Category / Faculty

by abritt

Anderson Discusses the Voting Rights Act on its 56th Anniversary in ‘The Washington Post’

Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor, Chair of African American Studies, and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in a story in The Washington Post. The piece examines the state of the Votings Rights Act on its 56th anniversary through interviews with activists, lawmakers, and scholars. Read an excerpt below along with the full article: “Frustration and persistence for activists on the 56th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.”

“Carol Anderson, a professor of African American studies at Emory University and author of ‘One Person, No Vote,’ a history of voter suppression in America, said violent reactions of Southern officials to Black people protesting discriminatory voting laws shook awake a country that had been ‘lulled to sleep or seduced into believing that this was just the way it was because it was legal.’

“Although officials are not using clubs, hoses and dogs, she said Biden has abandoned Black voters to an electoral system that continues to discriminate against them.

“‘Biden is asking us to continue to be beaten for democracy. He’s continuing to ask us to be willing to stand in the 11-hour lines to vote. He’s continuing to ask us to be running around, trying to get the documents we need in order to be able to get the ID,’ Anderson said. ‘And he’s continuing to ask us to deal with the fact that 1,600 polling places have been closed since Shelby County v. Holder, the vast majority of those in minority areas.'”

by abritt

Anderson’s ‘The Second’ Continues to Garner Widespread Attention

Dr. Carol Anderson‘s new book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021), continues to garner widespread attention in the press. The work analyzes the Second Amendment in the context of the citizenship rights and human rights of African Americans. We previously cataloged some of the press coverage of The Second in this story: “Anderson Publishes ‘The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.’” Read more of the extensive and continuing coverage in the following:

by abritt

Rucker, Anderson, and Goldmon Help to Organize ‘In the Wake of Slavery and Dispossession’ Symposium

This fall Emory University will host a symposium titled, “In the Wake of Slavery and Dispossession: Emory, Racism and the Journey Toward Restorative Justice.” Dr. Walter C. Rucker, Professor of African American Studies and History, Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor and Associated Faculty in History, and History doctoral student Camille Goldmon have served on the symposium’s steering committee. The Emory News Center recently published a feature story on the Sept. 21-Oct. 1 event, which will be free to the public. Read an excerpt from their story quoting Dr. Rucker below along with the full article: “Fall symposium connects activism to Emory’s history of slavery and land dispossession.”

“‘The past is a part of our living present,’ says Walter Rucker, an African American studies and history professor and steering committee member. ‘Slavery, dispossession and Jim Crow created a continuum for the racial logics we live with today. To talk about slavery and how it devalued Black lives helps us address why a police officer could kneel on a man’s neck for nine minutes. The same, or similar, logics that spawned racism energize patriarchy, homophobia and transphobia as well. Every person has a role in chipping away at these constructs in order to create a more just future.'”

by abritt

‘AJC’ Cites Miller in Article on COVID-19 and Fake News

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently quoted Dr. Judith Miller, Associate Professor of history, in an article on misinformation relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. The piece, “COVID vaccine efforts in immigrant communities include debunking rumors,” focuses on the prevalence and consequence of the spread of COVID-related fake news among immigrant communities in Atlanta and beyond. In 2019 Miller taught a first-year seminar on fake news, which was profiled by the Emory News Center in the article, “‘Fake News’ class helps students learn to research and identify false information.” Read an excerpt of the recent AJC piece below along with the full article.

“Judith Miller, a professor of history at Emory University, says getting ahead of the misinformation, or ‘pre-bunking’ information, is the key because once lies begin to spread online, it’s often too late to change the minds of those who’ve been convinced.

“‘Even if someone is clinging to fake news and has a friend or family member who is trying to persuade them that something they believe is false,’ Miller said, ‘often that just makes that boundary harder and the person who lives the fake news retreats even farther.'”

by abritt

Price Analyzes Tensions Between State and Federal Govts Over Anti-Mask Decrees

Dr. Polly J. Price, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law, Professor of Global Health, and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in a PolitiFact article. The piece, “Could Joe Biden challenge Florida, Texas on mask policies? Probably not,” discusses whether the federal government has the authority to combat state laws passed in some Republican-led states to prohibit mask usage in schools. Price is, most recently, the author of Plagues in the Nation: How Epidemics Shaped America (Beacon Press, forthcoming). Read an excerpt from the PolitiFact piece quoting Price below along with the full article.

“‘Traditionally, these restrictions on federal power have led states and localities to take the lead on ‘public health measures like quarantine and isolation, school closings, banning smoking in restaurants, and more,’ said Polly J. Price, a professor of law and global health at Emory University.”

by abritt

Dudziak Compares Afghanistan and Vietnam in ‘The New York Times’

Dr. Mary L. Dudziak, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in an article in The New York Times. The piece, “Afghanistan, Vietnam and the Limits of American Power,” collects analysis from historians about the parallels and differences between the U.S. wars in, and departures from, Vietnam and Afghanistan. Dudziak is the author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences (Oxford University Press, 2012). Her latest work, “Going to War: An American History,” is under contract with Oxford UP. Read an excerpt from The New York Times piece quoting Dudziak below, along with the full article.

“Mary L. Dudziak, a law professor at Emory University and the author of “War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences,” agreed that any attempt at reckoning would be short-lived, and that in the long term America could become even less constrained in its assertion of power.

“‘I expect that one similarity,’ she said, ‘will be a failure to grapple with the way U.S. political culture undermines a more robust politics of military restraint, and this hampers powerful political opposition within Congress, which might put a brake on the entry into and persistence of war.’

“What might have been a sustained, nuanced conversation about limiting the president’s war powers, she added, has been short-circuited by the frenzy to decide ‘who lost Afghanistan.’

“‘In our toxic political environment,’ Professor Dudziak said, ‘Republicans are likely to use this moment to undermine President Biden, and partisanship may foreclose the deeper re-examination of American war politics that is sorely needed now, and was also after the war in Vietnam.'”

by abritt

Allitt Recommends Best Works on U.S. Environmental History

Dr. Patrick N. Allitt, Cahoon Family Professor of American History, recently authored an annotated list of five essential works on U.S. environmental history for the website Shepherd. Allitt’s most recent book is A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (Penguin, 2014), an intellectual history of American environmentalism since World War II. Find the list of recommendations here: “The best books to understand American environmental history.”

by abritt

Biden Nominates Lipstadt as Special Envoy on Antisemitism

President Joe Biden has nominated Emory historian Deborah E. Lipstadt as special envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism in the U.S. and abroad. Lipstadt will hold the rank of ambassador if confirmed to the position by the U.S. Senate. She has previously served on the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Religious Persecution Abroad. Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and associated faculty in the History Department.

Read an excerpt from The Hill’s coverage of Lipstadt’s nomination below, along with the full article: “Biden nominates Holocaust historian as special envoy to combat antisemitism.” Also read other coverage of her nomination in the following stories:

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. and United Nations Gilad Erdan welcomed Lipstadt’s nomination on Friday.

“As an accomplished author and historian, Dr. Lipstadt has dedicated her life to fighting antisemitism and preserving the memory of the Holocaust,” Erdan said in a statement. “Antisemitism is the oldest and most widespread form of hatred and the recent wave of antisemitic attacks against Jews around the world and in the U.S. serves as a reminder that no place is safe from antisemitic hatred.”

by abritt

Anderson Featured at Decatur Book Fest

Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor, Chair of African American Studies, and Associated Faculty in the History Department, will appear at the Decatur Book Fest in October. Anderson will present on her most recent book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021). This year’s Decatur Book Fest, which is presented by Emory, will include a scaled-back, single day of in-person events along with an accompanying live stream. Read more about the upcoming event via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, “Carol Anderson, Robert Olen Butler featured at Decatur book fest,” along with the Emory News Center’s recent piece, “Decatur Book Festival becomes one-day October event, features Emory authors.”

by abritt

Anderson Interviewed on Supreme Court Challenge to NY Gun Restrictions in ‘Slate’

Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies Dr. Carol Anderson was recently interviewed by Slate journalist Mark Joseph Stern. Their conversation centers on an upcoming Supreme Court case challenging the state of New York’s restrictive concealed carry laws, which have drawn criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Drawing on her most recent book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021), Anderson discusses the intersection of racism and gun control, past and present. Read an excerpt below along with the full piece: “Does the Progressive Case Against New York’s Concealed Carry Ban Hold Water?”

The amicus brief really speaks to the conundrum of anti-Blackness in American society. When Black people are defined as the default threat in American society—when you have this architecture of laws and of policing that comes into being to control that Black population—it means that Black people are vulnerable when they are armed, and vulnerable when they’re unarmed.