Two History Department courses made the list of 19 notable offerings for Emory’s undergraduates this fall. Professor Joseph Crespino, Jimmy Carter Professor of American History, will teach a seminar course titled “Atticus Finch and American History.” Professor Tehlia Sasson, Assistant Professor of History, is offering “Origins of Human Rights.” Read the course descriptions below, and check out other compelling fall 2017 offerings around campus here.

Atticus Finch and American History

“Since its publication in 1960, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird has been one of the most widely read books in the world. The recent publication of Lee’s apprentice novel, Go Set A Watchman has renewed interest in the figure of Atticus Finch and the historical and cultural sources that influenced Lee. This seminar examines the history of the American South in the Jim Crow era that prefigured both the idealized Atticus of Mockingbird and the reactionary Atticus of Watchman. The class will analyze the political uses to which this character has been put since Mockingbird’s publication.”

Origins of Human Rights 

“This course recovers the multiple histories of human rights from their deep origins in the 1750s to their more recent formations in the 1990s. It focuses on the history of Europe and its engagement with the wider world: looking at how Europe has shaped and was shaped by Africa, South Asia and the United States over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. The goal will be to analyze how the evolution of human rights became part of our contemporary framework of politics, law and culture.”