Dr. Carl Suddler, Assistant Professor of History, will moderate the final event in the Sports History Lecture Series, titled “State of the Playing Field: Sports Historians Wrap Up,” along with History honors student Hannah Charak (21C) and Mathematics major Matthew Ross (21C). The panel will include: Amira Rose Davis, assistant professor of history and African American Studies at Penn State University; Louis Moore, associate professor of history at Grand Valley State University; Theresa Runstedtler, associate professor of history at American University; and Derrick White, professor of history and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. Following the panel, the speakers will answer questions from the audience. Registration is required, and registrants will be entered into a prize raffle.
Month / April 2021
Allitt Discusses John Marshall at Carter Center with Author Robert Strauss
Dr. Patrick N. Allitt, Cahoon Family Professor of American History, will join author Robert Strauss for a conversation about former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. The public event, titled “John Marshall: The Final Founder,” is hosted by the Carter Center and will take place on Wednesday, April 7, at 7pm EST. Read the full event below and join the conversation via this link.
Eighteenth- and 19th-century contemporaries believed John Marshall to be, if not the equal of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, at least very close to that pantheon. In his new book, journalist and historian Robert Strauss recounts how the Chief Justice acted as the glue that held the union together after the original founding days. Strauss will be in conversation with Emory University History Professor Patrick Allitt.
Andrade Gives Wallace T. MacCaffrey Distinguished Lecture in History at Reed College
In late March Dr. Tonio Andrade, Professor of History, delivered the Wallace T. MacCaffrey Distinguished Lecture in History at Reed College. Andrade’s talk, “The Last Embassy: The 1795 Dutch Mission to the Qianlong Court,” focused on a little-studied embassy to the Qing court: the Dutch mission of 1794–95. The talk draws from research Andrade conducted for his forthcoming book, The Last Embassy: The Dutch Mission of 1795 and the Forgotten History of Western Encounters with China (Princeton UP, June 2021). Find out more about the event here.
Honors Student Willie Lieberman Celebrates Jane Austen Collection in Emory’s Rose Library
Willie Lieberman, a third-year student in the History honors program specializing in European Studies, recently published a post on the blog of Emory’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. Coinciding with Women’s History Month, the article surveys the Rose Library’s exciting Jane Austen collection. Read an excerpt from Lieberman’s piece below along with the full article here.
“March is Women’s History Month – a time to celebrate women’s accomplishments throughout history, address past and present injustices, and pave the path to a more liberated future for all women. The Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library is home to a wealth of collections by significant female authors like Sylvia Plath and Alice Walker. One of the Rose Library’s most exciting features is its Jane Austen collection. Jane Austen is one of the best-known and most successful female authors…The Rose Library’s Jane Austen holdings signify her commercial success and the value of her writing to society, while also pointing to inequities female authors faced in publishing.“
Ward Publishes Op-Ed in ‘NY Times’ on GA Voting Law and ‘Jim Crow 2.0’
Dr. Jason Morgan Ward, Professor of History, recently published an opinion piece in The New York Times. The article, “Georgia’s Voter Law Is Called ‘Jim Crow 2.0’ for a Reason,” offers essential historical context for understanding the new voting law that Georgia Republicans passed in the last month. Among the evidence Ward cites is research conducted by History Department senior honors thesis student Hannah Charak. Read an excerpt from the article below along with the full piece here.
“But we may not be as distant in our political moment from theirs as we might think: The long struggle to block access to the ballot has always relied on legal maneuvering and political schemes to achieve what bullets and bombs alone could not.
“What legislators in Georgia and across the country have reminded us is that backlash to expanded voting rights has often arrived by a method that our eras have in common: by laws, like Georgia’s Senate Bill 202, passed by elected politicians.”
Suh quoted in ‘AJC’ Article on the History of Asian Immigrants and their Descendants in Georgia
Dr. Chris Suh, Assistant Professor of History, was recently quoted in an article in The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Written in the wake of the March 16 killing of eight people, including six Asian women, in Atlanta, the article examines how Asian immigrants and their descendants have navigated racial divides in Georgia. Suh’s research specializations include the US in the Pacific World, Asian American history, comparative studies in race and ethnicity, and the Progressive Era. His current book project is titled “At the Dawn of the Pacific Era: American Encounters with Asians in the Progressive Era of Empire and Exclusion.” Read an excerpt from the AJC piece citing Suh below along with the full article: “Asians have long, complex history navigating Georgia’s racial divides.”
“Chris Suh, an assistant professor of history at Emory, said the university was one of several southern Methodist schools that recruited elite students from East Asia in the 1880s and 1890s to train as missionaries in the southern conservative tradition.
“‘This is a time when Blacks and Jewish Americans are being persecuted, and you randomly have these Asian elites who are invited to dinner parties with the most influential southerners because they’re Christian, because they’ve conformed to what the white Christians believe is a great way for a non-white person to behave,’ said Suh.“
Celebrating Senior Prize Winners for 2020-’21
The Undergraduate Committee recently announced the winners of senior prizes for 2020-’21. Congratulations to the recipients, listed below:
- George P. Cuttino Prize for the best record in European History: Jesse Steinman
- James Z. Rabun Prize for the best record in American History: Max Rotenberg & Melanie Dunn
- The Latin America & Non-Western World Prize for best record in Latin America & Non-Western World History: Jacob DeFazio
- Matthew A. Carter Citizen-Scholar Award: Ciara Murphy
These awards will be presented at the History Department’s virtual Senior Celebration on Wednesday, May 5, 2-3p (Zoom details to come). Browse past winners of the senior prizes here.
Historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham to Deliver James Weldon Johnson Distinguished Lecture
The 2021 James Weldon Johnson Distinguished lecture will feature award-winning historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and African and African American Studies and the chair of the Department of History at Harvard University. The lecture, which is sponsored by Emory’s James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, will take place via Zoom on April 1 at 4pm. Higginbotham’s talk is titled “History in the Face of Slavery: A Family Portrait.” Register here.