Category / Faculty

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.

by abritt

Greene Analyzes Crossroads Moment for Southern Baptists on ‘NPR’

Dr. Alison Collis Greene, Associate Professor in the Candler School of Theology and Associated Faculty in the History Department, recently contributed to the NPR article, “America’s Top Evangelical Group Is Deciding If They’re Further Right Than Trump.” The piece centered on the June 2021 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), at which members addressed the denomination’s official positions on a host of major and divisive issues. Read an excerpt quoting Greene below along with the full article: “America’s Top Evangelical Group Is Deciding If They’re Further Right Than Trump.”

“‘I think the denomination is at a crossroads, but Southern Baptists are often at crossroads,’ Alison Collis Greene, an associate professor of religious history at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, tells NPR. ‘None of these things happens overnight, and this one has been brewing for a while.’

“The spotlight was already on SBC leaders as they entered this week’s convention. Last week, recordings were leaked of internal meetings that critics have said shows the denomination’s top leaders were slow-walking reforms that would address sexual abuse.

“‘At this point, the SBC’s core values are deeply connected with Republican Party politics,’ Greene says. ‘I’d use the term “reactionary” rather than “conservative” to describe those, particularly with regard to race, gender, and authority.'”

by abritt

Lipstadt Publishes Essay in ‘The Jewish Quarterly’

Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and associated faculty in the History Department, recently published an essay in the relaunch issue of The Jewish Quarterly. The piece, “White insurrectionists: Anti-semitism in America,” examines the roots of far-right extremism in the United States. Read a short excerpt from the piece below, a longer excerpt at Jewish News, and the full article (subscription required) at The Jewish Quarterly.

“[The January 6 U.S. Capitol] assault shocked and surprised many people. It was unprecedented. (The Capitol had been attacked previously, but that was in 1812 by the British, not a swarm of American citizens.)

“I was not, however, surprised by either the insurrection or the antisemitism that was part of it. Rather than an ex nihilo event, it constituted a link in the growing chain of far-right extremist violence.

“During recent years, the United States – as well as much of Europe – has witnessed a decided growth in and sophistication of far-right white-power movements.

“Now that they have emerged more fully into the daylight, it is important that we recognise how the racism and antisemitism within them are inextricably linked.”

by abritt

Biden Nominates Klibanoff and Dudley to Civil Rights Cold Case Review Board

President Joe Biden has nominated two Emory experts, Hank Klibanoff and Gabrielle Dudley, to serve on the federal Civil Rights Cold Case Review Board. Klibanoff directs the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project and is the creator and host of Buried Truths, an award-winning podcast that recently finished its third season. Klibanoff is also Associated Faculty in the History Department. Dudley is an instruction archivist with Emory’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, where she works with faculty on course design and integrating resources from the Rose library into their classes. Dudley and Klibanoff have taught together twice. The five-person federal review board will, as the Emory News Center explains, “examine government records of unpunished, racially motivated murders of Black Americans during the modern civil rights era.” The Atlanta-Journal Constitution also covered the nomination in a piece titled, “Civil rights cold case board to have unique Atlanta flavor.” Read more about the nomination of Dudley and Klibanoff at the AJC and via the Emory News Center’s articles, “Two Emory experts nominated to serve on Civil Rights Cold Case Review Board” and “Acclaim: Recent honors for Emory faculty and staff.”

by abritt

Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery Joins History Department as Second Cahoon Family Professor of American History

Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery, an acclaimed historian and documentary film producer, has been named the second Cahoon Family Professor of American History in the History Department. Lowery, a member of the Lumbee tribe, examines Native culture, identity and migration through an array of scholarly and artistic forms.

She has published two books: The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle (UNC Press, 2018) and the award-winning Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation (UNC Press, 2010). She has received fellowships and grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Sundance Institute, and the Ford Foundation, among others. She has produced documentary films, including the Peabody Award-winning A Chef’s Life (5 seasons on PBS), the Emmy-nominated Private Violence, and two shorts that premiered at Sundance. Lowry was also recently elected to join the Society of American Historians and to the board of the American Council of Learned Societies.

She is currently Professor in the History Department at UNC-Chapel Hill and the director of UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South. She will join the Emory History Department this coming fall. Read more about Dr. Lowery and the Cahoon Professorships via the Emory News Center’s profile, “Malinda Maynor Lowery named second Cahoon Family Professor in Emory College.”