Following graduation from Emory College in May of 2019, History major Jonelle Bailey will head to Columbia University’s Human Rights Studies master’s program. Read more about the program here.
Month / May 2019
Former History Major Samantha Perlman (17C) Runs for City Council in Marlborough, MA
Former Emory history major Samantha Perlman has launched an at-large bid for city council in her hometown of Marlborough, MA. Perlman completed a double major in History and African-American Studies and earned History Honors with a thesis entitled “When Admission Is Not Enough: Integrating Emory University, 1969-1989.” Read more about her campaign at http://www.samanthaperlman.org.
Deborah E. Lipstadt, Associated Faculty in History, Receives Cuttino Award for Distinguished Mentoring
Congratulations to Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies, for receiving the George P. Cuttino Award for Distinguished Mentoring. The award is named in honor of the late George Peddy Cuttino, a member of Emory’s History Department from 1952 to 1984. Read more about Lipstadt’s distinguished record as a mentor and scholar here: “Cuttino Award honors historian Deborah Lipstadt for mentoring excellence.”
Cherise Thomas, History Department Work Study Student, Wins Gilman International Scholarship
Congratulations to Cherise Thomas, one of the History Department’s work study students, for winning a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship. The Gilman scholarship, which is a grant program of the U.S. State Department, will fund Thomas’ summer study abroad in Salamanca, Spain. Thomas is one of only 10 students from Emory to win the Gilman scholarship in 2019.
Deborah E. Lipstadt in ‘The Atlantic’: “Anti-Semitism Is Thriving in America”
Deborah E. Lipstadt, the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, recently authored an article in The Atlantic. Lipstadt discusses increasing violence against Jews in the United States, including at the Chabad synagogue in Poway, California, and the escalation of anti-antisemitism in public discourse. She is, most recently, the author of Antisemitism: Here and Now (Schocken, 2019). Read an excerpt from her piece in The Atlantic below, as well as the full article: “Anti-Semitism Is Thriving in America: I assumed that, after the Holocaust, the world recognized where anti-Semitic rhetoric can lead. I was wrong.”
“In the wake of the Poway attack, law-enforcement officers, government officials, and the media kept stressing that the gunman had acted alone. They may have been trying to reassure the public, and in the narrowest technical terms, they may have been correct.
“But this assailant was no lone wolf. He is part of a nexus of haters. The shooters in Charleston, Pittsburgh, Christchurch, and now Poway all relied on similar language and memes. The Christchurch and Poway shooters both posted manifestos prior to their rampages. They referred their social-media followers to some of the same websites and offered similar justifications for their actions.”
Debjani Bhattacharyya’s ‘Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta’ Featured in ‘The New York Review of Books’
Dr. Debjani Bhattacharyya, Assistant Professor of History at Drexel University and a 2014 graduate of Emory’s PhD program, published Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta: The Making of Calcutta with Cambridge University Press in 2018. Maya Jasanoff, the Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard University, recently featured Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta in an article in The New York Review of Books. Bhattacharyya was advised by Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of History Jeffrey Lesser. Read an excerpt of Jasanoff’s review below along with the full article, “Lost Calcutta.”
“In her innovative new book, Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta, Debjani Bhattacharyya, a professor of history at Drexel University, describes how Bengalis had their own story about Calcutta’s origins. “Legend has it that the city was born when the ocean started churning, and a tortoise,” pressed between the mountains and the force of Ananta, the infinite, “gasped out a deep breath.” Its breath made the Bengal Delta, a vast 40,000-square-mile area where the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers seep into the Bay of Bengal. This legend, like the legend of Job Charnock, also carries an element of truth: Calcutta rests on shifting ground. It should be no surprise that its fortunes have shifted too.”
Lena Oak Suk (PhD, ’14) and Andrew G. Britt (PhD, ’18) Receive Prizes from the Latin American Studies Association
The Brazil section of the Latin American Studies Association recently awarded prizes to Dr. Lena Oak Suk and Dr. Andrew G. Britt, both historians of Brazil and alumni of the Emory History Department. Suk, who was advised by Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of History Jeffrey Lesser, is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. She received Honorable Mention in the Best Article in the Humanities category her piece: “‘Only the Fragile Sex Admitted’: The Women’s Restaurant in 1920s São Paulo, Brazil,” Journal of Social History 51:3 (Spring 2018). Britt, who is currently Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at Northwestern University, received Honorable Mention in the Best Dissertation in the Humanities category for his work, “‘I’ll Samba Someplace Else’: Constructing Neighborhood and Identity in São Paulo, 1930s-1980s.” Britt was co-advised by Lesser and Thomas D. Rogers, Associate Professor of Modern Latin American History and NEH/Arthur Blank Distinguished Teaching Professor (2018-2021).
Natália Salgado Bueno, Assistant Professor in Emory’s Department of Political Science, also received an Honorable Mention in the Best Article in the Social Sciences category for: “Bypassing the Enemy: Distributive Politics, Credit Claiming, and Nonstate Organizations in Brazil,” Comparative Political Studies 51:3 (Mar. 2018), pp. 304–340.
Atlanta Native and History Major Hallie Lonial Interns at Atlanta History Center
Lonial in Atlanta History Center Archives
This semester History major Hallie Lonial is interning in the manuscript archives at the Atlanta History Center. An Atlanta native, Hallie visited the AHC on a field trip with her high school. The internship allows her to pursue her general interest in history while learning more about her hometown. Why would someone belonging to “generation online” want to work with old manuscripts? Hallie has the perfect answer: “I wanted to work with manuscripts because I’m really fascinated by what people say when they think nobody will ever read it.” During her work, she handles papers from or about famous people like Ivan Allen Jr. and well-known places like the Atlanta-Fulton County stadium. She also processes personal diaries, business ledgers, letters, and scrapbooks that tell of ordinary people’s lives. “I’ve learned that history is important to everyone, belongs to everyone, and is created by everyone, not just those we most commonly think of.” Learn more about resources for internships for Emory undergraduates here: http://history.emory.edu/home/undergraduate/resources/internships.html.
History Majors Ellie Coe and Hannah Fuller Win Woodruff Library’s Elizabeth Long Atwood Undergraduate Research Award
History Majors Ellie Coe and Hannah Fuller have each won Elizabeth Long Atwood Undergraduate Research Awards from Emory’s Woodruff Library. The Atwood Award recognizes the best paper that makes use of the library’s resources and applies research skills and critical analysis to evidence. Coe’s piece is titled “The Soldier’s Queue in the Eighteenth Century,” and she wrote the paper in Prof. Judith A. Miller’s course “The Origins of Capitalism” (Fall 2018). Fuller conducted the research for her paper, “Jemima Wilkinson: The Genderless Feminist of the Enlightenment,” in Prof. Judith A. Miller’s course “HIST 385W: Scandalous Texts in the Enlightenment” (Spring 2018). Learn more about the awards here: http://web.library.emory.edu/research-learning/award-research-programs/undergraduate-research-award.html.