Anderson Named AAPSS’s 2021 W. E. B. DuBois Fellow

Congratulations to Dr. Carol Anderson on being one of five distinguished scholars inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS). The honor recognizes the contributions of university-based scholars and public servants who advance science and deepen public understanding of human behavior and social dynamics. There are 145 AAPSS fellows in total. Anderson, who was named the AAPSS’s 2021 W.E.B. DuBois Fellow, is also Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department. Read more about the award via the AAPSS press release.

Yaza Sarieh (‘18Ox, ‘20C) Wins 2020-21 Henry Luce Foundation Fellowship

Congratulations to recently graduated History major Yaza Sarieh (‘18Ox ‘20C) on receiving the Henry Luce Foundation Fellowship for 2021-2022. Yaza was also the recipient of the History Department’s Matthew A. Carter Award, given annually to a graduating student who exemplifies high academic achievement and good works in the community. Sarieh is one of only a dozen Emory students to win this prestigious fellowship in the university’s history. Read the Luce Foundation’s profile of Sarieh below, along with the same from the Emory News Center: “Two recent Emory graduates selected for prestigious Luce Scholars Program.” Also, learn about the other Luce fellowship winners from this past year here.

“Yazmina Sarieh graduated from Emory University in May 2020 with a Bachelor’s degree in History and Arabic. Born and raised in a small immigrant community outside of Nashville, Tennessee, Yazmina has always had a passion for service, social justice and diversity. At Emory, she co-directed Behind the Glass, an organization connecting students with undocumented detainees who were being held in a nearby detention center. She led initiatives at Georgia Organics, a food justice organization, managing a project that mapped demographics, health disparities and nutritional assets in order to alleviate food insecurity among schoolchildren. She has volunteered with the International Rescue Committee to support the integration of newly arrived refugees from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Democratic Republic of Congo and Honduras. While interning at the Carter Center, she worked on large-scale conflict resolution with international actors regarding the Syrian Civil War, specifically advocating for the rights of internally displaced populations. As a Gilman Scholar at al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco and the Sultan Qaboos University in Manah, Oman, Yazmina connected with people around the globe, engaging in cross cultural dialogue and integrating into diverse communities. She was named a Phi Beta Kappa scholar upon graduation, and received the Matthew A. Carter Citizens Award from the Emory History Department, given to one student who best exemplifies academic achievement and good works in the community. Yazmina is motivated to work in migrant rights and advocacy, hoping to create more efficient policy, programming and infrastructure that will enhance economic growth, social inclusion and political stability among marginalized communities. During her free time, Yazmina loves to preserve her Palestinian heritage through embroidery, reading ethnographies and caring for her plants.

Strocchia’s ‘Forgotten Healers’ Awarded Gordan Prize for Best Book in Renaissance Studies

Congratulations to Dr. Sharon Strocchia, Professor of History, whose book Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy (Harvard UP, 2020) was awarded the 2021 Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Book Prize. The prize is given annually by the Renaissance Society of America to the best book in Renaissance studies. Forgotten Healers was also awarded the Marraro Prize by the Society for Italian Historical Studies. Browse past winners of the Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Book Prize, along with other awards given by the Renaissance Society of America, here.

Smith’s ‘Talking Therapy’ Wins American Journal of Nursing Book Award

Dr. Kylie M. Smith has won the 2020 American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award in History and Public Policy for her work Talking Therapy: Knowledge and Power in American Psychiatric Nursing (Rutgers UP, 2020). Smith is Associate Professor in the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and Associated Faculty in the History Department. Talking Therapy previously won the 2020 Lavinia L. Dock Award from the American Association for the History of Nursing. Read more about the work below and at the Rutgers UP website.

‘Emory Report’ Highlights Recent Honors Won by Eckert and Strocchia

The Emory News Center recently featured honors won by two History Department faculty members. The article highlights Associate Professor Astrid M. Eckert‘s West Germany and the Iron Curtain: Economy, Culture & Environment in the Borderlands (Oxford UP, 2019), which has won awards from the Central European History Society, the German Studies Association, and the European History Section of the Southern Historical Association. In addition, the Emory Report highlights Professor Sharon Strocchia‘s Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy, which was awarded the Marraro Prize by the Society for Italian Historical Studies. Read about other faculty and staff awards from across the Emory campus: “Acclaim: Recent honors for Emory faculty and staff.”

Eckert’s ‘West Germany and the Iron Curtain’ Wins Hans Rosenberg Book Prize

Congratulations to Dr. Astrid M. Eckert, whose book West Germany and the Iron Curtain: Environment, Economy, and Culture in the Borderlands (Oxford, 2019) has won the 2019 Hans Rosenberg Book Prize of the Central European History Society. The prize is awarded to the best book in the field published by a North American resident in 2019. The committee’s appreciation for the book begins with the following praise: “Like a landscape, this book opens the eye and expands the horizon with every chapter, offering new vantage points, unexpected turns, and hidden depths.” The Rosenberg Prize is the third awarded to Eckert’s West Germany and the Iron Curtain, following the 2020 DAAD/GSA Book Prize and the 2020 Smith Award by the European History Section of the Southern Historical Association.

Graduate Student Alexander Compton Wins Article Prize from Southern Historical Association

Congratulations to graduate student Alexander Compton, whose second-year research paper “Decolonize Your Minds! Audre Lorde, Archival Activism, and the Transnational Origins of Black European Consciousness” won the John L. Snell Memorial Prize of the European History Section of the Southern Historical Association. The Snell Prize is given annually to the graduate student who submits the best seminar research paper in European history, written within the past year. Compton’s paper historicizes the processes that led to the rise of Black German and Black European consciousness in the 1980s, particularly the transnational networks forged through the composition, publication, and translation of the seminal Black German feminist anthology Farbe bekennen (Showing Our Colors). The paper was mentored by Prof. Eckert and Prof. Vick.

Yannakakis and Premo Win American Society for Legal History Article Prize

Congratulations to Dr. Yanna Yannakakis, 2018-2021 Winship Distinguished Research Professorship in History and Associate Professor, on winning an article prize with co-author Dr. Bianca Premo (Florida International University). The American Society for Legal History awarded their 2019 American Historical Review article, “A Court of Stick and Branches: Indian Jurisdiction in Colonial Mexico and Beyond,” with the Jane Burbank Article Prize. The prize is awarded annually to the best article in regional, global, imperial, comparative, or transnational legal history.

American Society for Ethnohistory Recognizes 2019 ‘AHR’ Article by Yannakakis and Premo

The American Society for Ethnohistory recognized an article co-written by Drs. Yanna Yannakakis and Bianca Premo (Florida International University) with honorable mention for the the Robert F. Heizer Award. The article, titled “A Court of Stick and Branches: Indian Jurisdiction in Colonial Mexico and Beyond,” was published in the February 2019 issue of the American Historical Review. Read more about the prize here.

Armstrong-Partida’s ‘Women and Community in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia’ Wins Award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender

Dr. Michelle Armstrong-Partida, Associate Professor of History, published Women and Community in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia (University of Nebraska Press, 2020) with co-editors Alexandra Guerson (University of Toronto) and Dana Wessell Lightfoot (University of Northern British Columbia). Congratulations to Armstrong-Partida and her co-editors on winning the 2020 Collaborative Project Award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender. Read more about the volume and prize in the award citation below:

The awards committee praised the book for interrogating the very idea of what constitutes community, and demonstrating that examining women’s roles and activities beyond the family changes our understanding of gender and social networks. Rather than treating community as self-evident or static, the contributors “explore the multi-varied and interwoven networks that women of different religious, socioeconomic, and geographic regions were embedded within.” While the deeply researched and well-written individual chapters address communities of Jewish women, conversas, Moriscas, nuns, and widows, the volume ranges beyond these groups to include women whose communities were not defined by religion or in relation to men: victims of clerical violence; perpetrators of neighborhood feuds; recipients of charitable support; and writers of wills. The volume amply fulfills its goal of “more clearly see[ing] women’s ability to navigate a multiplicity of identities and roles—and moves beyond the traditional approach of studying women within the confines of their families.” By treating community as a category of analysis, it reframes our understanding of the roles of women in medieval and early modern society.