the Washington, D.C. mayoral election and how changing demographics in the District could affect the race. The article notes that a surge of roughly 80,000 new voters in the District in recent years could make the election outcome less certain than many expect.

George Derek Musgrove ’97, history, associate professor of history, was interviewed for the article. The excerpt from the story can be found below:

“This race has a fascinating set of circumstances,” said George Derek Musgrove, a historian at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who is writing a book on race and democracy in the District of Columbia.

Chief among them, Professor Musgrove said, is the shrinking black population in this city of about 650,000 people. It declined 11 percent from 2001 to 2011, while the white population increased by 31 percent, and the Asian population increased, too.

“No one knows how many new residents will vote, or in what numbers,” Professor Musgrove said.

Further, he said, residents, particularly the poor, have looked at the record of the past three administrations on the key issues of education and affordable housing and seen little progress. “Folks don’t quite know if Muriel Bowser can deal with those two problems, so there is a critical mass of people who are willing to try something new.”

To read the complete article, click   here.

On Wednesday, October 29, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies released a report on black voter turnout and the 2014 midterm elections. The report was co-authored by Tyson King-Meadows, Chair of the Africana Studies Department and Associate Professor of Political Science, and Andra Gillespie, Associate Professor of Political Science and Interim Chair of the Department of African American Studies at Emory University.

The report determined that black voters are a critical component of the electorate in 17 competitive gubernatorial and Senate races across the country. It also found that black voter participation declines in midterm elections, and "assuming a black vote share identical to 2010, the 2014 midterm election cycle will be a challenging year for Democrats, even with overwhelming African-American support."

In conducting research for the report, King-Meadows and Gillespie analyzed national and state-specific registration and voting patterns, black-white differences in participation and in candidate preference, and the dynamics of interracial coalitions needed to secure Democratic victories.  To read the full report, click here.