Month / June 2026

by abritt

Andrew G. Britt (PhD, ’18) Publishes ‘I’ll Samba Someplace Else’ with Duke UP


Dr. Andrew G. Britt (PhD, ’18) has published his first book, I’ll Samba Someplace Else: A Spatial History of Race, Ethnicity, and Displacement in São Paulo, with Duke University Press. Someplace Else charts the interwoven history of three of the city’s most iconic neighborhoods, popularly known as “African” Brasilândia, “Japanese” Liberdade, and “Italian” Bela Vista. Drawing on granular archival research, historical GIS, and sustained engagement with African-descendent cultural organizations in São Paulo, Britt demonstrates how the mid-twentieth-century construction of these neighborhoods served both to reproduce racial inequities and bolster discourses of multicultural harmony.

Mural by artist JOKS in São Paulo’s Brasilândia neighborhood.

Barbara Weinstein, Silver Professor of History at New York University, offered the following praise: “Andrew Britt has given us a remarkable book. By combining the latest digital tools with a trove of archival and oral sources, he enables us to see the city of São Paulo from entirely new angles.”

Britt is Assistant Professor in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He completed his doctoral training in 2018 under the advisement of Drs. Jeffrey Lesser and Thomas D. Rogers.

by emoryhistorydept

Emory News Features Cross-Disciplinary, Collaborative Research among Lesser and Students


The Emory News Center recently published a feature story about the research led by Dr. Jeffrey Lesser, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of History, in the Bom Retiro neighborhood of São Paulo, Brazil. Headlined “Understanding health, history and environment in urban Brazil,” the piece highlights the innovative methods that inform Lesser’s work, including for his most recent book, Living and Dying in São Paulo: Immigrants, Health, and the Built Environment in Brazil (Duke University Press, 2025). The article also describes the productive cross-disciplinary collaborations that Lesser has cultivated with graduate and undergraduate students, including second-year doctoral student Paula Manfredini and History honors student Lucia Alexeyev.

Find an excerpt of the piece below, and read the full article.

“Lesser, who frequently visits the neighborhood accompanied by student researchers who are just as likely to be medical, theology or public health scholars as history majors, researches the historical dimensions of how health problems arise — not just via germs or disease, but also from the many different ways people live their daily lives within the urban environment. This unusual approach brings his team into contact with a wide variety of individuals who shape public health, including policymakers, street-level health teams and and ordinary people from diverse backgrounds.

‘Being a historian is a great way to be left alone,’ says Lesser, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Latin American History at Emory. ‘But I started to realize I would be a better scholar if I was surrounded by people who had different expertise than my own, who challenged me as opposed to my doing it all in my own head.‘”

by emoryhistorydept

Alison Colis Greene Recognized for Outstanding Teaching and Service


Dr. Alison Collis Greene, Associate Professor of American religious history and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently recognized by the Candler School of Theology for her exceptional contributions inside and outside of the classroom. Greene received the Provost’s Distinguished Teaching Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Education, as well as the award for Outstanding Service to the Candler Community by a Faculty Member.

Greene’s teaching centers on United States religious history, particularly American religions as they relate to politics, wealth and poverty, race and ethnicity, the environment, and the modern rural South. She also directs the Master of Theological Studies Program.

She is author of No Depression in Heaven: The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Transformation of Religion in the Delta (Oxford, 2016), as well as a number of essays and articles on modern United States religious history in both scholarly and popular outlets.

by emoryhistorydept

Cerveira Wins AHA’s Beveridge Grant in Western Hemisphere History


Bruna Digiacomo Cerveira, fourth-year doctoral candidate in Latin American history, received the 2026 Beveridge Family Research Grant in Western Hemisphere History from the American Historical Association. The grant will support research for her dissertation project, “Liberated African Children Between Empires: Slavery, Freedom, and British Imperialism in Rio de Janeiro, 1831–1888.” Cerveira is among just eleven graduate students in history nationwide to receive the AHA’s Beveridge grant this cycle. Her dissertation is advised by Drs. Mariana P. Candido and Thomas D. Rogers.

by emoryhistorydept

Starr Receives LGS Inclusive Excellence Award


Jordyn Alvarez Starr received the 2026 Laney Award for Inclusive Excellence in Graduate Education. This award recognizes students who “engage in service activities that promote inclusivity in the graduate community while also helping to develop and implement strategies to remove barriers for historically marginalized groups and helping them participate fully in graduate education and their respective professions.” Starr was one of four recipients of the award this year.

Starr is a graduate student in Latin American and Caribbean History with research interests centered on struggles against slavery and imperialism in the Spanish Caribbean, especially Puerto Rico. Starr’s dissertation project, titled “Revolutionary Rhetoric: Antislavery and Anticolonial Alliances in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico,” is advised by Drs. Adriana Chira and Yanna Yannakakis.