Category / Faculty

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Klibanoff Named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Professor Hank Klibanoff, James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism and Associated Faculty in the History Department, is among four Emory faculty members who have recently been named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies, the Academy is also a leading center for independent policy research. Read Klibanoff’s biography below and learn about the other Emory faculty members selected here: “Four Emory professors named to American Academy of Arts and Sciences.”

“Hank Klibanoff is a veteran journalist, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Peabody Award-winning podcast host. He co-authored ‘The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation,’ which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for history. Prior to joining Emory, he was a reporter and editor for more than 35 years, holding reporting and editing positions in Mississippi, The Boston Globe and The Philadelphia Inquirer, and serving as a managing editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“Klibanoff is director of the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Emory, for which students examine Georgia’s modern civil rights history through investigation of unpunished racially motivated murders. His podcast based on the project, titled “Buried Truths,” produced by public radio station WABE, was the winner of Peabody, Robert F. Kennedy and Edward R. Murrow awards.”

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Chira Receives NEH Summer Stipend and Postdoc at Harvard

Dr. Adriana Chira, Assistant Professor of History, has been awarded two external grants to support work on her new project, “In the Plantations’ Shadow: Black Peasants and Land Claims in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Spanish Equatorial Guinea, 1850-1950.” Chira received an NEH Summer Stipend for this coming summer and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Weatherhead Initiative on Global History at Harvard University for AY 2022-23 to work on the same project. Chira’s first book, Patchwork Freedoms: Law, Slavery, and Race Beyond Cuba’s Plantations, was published by Cambridge earlier this year. Congratulations, Professor Chira!

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Phi Beta Kappa Recognizes Emory History Faculty for Excellence in Teaching

The Phi Beta Kappa Gamma Chapter of Georgia at Emory recently recognized four History Department faculty members for excellence in teaching. The faculty members are:

The faculty members were recognized at the spring initiation ceremony on April 14, 2022.

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Federal Civil Rights Cold Case Review Board Faces Time Crunch

In February of this year the U.S. Congress confirmed Professor Hank Klibanoff to the Federal Civil Rights Cold Case Review Board. The board has been charged with processing records of racially-motivated crimes from 1940-’79 that remain unsolved. A recent article from the Courthouse News Service provides an overview of the board’s work and discusses the time crunch the four-member team is under. As the 2019 law that sanctioned the establishment of the board was written, the work must be completed within four years. Klibanoff and other board members have yet to be sworn in, however, a delay that will pose serious challenges for the commission’s efforts. Klibanoff is James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism and Associated Faculty in the History Department. Read more via this article: “Newly formed board to review Civil Rights-era cold cases faces time crunch.“

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Lesser Named 2022 Eleanor Main Graduate Faculty Mentor

Congratulations to Dr. Jeffrey Lesser, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of History and Director of the Halle Institute for Global Research, on receiving the 2022 Eleanor Main Graduate Faculty Mentor Award. Named for an extraordinary Emory faculty member, mentory, and leader, the Main award has the following aims: to recognize outstanding faculty who are engaged in the Emory/LGS community and academic or professional communities related to their discipline through mentorship; to legitimize the importance of mentoring of graduate students within the larger context of graduate education; and to foster mentoring of the highest quality. Lesser’s nomination was supported by faculty in multiple programs across campus as well as PhD program alumni, who cited him as an inspiring mentor of graduate students. The award will be presented at the 2022 commencement ceremony.

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Payne Wins 2022 Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award

Congratulations to Dr. Matthew J. Payne, Associate Professor of History, on winning the 2022 Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award. This award was established by Emory Williams, a 1932 Emory College alumnus and long-time trustee, and recognizes faculty who strive for excellence in teaching, curriculum development, pedagogy, and educational innovation. The award recognizes faculty members who teach undergraduate students at Emory College of Arts and Sciences, Goizueta Business School, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, and Oxford College. Dr. Payne has excelled in fostering participation, inquiry, and creative expression in the classroom, exemplified the highest quality of teaching scholarship through teaching and mentoring students, retained a continual record of outstanding accomplishment and ongoing commitment to teaching, and made significant contributions that impact and advance Emory. Payne will be recognized at the 2022 Commencement ceremony.

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Anderson Discusses the State of American Democracy on CBS News

Dr. Carol Anderson was recently a guest on CBS News, where she discussed the state of American democracy. Anderson offers historical context about both the distant and recent roots to undemocratic practices in the U.S. Anderson is Charles Howard Candler Professor and Affiliated Faculty in the History Department. Watch the full interview here: “Concerns raised about the future of democracy in America.”

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U.S. Senate Confirms Lipstadt to Antisemitism Post

The United States Senate has confirmed Emory historian Deborah E. Lipstadt to serve as a special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism across the globe. Although Republicans in the Senate delayed Lipstadt’s confirmation for months, she received unanimous approval in the vote on March 30. Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department. Read more about the envoy position and recent confirmation here: “Historian Deborah Lipstadt confirmed as envoy to combat antisemitism after push from Jewish groups.”

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Anderson Interviewed on FAIR Podcast ‘CounterSpin’

Dr. Carol Anderson was recently interviewed on CounterSpin, the weekly radio show of the national media watch group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Anderson discusses the relationship between white supremacy and the struggle for democracy in the United States, including by drawing on her most recent book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021). Anderson is Charles Howard Candler Professor of African-American Studies and Affiliated Faculty in the History Department. Read and listen to the FAIR piece here: “Carol Anderson on History, Race and Democracy.”

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Jia-Chen Fu in ‘Atlas Obscura’: “The Secret Maoist Chinese Operation to Conquer Malaria”

Dr. Jia-Chen Fu, Associate Professor of Chinese and Affiliated Faculty in the History Department, recently published an article in Atlas Obscura. Titled “The Secret Maoist Chinese Operation to Conquer Malaria,” the piece recounts the discovery of the most powerful antimalarial drug available today by a young Chinese medical researcher named Tu Youyou in the 1960s-’70s. The breakthrough came during the Cultural Revolution in China and the Vietnam War, context within which Fu situates Youyou’s signal achievement. Read the full story here.