Month / November 2022

by abritt

LaChance Cited in Article on Last Meal Rite

Dr. Daniel LaChance

Dr. Daniel LaChance, Winship Distinguished Research Professor in History, 2020-23, and Associate Professor of History, was recently quoted in a Fox News article about the common practice of allowing people sentenced to death a customized meal before their execution. LaChance argues that this tradition serves to differentiate the violence that the state carries out in the context of an execution from the violence for which the person was sentenced to death. LaChance is the author of Executing Freedom: The Cultural Life of Capital Punishment in the United States (University of Chicago Press, 2016) and Crimesploitation: Crime, Punishment, and Pleasure on Reality Television (Stanford UP, 2022), co-authored with Paul Kaplan. Read an excerpt from the Fox News piece below along with the full article: “Lore of the last meal: Inside the captivating culinary ritual before vicious killers face death.”

“‘The meals serve as a reminder that this is a different violence,’ LaChance told Fox News Digital of the views that some may hold. ‘That this is a righteous violence rather than a lawless or criminal violence.‘”

by abritt

2022 Loren & Gail Starr Fellows in Experiential Learning Present Results

The 2022 Loren & Gail Starr Fellows in Experiential Learning recently presented the projects for which they received funding over the summer. These fellowships were created in 2022 through a generous donation from Loren and Gail Starr. They provide summer funding from $500 to $3000 for experiential learning projects proposed by History majors, joint majors, or minors. The Starr Award aims to support students who wish to use the knowledge and skills they have acquired in history courses to create or participate in projects outside of the classroom. Bold, creative, and off-the-beaten path proposals are encouraged. The 2022 Fellows outdid themselves with creative historical projects. Learn more about the inspiring work they recently shared with History Dept. faculty, students, and staff below:

Junior major Matthew Croswhite created a website that connects Emory’s mascot, Dooley, to the 19th-century trade in cadavers.  Check out his amazing website here: Skeletons in the Closet: Emory University’s Position in the Illicit Cadaver Trade and the Birth of Dooley, The Skeleton from 1840-1930.

Matthew Croswhite Presenting “Skeletons in the Closet”

Senior Honors student Edina Hartstein created a StoryMap based on her Honors Thesis on “The Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women & Children.” Take a look here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/a5276b4b745b41d49f9f1a8b9d5fce4f.

Edina Hartstein Presenting StoryMap on Trafficking in Women and Children

Senior Film Studies Honors student and History Major Kheyal Roy-Meighoo created a spectacular animated film on Asian American History that explored the dynamics of racism in the present and past. We look forward to posting an update with a link to the film in the future.

Kheyal Roy-Meighoo Presenting Animated Film
by abritt

Anderson Analyzes Midterm Elections on ‘Democracy Now!’

Carol Anderson on Democracy Now!

Dr. Carol Anderson appeared on the television program Democracy Now! in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections. Anderson analyzed the significance of the elections for the future of American democracy and discussed the outsized role that the outcome of the Georgia senate race would play in determining the course of that future. Anderson is the author of many books, including, most recently, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021). She is Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department. Watch the segment on Democracy Now! above or at the following link: “‘American Democracy Hangs in the Balance’: Carol Anderson on Midterms, Georgia Races & Voting Rights.”

by abritt

Schainker to Lead Inaugural Study Abroad Program in Poland

Trailer for the TJIS Jews in Poland study abroad experience.

Dr. Ellie R. Schainker, Arthur Blank Family Foundation Associate Professor of Modern European Jewish History, will lead a group of Emory undergraduates on an inaugural study abroad program to Poland in the summer of 2023. The 10-day, 1-credit experiential learning abroad experience is organized by the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies (TJIS). The Berger Family Fund, which supports student experiential learning on topics related to antisemitism, Jewish life, and Jewish history, will heavily subsidize the cost for participants. Through the on-site learning experience and a companion course taught by Dr. Schainker, students will engage with over one thousand years of Jewish history in Poland and Eastern Europe more broadly. Read comments from Dr. Schainker about the exciting initiative below, and learn more about the program on the TJIS website.

“Reflecting on her vision for the program, Prof. Schainker noted, ‘My goal is for them to walk away with a deep appreciation for how Poland – and Eastern Europe more broadly – became such a magnetic home for Ashkenazi Jewish society and culture for really over a thousand years, until the Holocaust.  I want them to appreciate that as a space in which Jewish culture and life flourished while having its major challenges as well.‘”

by abritt

Lowery Quoted in Article on Race, Law, and Identity among the NC Lumbee

Cover of Lowery’s most recent monograph.

Cahoon Professor or American History, Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery, was recently quoted in The Assembly, a digital magazine launched in 2021 that provides in-depth investigative journalism on North Carolina topics. The piece, “Who’s Your People?,” centers on North Carolina’s Lumbee Tribe and their members’ century-long fight for federal recognition. Dr. Lowery is a member of the Lumbee and author of multiple books on Lumbee history, including The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle (UNC Press, 2018) and Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation (UNC Press, 2010). Read an excerpt from the article in The Assembly below, along with the full piece: “Who’s Your People?“

“Despite their prominence in local politics, little seems to be known about the Lumbee’s diverse and mysterious origins. Tribal members trace their ancestry to Algonquin, Siouan, and Iroquoian-speaking nations indigenous to what are now the Carolinas, who were scattered and nearly exterminated by settler colonialism.

“According to Malinda Maynor Lowery, a historian at Emory University, member of the Lumbee tribe, and the author of The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle, refugees of decimated peoples huddled together in the impenetrable Robeson County swamp, where, over time, they intermarried with English- and Gaelic-speaking settlers, as well as Black slaves and freedmen.“