Celebrating the Class of 2020: April 29, 2-3:30pm

The History Department will host the 2019-20 senior celebration on Wednesday, April 29, from 2-3:30pm via Zoom. Below are a few of the history majors that will be individually recognized at the event. ‘

Phi Alpha Theta, Tau Chapter: 2019-2020 Graduates

Hannah Fuller
Parth Goyal
Junyi Han
Yazmina Sarieh
Emily Sharp
Isaiah Sirois
Abigail Stern
Jonathan Tao
Daniel Thomas
Minnie Yang

2019-2020 Honors Graduates

Drew Bryant
Director: Adriana Chira
“International Activism and the Women’s Human Rights Movement: 1990-2000”

Hannah Fuller
Director: Matthew Payne
“A Tale of Two Trials”

Junyi Han
Director: Tonio Andrade
“Guoshang Cemetery and the Collective Memory of World War II”

Christina Ocean
Director: Valerie Babb, English Dept.
“Martin Luther King, Jr., the Dreamer: The Power Invoked by Dreaming in Black Literature and Culture”

Martin Pimentel
Director: Jason Ward
“Detrioters: The Rise and Fall of the Detroit Rumor Control Center, 1967-1969”

Diego Romero
Director: Yanna Yannakakis
“Feathered Empire: Change in Central Mexico in the 16th Century”

Noah Roos
Director: Matthew Payne
“The Tundra and the Desert: Soviet-Iraq Relations, 1968-1972”

Kate Sandlin
Director: Clifton Crais
“What Are You Afraid Of: Witchcraft Suppression in the Northern Province, South
Africa in the Twentieth Century”

Emily Sharp
Director: Benjamin Reiss, English Dept.
“Roy Cohn’s America: Conservatism, Sexual Politics, and Memory in the Twenty-
First Century”

Isaiah Sirois
Director: Daniel LaChance
“A Little Encouragement in Pulling Themselves Up by Their Own Bootstraps:
American Individualism and Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship”

Jonathan Tao
Director: Tonio Andrade & Cynthia Patterson
“Bactria and the Cultural Legacy of Alexander the Great in the East”

2019-2020 Senior Awards

George P. Cuttino Prize (best record in European history):
Hannah Fuller

James Z. Rabun Prize (best record in American history):
Isaiah Sirois

Latin America & Non-Western World Prize (best record in Latin America & Non-Western World History):
Kate Sandlin

Matthew A. Carter Citizen-Scholar Award (high academic achievement & good works in the community):
Yazmina Sarieh

History Major Ellie Coe Receives 2020 ECLC Excellence in Language Studies Award in Russian

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!

Undergraduate Senior Prizes for 2019-20

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.

Ashley Parcells (PhD, ’18) Receives NEH Summer Stipend

Dr. Ashley Parcells, Assistant Professor of History at Jacksonville State University, has received a Summer Stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The support will allow Parcells to complete interviews and two chapters for a book on apartheid and sovereignty in KwaZulu, South Africa. Her project is titled “Ethnicity, State-Building, and the Making of Apartheid, ca. 1951 to 1994.” Parcells completed her doctorate in 2018, with Dr. Clifton Crais, Professor and Director of the Institute of African Studies, serving as her primary dissertation adviser.

 

Four History Majors Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa

Congratulations to the four history majors inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society this spring. They are Melanie Dunn, Cameron Katz, Yaza Sarieh, and Jesse Steinman. Sarieh and Steinman are seniors; Dunn and Katz are both juniors. The Gamma Chapter of Georgia was established at Emory University on April 5th, 1929, by the authority of the Sixteenth National Council of the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa. The initiation ceremony, originally slated for the first week of April 2020, has been postponed to the fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hannah Abrahamson Wins AHA’s Beveridge Research Grant

4th-year doctoral student Hannah Abrahamson was recently awarded a Beveridge Research Grant from the American Historical Association. Abrahamson is a historian of colonial Mexico writing a dissertation entitled, “Women of the Encomienda: Households and Dependents in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Yucatan, Mexico.” The Beveridge grant supports research in the history of the Western Hemisphere (the United States, Canada, and Latin America).

Channelle Russell Receives Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship

Congratulations to Channelle Russell on winning a Mellon Mays Undergraduate fellowship. Russell is a sophomore with a joint major in History and English, concentrating in African Atlantic history and literature, with a minor in Anthropology. Her Mellon Mays research project is tentatively titled “Unspooling Venus: Intimacy, Space, and Memory in 1700s Brazil” and explores the life of 18th-century enslaved woman Xica da Silva, whose historical enslavement became a cultural monument in contemporary Brazilian media. Russell’s interest in the Atlantic stems largely from a Fall 2018 freshman seminar she took with Dr. Adriana Chira, “Radicals and Revolution in the Caribbean.” Her interest in archival work took root in Dr. Maria Montalvo’s current “North American Slave Revolts” course. Beyond being a College undergrad, Russell is interested in knowledge production and media and plans to further explore the intersections of narrative formation and history in graduate school.

Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program works to increase the number of underrepresented minority students pursuing doctoral degrees in the arts and sciences and, in doing so, to create more diverse faculties on university campuses in the United States and South Africa. Emory has had comprehensive participation in the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program for more than 17 years. Read more about the fellowship here.

Schainker, Yates Featured Among Emory’s Robust Contingent of Fulbright Scholars

Emory University was recently named a top producer of Fulbright scholars by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Six professors and administrators were awarded Fulbright Scholar Awards in 2019-20. Those awardees include Dr. Ellie R. Schainker, Arthur Blank Family Foundation Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies. Schainker will conduct research in Israel and Lithuania for her current project, “Rites of Empire: Jewish Religious Reforms in Imperial Russia, 1850-1917.” Read our earlier story about Dr. Schainker’s project: “Schainker Wins Fulbright Global Scholarship and Fellowship at Moscow’s Jewish Museum & Tolerance Center.”

The awardees also include former academic department administrator Kelly Yates, who is now assistant director of the Halle Institute for Global Research. Yates received a Fulbright position in the U.S.-Germany International Education Administrators Program, which creates links with the societal, cultural and higher education systems of other countries.

Read about the other awardees in the last year from the Emory News Center: “Emory named a top producer of Fulbright Scholars.”

History Majors Coe and Fuller Win 2019 Elizabeth Long Atwood Undergraduate Research Awards

Annually Emory’s Woodruff Library recognizes outstanding research among undergraduates in the Emory College with the Elizabeth Long Atwood Undergraduate Research Awards. Eligible students must use the library’s collections and research resources in their original papers, digital projects, or posters and show evidence of critical analysis in their research skills.

Congratulations to two history majors who won this award for 2019. Ellie Coe (class of 2022), is a history and Russian & East European studies double major. She won for her project, “The Soldier’s Queue in the Eighteenth Century.” Hannah Fuller (class of 2020) is a history major and was recognized for her project, “Jemima Wilkinson: The Genderless Feminist of the Enlightenment.” Both Coe and Miller completed their research under the supervision of Dr. Judith A. Miller, Associate Professor of History.

Read more about the Atwood Awards, including former history students who have won the prize, here: The Elizabeth Long Atwood Undergraduate Research Award.

Honoring Kristin Mann: Contribute to Establishing the Mann Prize in African Studies

This year Dr. Kristin Mann retired from the Emory History Department after a long and accomplished career. The Laney Graduate School has launched a special initiative to honor Mann’s legacy. The Mann Prize in African Studies will be awarded to an outstanding graduate student whose work and commitment to African Studies embodies the career of Kristin Mann.
To name this award in honor of Dr. Mann, we must raise $12,500. If we are unable to reach this goal by December 31st, 2019, the funds will be allocated for general unnamed awards in African Studies. Please consider making a gift to honor the legacy of Dr. Kristin Mann and support African Studies graduate education in the Laney Graduate School at Emory.
Contribute to the establishment of the Mann Prize on the Emory Online Giving website. In addition, read more about Dr. Mann’s career on her Emeritus Faculty profile and in the text below, written by Clifton Crais, Professor of History and Director of the Institute of African Studies.

“After coming to Emory University in 1979, Professor Mann helped create the Institute of African Studies, which she directed from 1993 to 1996. The Institute is one of the country’s oldest and most dynamic centers of Africanist scholarship. Professor Mann was very active in creating the Women’s Studies Program, now the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Professor Mann was also instrumental in bringing to Emory University the African Studies Association (ASA), the world’s largest organization devoted to the study of Africa, and in creating the nationally-ranked Ph.D. program in African History. Between 2008 and 2011, Kristin chaired the Department of History. A model citizen, Professor Mann has been active throughout Emory University, including the President’s Committee on Undergraduate Education, the Faculty Council, and the University Senate. A dedicated mentor and a meticulous reader, Professor Mann has advised generations of students, at Emory and around the world. The Mann Prize honors her commitment to students, her collegial spirit, and her enduring contributions to African Studies.