Volume 85 Issue 1 | Journal of Asian Studies | Duke University Press

Exciting news! David Ambaras, co-edited & co-authored the introduction to the forum "Digital Humanities in/and Asian Studies," in the Journal of Asian Studies.

The forum brings together the work of 7 scholars spanning the breadth of Asian &Asian American studies
read.dukeupress.edu/journal-of-a...

This semester, students in HI 254 (Modern U.S. History) aren’t just reading about the past. The class investigated the "Freshman Cap," a 1920s tradition that required freshmen to wear branded red hats at all times on campus (except Sundays) and were punished by student council for failing to do so.

Check out this cool self guided tour that grew out of a project from the Queer Public History class at North Carolina State University, taught by Dr. Megan Cherry.
www.opendurham.org/tours/queer-...

We had an incredible time at the "Envisioning Urban Futures" event at Hunt Library!

Dr. Matthew Booker spoke on the intersection of history, food production, and ecology in our cities. Dr. Tate Paulette gave a crowd-favorite expo presentation. Dr. Fred Freitas joined the fun!

Thrilled to share that 𝐿𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝐼𝑛𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑦 (2020) is now available in Spanish! 📚🌳

𝑃𝑎𝑖𝑠𝑎𝑗𝑒𝑠 𝑑𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑑𝑎𝑑, co-edited by our very own Dr. Nicholas Robins, explores environmental justice and indigenous rights across the Andes/Amazon.

Details: www.fondoeditorial.pucp.edu.pe/categorias/1...

🏫We are thrilled to announce the Olds Elementary School Community Archive Initiative. This is a collaborative project led by our very own Dr. Alicia McGill diving deep into 100 years of the school's history & complex journey through segregation and integration.

Where Beer Began: Is the Mesopotamian Origin Story Correct & The Birth of Brewing Podcast Episode · The Delicious Legacy · 12/24/2025 · 50m

Who were the world’s first brewers? Tune into The Delicious Legacy podcast with Professor Tate Paulette to find out!🏺

Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

Congratulations to the Fall Class of 2025: You did it! Go forward with courage, passion, and kindness. Your journey is just getting started!

A profound thank you to our dedicated faculty, hardworking staff, and of course our amazing students.

Rare materials Spark Delight – and a Human Connection to the Past In Julia Rudolph's HI 209 course, "From Renaissance to Revolution: The Origins of Modern Europe, students went on a field trip to Special Collections where they engaged directly with materials from th...

This collaboration transformed our student's understanding and proves nothing beats hands-on learning with primary sources! Huge thanks to the Special Collections and Dr. Rudolph for bringing history to life!
history.chass.ncsu.edu/2025/12/11/r...

🎉 Huge congrats to Tate Paulette @tatepaulette.bsky.social for TWO major awards from the AIA @archaeological.org ! 🏆🏆

2026 Felicia A. Holton Book Award for "In the Land of Ninkasi: A History of Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia." 📚

Gold Public Engagement Award (2024–2025) for exceptional outreach. 🎤

The AIA is proud to recognize our 2026 award recipients for their outstanding contributions to archaeology. Honorees will be celebrated at the AIA Awards Ceremony during the 2026 Annual Meeting on January 9. All are welcome to attend!

#Archaeology #AIA

🎉Thrilled to celebrate @tatepaulette.bsky.social, winner of the Nancy Lapp Popular Book Award at the @asor_research Annual Meeting! This award recognizes significant synthesis of Ancient Near East/Eastern Mediterranean archaeological/textual evidence made accessible to students & the public. 🎉

Thank you to everyone who joined us for an unforgettable evening as we celebrated 100 years of history, community, and impact at our Centennial Dinner on 11/20. The night was full of connection, recognition, and reflection. 💛
#CentennialDinner #HistoryDepartment100 #NCStateHistory

Tasting History NC State history professor Tate Paulette and Trophy Brewing’s Les Stewart teamed up to recreate 4,500-year-old Mesopotamian beer, giving modern drinkers a taste of Sumerian culture.

Here's a nice write-up and video about my recent collaboration with Les Stewart from Trophy Brewing Co. to recreate two ancient Mesopotamian beers. We served these to @altonbrown.bsky.social last week on-stage at NC State's new annual speaker series "The Human Factor" chass.ncsu.edu/news/2025/09...

Centennial Panel was a blast! 🎉 Panel 1: "Why Study History?" (Career success for undergrads!) Panel 2: New Research from our grad students. Plus, tours of the Khayrallah Center & Roman Archaeology Lab! 🏛️ Thanks to all who joined our celebration! 🚀

🎓 Student Work Comes to Life! Queer History of Durham Tour
We're incredibly proud to announce the launch of the Queer History of Durham Tour!

This tour is the successful final project from two talented students, Julia Lasure and Karina Burbank.

Tickets: www.preservationdurham.org/queerhistory...

Community connection in action! 🤝 Our Public History students met with the West Chapel Hill Cemetery Descendants. They discussed vital strategies for protecting and advocating for this historically Black burial site before a visit to the grounds. Thank you to all the community members who joined us.

Intro to Public History class spent the day at the Princeville Homecoming event! 🏛️ We hosted an educational booth dedicated to the cultural reformation and preservation of Princeville, NC. Great to be part of the community's work to keep its history alive!

Land, Credit and the Constitution (Chapter 8) - Law and Constitutional Change Law and Constitutional Change - October 2025

🎉 Big congrats to Julia Rudolph on the publication of her new chapter! 🥳

Check out her work: "Land, Credit and the Constitution: Debtor Protections and Catholic Rights in Eighteenth-Century Ireland." in Law and Constitutional Change, 1st ed. doi.org/10.1017/9781...

Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part V: Life In Cycles This is the fifth and final part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd, IVe) looking at the structures of life for pre-modern peasant farmers and showing how historical modeling can …

This week on the blog: Peasants! We are at last putting together and wrapping up our discussion of life for pre-industrial peasants - a category which includes a majority of all humans who have ever lived.

How we can model how they lived, worked, loved and died.

acoup.blog/2025/10/17/c...

Our team crushed it at the ASALH conference! 👏

So proud of Public History MA students Liam McCandless and Katie Boatner, PhD student John Goncalves, and Professor Nishani Frazier for their compelling presentations.

Few world regions have experienced as many extinctions as the Western Hemisphere. This talk examines the historical roots of the biodiversity and extinction crisis in the Americas to better understand the social, cultural, and economic patterns that have resulted in high rates of species loss.

Congrats to Dr. Jordan Rogers on another great article. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

Explore the world’s first great beer culture with Tate Paulette! Join the AIA on Sept 17 at 8 PM ET | 7 PM CT | 6 PM MT | 5 PM PT for "Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia." Register here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

#Archaeology #AIA #AncientMesopotamia #BeerHistory

Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVa: Subsistence and a Little More This is the start of the fourth part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb) discussing the structures of life for pre-modern peasants, who made up the majority of all humans who have ever lived. In the …

I realize I forgot to post out last week's blog post, so this (last) week on the blog: more on peasants!

We're turning to the question of labor and so we're seeing how we can estimate what the resource demands for survival and comfort might look like.
acoup.blog/2025/08/22/c...

An abiding mystery of the French Revolution is solved — by epidemiology The period of panic and unrest called the Great Fear was triggered by deliberately spread rumours, according to methods borrowed from pandemic playbooks.

Interesting article using epidemiological mapping techniques to trace the spread of rumor in the Great Fear of 1789. Interesting use of modeling built on careful archival work (Lefebvre 1932). www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Welcome new MA student Finneas!
Finneas is passionate about equal access to queer education and in expanding the existing narrative about what it has meant to be LGBTQ+ in the United States.

They wish to work with LGBTQ+ communities and activists at the grassroots level to preserve their histories.

RBmedia | In the Land of Ninkasi Listen to the audiobook In the Land of Ninkasi, written by Tate Paulette, narrated by Ryan Lee Dunlap.

The audiobook version of @tatepaulette.bsky.social fantastic book about the history of beer in Mesopotamia was released today! Give it a listen. rbmediaglobal.com/audiobook/97...

Learning Beyond Borders: Making the World their Classroom

This article highlights Professor Dr. Nicholas Robins. He's been leading trips to Cuba since 2014, drawing on his 34 years of personal connection to the country to create a unique opportunity for students to conduct field research and engage with the local community. global.ncsu.edu/learning-bey...

CHASS Faculty Examine Food’s Moral, Social and Cultural Impact Four faculty members from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences explore how food connects to larger cultural, social and ethical questions.

This article highlights the research of four NCSU professors who use food to explore a range of topics including our very own Tate Paulette, an associate professor of history, discusses his work on ancient Mesopotamian beer culture. You can read the full article here:
chass.ncsu.edu/news/2025/07...