Month / November 2020

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Webster Wins 2019-’20 Francis S. Benjamin Prize

Image credit: Jacques Nicolas Bellin, Carte de la coste orientale d’Afrique depuis le Cap de Bonne Esperance jusqu’au Cap del Gada (Cape Town: University of Cape Town Libraries, 1740), islandora:19752, Islandora Repository, University of Cape Town Digital Collections.

Congratulations to History graduate student Anjuli Webster on winning the 2019-20 Francis S. Benjamin prize for her paper, “From extraction to enclosure: Delagoa Bay as aqueous borderland in the nineteenth century.” The paper traces the history of failed British claims to Portuguese Delagoa Bay in south Eastern Africa over the nineteenth century. Through disputes over geography, jurisdiction, and possession of this imperial outpost, the border between what would become Mozambique and South Africa slowly and episodically coalesced long before the territorial carve up of Africa during the Berlin Conference of 1884.

The Benjamin prize was established in early 1974 in memory of Francis Benjamin who taught at Emory from 1946 till 1973. This gift is used to reward the best paper written by a graduate student during their first two years in the Emory History PhD program. View previous winners of the prize here.

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Dr. Claudia Kreklau (18G) a Featured Speaker at Emory 2020 Homecoming

Emory’s 2020 Homecoming virtual program featured 2018 History PhD alumna Claudia Kreklau, currently Associate Lecturer in the School of History at the University of St. Andrews. Kreklau spoke as a part of the program “A Taste of Emory from Around the World,” which was organized by Emory International Advancement and Constituent Engagement. Dr. Brian Vick advised Kreklau’s dissertation, titled “‘Eat as the King Eats’: Making the Middle Class through Food, Foodways, and Food Discourses in Nineteenth-Century Germany.” Read more about the Homecoming program below and watch Dr. Kreklau’s presentation (Emory credentials required) here.

Take an exciting journey around the world to learn about the fascinating work of three international alumni working in the food and beverage industry. Discover how Jamie Koh 07B founded Singapore’s first stand-alone, micro-distillery for gin. Hear how Digant Kapoor 10Ox 12C is helping to expand sustainable farming in Dubai. And, learn the unique history of food from Claudia Kreklau 16G 18G.

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Dr. Carol Anderson Dissects Voter Suppression, Past and Present, for PBS’s ‘NewsHour’

Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently a guest on the PBS NewsHour program “America, Interrupted.” Titled “Why voter suppression continues and how the pandemic has made it worse,” the episode includes Anderson’s insights into the history of voter suppression and how such practices continue through the present. Anderson is, mostly recently, the author of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2018). Watch the episode here.

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Coleman, Shan, and Hutton Present Undergraduate Honors Thesis Proposals

Please join us this coming Thursday, November 5, at 4:20pm to learn about the latest history honors research projects. Three undergraduates, Ayriel Coleman, Brian Shan, and Colin Hutton, will present their work on the history of drug use in America, the racialization of Chinese Americans, and gardening in West Virginia coal mining towns. If you have not received the zoom link via email, please contact Prof. Eckert at aeckert [at] emory [dot] edu

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Faculty-Undergraduate Workshop Convenes to Discuss Chapter from Montalvo’s ‘Archives of the Enslaved’

Undergraduate students and faculty gathered on Wednesday, October 28, 2020, for a virtual workshop to discuss a chapter from Assistant Professor Maria R. Montalvo‘s book Archive of the Enslaved: Power, Enslavement, and the Production of the Past. The conversation focused on enslaved people, illness, and commodification in the antebellum courtroom.

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Crespino Places Biden’s Visit to Warm Springs in Historical Context for ‘The AJC’

Dr. Joseph Crespino, History Department Chair and Jimmy Carter Professor, was recently quoted in an article in The Atlanta Journal Constitution about the upcoming visit of Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden to Warm Springs, Georgia. The town served as a vacation retreat for Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his 12 years as president. AJC political columnist Jim Galloway interviewed Crespino to help explain the significance of the visit along with the parallels between Roosevelt and Biden and the 1930s and 2020s. Read an excerpt below, along with the full article: “Opinion: Joe Biden heads for Warm Springs and the Roosevelt legacy.”

“Joe Crespino is the Jimmy Carter Professor of History at Emory University. Much of his work has involved the Depression-era South.

“Biden’s visit is ‘interesting symbolically and historically because of where Biden fits within the Democratic party in 2020,’ he told me. ‘He’s had to move to the left in the primary to accommodate a younger, more liberal wing within the party. Roosevelt was pushed by the left wing of his party.

‘Yes, [Roosevelt] was a liberal. He was surrounded by liberals. But he was pulled to the left by the circumstances of the time. He became more liberal, and the New Deal became more far reaching,’ Crespino said.“

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PhD Student Robert Billups Wins Grant for Research at LBJ Presidential Library

Third-year graduate student Robert Billups has been awarded a Moody Research Grant for his current project, titled “White Supremacist Bombings and Arsons Against U.S. Civil Rights Institutions, 1940-1975.” The grant, which is underwritten by The Moody Foundation and awarded by a faculty committee from the University of Texas at Austin, will support Billups as he conducts research at the LBJ Presidential Library. Billups is advised by Joseph Crespino, History Department Chair and Jimmy Carter Professor, and Allen Tullos, Professor and Co-Director of Emory Center for Digital Scholarship.

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Jewish Museum of Maryland Invites Goldstein to Speak on ‘The Consequences of Acceptance’

Dr. Eric L. Goldstein, Associate Professor of History, is the featured speaker for an upcoming live stream event hosted by the Jewish Museum of Maryland. Goldstein, who also serves as Judith London Evans Director of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, will speak on “The Consequences of Acceptance: From the ‘Jewish Race’ to White Privilege.” Jewish Museum of Maryland director Tracie Guy-Decker will join Goldstein for a conversation about how the place of Jews in America’s racial culture has changed over time. The event is Sunday, November 8, 2020 at 4:00pm EST. Find more information here, including the link for registration.

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Emory News Center Highlights Recent Honors for Eckert and Klibanoff

The Emory News Center’s most recent Emory Report highlighted recent faculty accolades across campus, including those earned by Dr. Astrid M. Eckert and Hank Klibanoff. The report highlights Eckert’s new book, West Germany and the Iron Curtain: Environment, Economy and Culture in the Borderlands (Oxford UP, 2019), which won the 2020 DAAD/German Studies Association Book Prize for the Best Book in History or Social Sciences. Read our interview with Dr. Eckert about the book from last year here. The article also celebrated Hank Klibanoff, whose podcast Buried Truths won the 2020 national Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association in the large market category. 

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‘The Nation’ and ‘Deutsche Welle’ Cite Anderson on Voter Suppression

Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and associated faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in two articles discussing the past and present of voter suppression in the United States. Anderson commented on the history of ballot restrictions in the state of Texas for The Nation article, “Texas and the Long Tail of Voter Suppression.” She offers further insights into how recent policy measures suppress voting in Georgia in the article “US election: Early voting shines light on fight over voter suppression,” published by Deutshe Welle. Read an excerpt from the Deutshe Welle article below along with the full pieces at the links above.

“Georgia keeps doubling down on trying to stop Black people from voting as well as stopping Hispanics and Asian Americans,” Carol Anderson, professor of African American Studies at Emory University and author of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy, told DW, pointing out that all three groups overwhelmingly vote Democrat.

“It’s a legacy of knowing that this system in place is not designed to honor and embrace your right to vote, but is systematically working through different ways to stop it,” she said.