This Friday, April 24, the History Department will host its first undergraduate town hall via Zoom. History majors, History minors, and friends of the History Department are invited to attend. See the Zoom details and flyer below. We hope to see you there!
https://emory.zoom.us/j/99040343293?pwd=SlcrMEh0OUJuOWlZd1grbTU0K2w5QT09
Meeting ID: 990 4034 3293
Password: BowdenHall
The History Department mourns the loss of an extraordinary human being. Our friend and colleague Dr. Pellom McDaniels III, curator of African American Collections in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, passed away unexpectedly in his home this past Sunday. Pellom enriched the life of every person who knew him. Our History students benefited enormously from his knowledge and kindness. He will be so greatly missed! Read more about McDaniels life and career on the Emory Scholar Blogs.
Over the weekend the Emory History Department launched an Instagram account. Connect with us and stay up-to-date about ongoing department activities and news @emoryhistory.
Congratulations to PhD alumnus Ben Nobbs-Thiessen on the publication of his first monograph – Landscapes of Migration: Mobility and Environmental Change on Bolivia’s Tropical Frontier, 1952 to the Present – with UNC Press. Nobbs-Thiessen is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Washington State University. Dr. Jeffrey Lesser advised Nobbs-Thiessen’s 2016 dissertation, “The Cultivated State, Migrants and the Transformation of the Bolivian Lowlands, 1952-2000.” Read a blurb about the book below and see more on the UNC Press website.
In the wake of a 1952 revolution, leaders of Bolivia’s National Revolutionary Movement (MNR) embarked on a program of internal colonization known as the “March to the East.” In an impoverished country dependent on highland mining, the MNR sought to convert the nation’s vast “undeveloped” Amazonian frontier into farmland, hoping to achieve food security, territorial integrity, and demographic balance. To do so, they encouraged hundreds of thousands of Indigenous Bolivians to relocate from the “overcrowded” Andes to the tropical lowlands, but also welcomed surprising transnational migrant streams, including horse-and-buggy Mennonites from Mexico and displaced Okinawans from across the Pacific.
History Department Chair and Jimmy Carter Professor of History Joseph Crespino recently took to Facebook to offer a few thoughts on productivity in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Enjoy his “tips” on the Emory History Facebook page.
The Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) Activists at Emory have invited Assistant Professor Chris Suh to join them for a discussion forum on anti-Asian racism and COVID-19. The event will take place this Wednesday, April 15, from 7 – 8pm. The Zoom link to the discussion is available on the APIDA facebook site.
Congratulations to history major Ellie Coe, the recipient of the 2020 ECLC Excellence in Language Studies Award in Russian. Last year, Coe received a Clio Prize for Best Research Paper in a Freshman Seminar for her work, “A Mythic Spaceman: The Cultural Influence of Yuri Gagarin.” Below, the Emory College Language Center offers details on Coe’s work and the award:
Coe is a second-year studying History and Russian & East European Studies. She first began learning Russian in high school under the tutelage of a private teacher, and immediately fell in love with the language and culture. Through her Russian language classes at Emory, Ellie has discovered a passion for Russian poetry of the early 20th century; her favorite Russian writer is Vladimir Mayakovsky. Specializing in Soviet history, Ellie is interested in studying the Soviet space program, which launched the first man into space in 1961. In October 2019, she was able to put her Russian skills to use when she interviewed five cosmonauts at NASA’s Johnson Space Center for an independent research project. Ellie is grateful to her professors Dr. Elena Glazov-Corrigan, Dr. Juliette Stapanian-Apkarian, and Dr. Matthew Payne for encouraging her to follow her passion!
The Emory History Department Undergraduate Committee is pleased to announce the recipients of the History Department’s Undergraduate Senior Prizes for 2019-2020:
George P. Cuttino Prize for the Best Record in European History: Hannah Mariska Fuller
James Z. Rabun Prize for the Best Record in American History: Isaiah Simon Sirois
The Latin America & Non-Western World Prize for Best Record in Latin America & Non-Western World History: Kate Elizabeth Sandlin
Matthew A. Carter Citizen-Scholar Award: Yazmina Adi Sarieh
These awards will be presented at the Senior Celebration on Wednesday, April 29, 2:00 – 3:30 pm via Zoom (details to follow). Read more about each of these prizes, including previous years’ winners, at Senior Prizes.
Following his graduation from Emory in 2013, former History major Hyeok Hweon “H.H.” Kang went to Harvard for graduate school in Korean and East Asian History. Kang is currently putting the finishing touches on his dissertation, “Crafting Knowledge: Artisan, Officer, and the Culture of Making in Late Chosŏn Korea, 1592–1910.” Starting in the fall, he will be a D. Kim Foundation for History of Science and Technology Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of the History of Science and Technology at Johns Hopkins University. After his postdoc, Kang will join the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Washington University in St. Louis as an assistant professor. Congratulations, H.H.!
Senior history major Drew Bryant is a 2019-20 Fox Center Humanities Honors Fellow. Bryant recently contributed a blog post on the Fox Center for the Humanities website about her honors project on the international activist movement in the 1990s. That movement sought to utilize the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a vehicle towards protecting women’s human rights. Read an excerpt from her post below, along with the full piece: “International Activism and the Women’s Human Rights Movement: 1990-2000.”
My project explores how activists emphasized the overarching problem of violence against women, which served as an issue which could unite women around a global women’s human rights agenda despite the varying interests of women transnationally. Moreover, activist awareness-building regarding the issue of violence against women served as a platform upon which other issues facing women could be introduced into the human rights framework, such as those related to reproductive freedom.
