Month / August 2016

by abritt

Professor Deborah Lipstadt in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Deborah Lipstadt, associated faculty of the History Department and Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies, was recently featured in an op-ed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution by Bert Roughton. Roughton discusses a recent libel trial in England involving Lipstadt, who was charged to prove herself innocent of libel against David Irving. Irving has authored works that deny the Holocaust. View an excerpt below or check out the full article here.

“Lipstadt recalls the trial as a test of the place facts hold in understanding our history. ‘The trial was about the difference between fact and opinion — truth and lies,’ she said in an email. ‘Our objective was to demonstrate to the court not what happened in the Holocaust — though we did end up doing that as a byproduct — but prove that what deniers such as Irving say is based on lies and distortions of evidence.

‘Of course, another important element was that the ‘opinions’ held by deniers such as Irving are laced with anti-semitism, racism, and love of Nazism,’ she wrote. ‘More than laced with, they are built on the foundation stone of those hatreds.”

by abritt

Incoming PhD Student Virgo Morrison Featured by Emory News Center

morrison-screenshot.png
This fall the Emory History Department welcomes a stellar new cohort of ten first-year graduate students. One of those students, Virgo Morrison, was recently profiled by the Emory News Center. An advisee of Joseph Crespino, Morrison’s research focuses on the impacts of drug abuse and drug policy in the South. Copied below is Morrison’s profile. Check out a few of the other incoming students to the Laney Graduate School here.

Virgo Morrison

Hometown: Woodstock, Georgia

Emory degree program: PhD in history

Completed degrees: BA in history, MA in history, Virginia State University

Focus of scholarship: Traditionally, drug abuse has been perceived as primarily a Northern metropolitan phenomenon and much of narcotics history has been similarly one-dimensional. Through my research I intend to broaden the field by exploring the impact drug abuse and drug policy had across the rural-urban spectrum in the 20th century American South. I am specifically interested in how regional manifestations of segregation, conservativism, and drug rehabilitation influenced the formation of drug policy and popular sentiments about drug abuse.

Why it matters: If the current opioid epidemic has shown us anything, it is that we still do not understand how to craft effective drug policies. It is perhaps too ambitious to hope there is an answer to this problem within our history but I do believe that an accurate account of our past successes and failures could provide us with, at the very least, a solid foundation.

Proudest academic achievement to date: While completing my master’s degree I picked up a day job as a masonry restoration specialist for a historic preservation company. My days were spent tuckpointing marble balustrades or laying brick six stories high whereas my nights were spent formatting footnotes and reading for classes. Looking back now I view this experience as an accomplishment rather than an obstacle. I never missed a class, I graduated, and I even became a decent bricklayer to boot.

by abritt

Joseph Crespino in The New York Times: “Why Hillary Clinton Might Win Georgia”

Dr. Joseph Crespino, Jimmy Carter Professor of History, published an op-ed in The New York Times on August 22nd. In “Why Hilary Clinton Might Win Georgia,” Crespino puts the 2016 presidential contest in the context of past Republican and Democratic campaigns to re/take the South. Crespino asserts that the shading purple of states like Georgia and South Carolina “has less to do with the future than the past, and both parties run a risk in misreading it. Mr. Trump’s racially charged hard-right campaign reveals a fault line in Republican politics that dates from the very beginning of G.O.P. ascendancy in the South.” Read an excerpt below and check out the full article.

“Whether or not Republicans hold on to Georgia and South Carolina this year, the lessons they are likely to take away are predictable. Democrats will assume that these states, like Virginia and North Carolina, are part of a long-term liberal trend and push traditional liberal ideas harder in future elections. Republicans will most likely write off Mr. Trump as a one-time phenomenon and not do anything. In doing so, both parties will ignore lessons from the history of the Southern conservative majority.

“What might be happening instead is something new in the South: true two-party politics, in which an urban liberal-moderate Democratic Party fights for votes in the increasingly multiethnic metropolitan South against an increasingly rural, nationalistic Republican Party. If that happens, it will transform not only the politics of the American South, but those of America itself.”

by abritt

Professor Tonio Andrade Wins Article Prize from the Society for Medieval Military History

Dr. Tonio Andrade was awarded the Gillingham Prize for his article “Late Medieval Divergences:  Comparative Perspectives on Early Gunpowder Warfare in Europe and China.” Andrade’s article appeared in the Journal of Medieval Military History in 2014. The Gillingham Prize is given annually by the Society for Medieval Military History to the best article by a member to appear in the preceding issue of the Journal of Medieval Military History.

Photo of

by abritt

Celebrating Emory History Graduating Seniors, 2016

This past April the History Department celebrated the accomplishments and contributions of senior majors and minors in the days before graduation. In addition to their leadership in other areas on campus, these students were celebrated as members of the History Honors Society (Phi Alpha Theta), history honors students, and/or recipients of a Department prize. The Department’s Senior Celebration was held on April 27 in the J. Russell Major Seminar Room.

Honors Students

Honors Students attending the Senior Celebration: (left to right, back row) Jane Chang, Emily Moore, Julia Wahl, Shannon Stillmun; (left to right, front row) Adam Goldstein, Gideon Weiss, Declan Hahn.

PhAT

Members of the History Honors Society, Phi Alpha Theta, at the Senior Celebration: (left to right, back row) Julia Keating, Prof. Kathryn Amdur – Faculty Advisor, Julia Wahl, Emily Moore, Ami Fields-Meyer, Tom O’Leary; (left to right, front row) Adam Goldstein, Declan Hahn.

Sr Prize Recipients

Senior Prize Recipients awarded at the Senior Celebration: (left to right) Declan Hahn – the Latin America & Non-Western World Prize; Julia Wahl – the George P. Cuttino Prize in European History; Adam Goldstein – the Matthew A. Carter Citizen-Scholar Award; Shannon Stillmun – the James Z. Rabun Prize in American History; Prof. Brian Vick, Director of Undergraduate Studies.