Emory Magazine featured Dr. Joseph Crespino, Jimmy Carter Professor of History, in their winter edition as one of Emory’s “Fab Five” professors. The specializations of the profiled scholars span from history and English to biology and psychology. The article highlights Crespino’s scholarly trajectory with a particular focus on his interest in To Kill a Mockingbird protagonist Atticus Finch. Check out the excerpt below and also read the full profile, “Fab 5: Meet a few of the Emory scholars who are blurring lines, bridging disciplines, and pushing boundaries.”

Long before Joe Crespino became a professor in Emory College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of History, he read To Kill a Mockingbird as a middle schooler in Macon, Mississippi. Growing up in the 1970s in a town much like Harper Lee’s fictional Maycomb, Alabama—where racial tensions were “very real and very palpable”—Crespino formed a singular attachment to the figure of Atticus Finch.

“You read this and you want to grow up and help your community and help your state—to grow up and be like Atticus Finch,” Crespino says. “Most people who read the book realize at some point that Atticus Finch is not a real person and they move on with their lives, but I just kind of got hung up on that, I guess.”