Category / Faculty

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Lesser and Anderson Among Faculty Panelists at Upcoming Event, “The Insurrection at the Capitol: Where Do We Go from Here?”

Dr. Jeffrey Lesser (Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor and Director of the Halle Institute),  Dr. Carol Anderson (Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, AAS Chair, and Associated Faculty), and Dr. Jeffrey Staton (Professor and Chair, Political Science) will speak on a panel at an upcoming Zoom event titled “The Insurrection at the Capitol: Where Do We Go from Here?” Sponsored by Emory College and Bridge Emory, the event aims to create dialogue among students and faculty relating to the events at the U.S. Capitol in January. Following presentations by the panelists, students will be invited to join a dozen additional Emory faculty members in conversation in breakout rooms. Dr. Gyan Pandey (Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor) and Dr. Carl Suddler (Assistant Professor) are among the faculty who will facilitate breakout conversations. The event will take place on Thursday, February 4, from 7:30-9pm. You may register here: http://bit.ly/postinsurrection-event.

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Anderson, Goldmon, and Pugh Among Recipients of Mellon Foundation Grant on Reparations Solutions

Emory University is one of the recipients of a $5 million grant awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the University of Michigan’s Center for Social Solutions and other institutions as part of the Foundation’s Just Futures initiative. The project creates and leverages a national network of scholars working in partnership with community-based organizations to develop racial reparation solutions. Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, AAS department chair, and associated faculty in the history department, will lead a team of scholars that also includes Vanessa Siddle Walker, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of African American Studies, and AAS assistant professors Dr. Janeria Easley and Dr. Jessica Lynn Stewart.

History doctoral students Camille Goldmon and Aleo Pugh will support the team’s work. Goldmon’s dissertation, advised by Dr. Allen E. Tullos and Anderson, is titled “Land Retention Amongst African-American Farmers in the U.S. South.” Pugh’s dissertation, advised by Dr. Walter Rucker, Dr. Jason Ward, and Anderson, is titled “‘Leery of Being Consumed’: Working-Class Black Dissent and the Legacy of Brown.” Read more about the grant below.

The grant’s project, “Crafting Democratic Futures: Situating Colleges and Universities in Community-based Reparations Solutions” will involve community fellows as well as local organizations in a collaborative public history reckoning designed to offer tangible suggestions for community-based racial reparations solutions. The project emerges from the Center for Social Solutions’ focus on slavery and its aftermath, and is informed by three generations of humanistic scholarship and what that scholarship suggests for all seeking just futures. The Center is led by former Emory Provost Earl Lewis.

-“Recent Mellon Foundation Grants Awarded to AAS Faculty,” AAS Newsletter.
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Lipstadt Dissects Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories, Past and Present, for ‘Vox’

Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt recently analyzed the links between anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories in an article for Vox. Titled “Marjorie Taylor Greene’s space laser and the age-old problem of blaming the Jews,” the piece dissects support from U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and other GOP officials for conspiracy theories animated by anti-Semitism. Lipstadt, an expert on the Holocaust, Holocaust denialism, and anti-Semitism, is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and associated faculty in the history department. Read an excerpt from the Vox article below along with the full piece.

“To understand why anti-Semitic rhetoric is so common among modern conspiracy theorists, we need to go back over 2,000 years. Deborah Lipstadt, an Emory University historian and leading expert on anti-Semitism, traces the structure of anti-Semitic ideas back to the very origins of Christianity — specifically, the New Testament description of Jesus’s death.

“The early Church taught that ‘the Jews’ conspired to kill Jesus — even though Jesus and his apostles were all Jewish and the Romans who actually executed him in the story were not. This, according to Lipstadt, was in part a strategic choice: Christianity had become a competing religion to Judaism, and its leadership wanted to marginalize the older, more deeply rooted tradition. What better way to do that than to blame Jews for killing the literal savior, casting remaining Jews as Christ-denying heirs to a dark conspiracy?

“‘Jews, [early Christians] argued, repudiated this new faith because of their inherent maliciousness,’ Lipstadt writes. ‘This formulation rendered Judaism more than just a competing religion. It became a source of evil.‘”

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Price Evaluates Biden Administration’s COVID Plan for ‘Octavian Report’

Dr. Polly J. Price, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law, Professor of Global Health, and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently a featured guest on Rostrum, the podcast of Octavian Report. Price evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the Biden administration’s ambitious plan to address the pandemic and discusses whether she thinks the approach will prove successful. Price’s book Plagues in the Nation (forthcoming from Beacon Press), a narrative history of the United States through major outbreaks. Listen to the full conversation on Rostrum: “Will the Biden COVID Plan Work?”

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Suddler Discusses MLK’s “America’s Chief Moral Dilemma” Speech with Faculty from Across Campus

Dr. Carl Suddler, Assistant Professor of History, was one of four Emory faculty members to contribute to a conversation about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1967 speech, “America’s Chief Moral Dilemma.” Organized by Emory’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, the event included a reading of the speech by January LaVoy, Assistant Professor of Theater Studies, and a conversation with Suddler, Dr. Valerie Babb (Andrew Mellon Professor of Humanities in African American Studies and English), and Dr. Dianne Stewart (Associate Professor of Religion and African American Studies).

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Rogers and Manuel in ‘The Hill’: “Biden’s carbon farming policy must heed recent lessons”

Thomas D. Rogers and collaborator Jeffrey Manuel (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) published an opinion piece in The Hill as a part of its “Changing America” series. The piece shares lessons from the Renewable Fuels Standard that are relevant to the new Biden administration’s plans to reduce carbon with agriculture. Rogers and Manuel are writing a transnational history of ethanol in Brazil and the United States. Rogers is Associate Professor of Modern Latin American History and Arthur Blank/NEH Chair in the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences (2018-2021). Read an excerpt from The Hill article below along with the full piece: “Biden’s carbon farming policy must heed recent lessons.”

Third, and perhaps most importantly, the history of the RFS offers a stark reminder that there are no silver bullet solutions in agriculture. When high oil prices and political instability threatened the U.S. economy in the early 2000s, many policymakers saw ethanol as a panacea. As comedian Stephen Colbert joked at the time, “we solved the energy crisis. The answer was ethanol. Corn plus magic equals gasoline.” Fifteen years later, we understand that ethanol was hardly a cure-all for energy shortages or the environment. It has solved some problems — namely what to do with all the corn grown in the United States — but it has created new ones, including more and more nitrate-laced water in the Corn Belt and depleted topsoil. So it will be for carbon farming. Changing agricultural practices to sequester more carbon is undoubtedly a good idea. But it is just one of many changes needed to make agriculture more sustainable in the 21st century. Once carbon sequestration dollars begin flowing to farmers, it will be crucial to remember that it is just one solution among many needed to tackle our climate crisis.

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Price Addresses State Legislatures’ Efforts to Curb Gubernatorial Emergency Powers

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 an article on Stateline, a daily publication of the Pew Charitable Trust that analyzes trends in state policy. The article, “Lawmakers Move to Strip Governors’ Emergency Powers,” addresses efforts in Kentucky and other states to limit emergency powers granted to the state executive branch that governors argue are necessary to combat crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Price is a public health law scholar as well as a legal historian and citizenship and immigration law expert. Read an excerpt from the article below along with the full piece.

“Polly Price, a law professor and global health professor at Emory University, said statutes could spell out when the governor should seek approval from the legislature or when public health officials can take over the pandemic response effort.

“But partisan tensions and backlash over COVID-19 public health orders may stop such ideas from gaining traction, at least right now, Price said. ‘Legislating in the midst of an emergency can be a very bad idea … you’re not looking long-term,’ she said.“

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Undergraduate Honors Student Ryan Kelly Presents at International Conference

Ryan Kelly, a undergraduate honors student and history major, recently presented a paper at the virtual conference “In Sickness and in Health: Pestilence, Disease, and Healing in Medieval and Early Modern Art” along with Dr. Sharon T. Strocchia, Professor of History. Their talk was titled “Picturing the Pox in Italian Popular Prints, 1550-1650.” The event ran from January 12-13, 2021, and was hosted by the University of Haifa in Israel.

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Suddler Inaugurates 2021 Pellom McDaniels Sports History Lecture Series: “Bigger than Sports”

Assistant Professor of History Dr. Carl Suddler will host the first event in the inaugural 2021 Pellom McDaniels Sports History Lecture Series, “Bigger than Sports.” The event will include a conversation with Howard Bryant, an award-winning ESPN senior writer and author of nine books, including Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field, and William C. Rhoden, an award-winning New York Times columnist, author of Forty-Million Dollar Slaves, and writer-at-large for The Undefeated. The event will take place via Zoom on February 4, 2021 at 4:30pm EST. Register here.

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Crespino Offers Historical Context on Presidential Transitions for ‘Political Rewind’

Dr. Joseph Crespino, Jimmy Carter Professor of History and Department Chair, was a featured guest on Georgia Public Broadcasting’s show “Political Rewind” on the eve of the presidential inauguration of Joseph R. Biden. Hosted by Bill Nigut, the episode examined past presidential transitions amidst grave uncertainties and national crisis. Crespino was a guest alongside Dr. Michelle Brattain (Professor of History, Georgia State University), Tamar Hallerman (Senior Reporter, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), and Dr. Fredrick Knight (Professor of History, Morehouse College). Listen to the conversation here: “On Eve Of Tense Inauguration, A Look Back At Other Tumultuous Transitions.”.