Category / Faculty

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Price Discusses Covid Vaccine’s Implications for Children and K-12 Education

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 the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article “As COVID vaccines roll out, where do kids fit in?” The piece discusses the implications of the coronavirus vaccine for children and adolescents, including the prospect of requiring vaccinations to return to school. Read an excerpt below along with the full article.

“It is unlikely anyone will be forcing their compliance anytime soon. Mandating immunization for students appears to be a political non-starter.

“Policy experts say it is too early to contemplate that anyway, given unanswered questions about the safety and efficacy — and availability — of child vaccines. Current mandates, for measles, for instance, cover vaccines that have a long history of both safety and long-term protection for the vaccinated. COVID-19 vaccination, meanwhile, is authorized only for emergency use, noted Polly J. Price, a professor of public health law at Emory University.

“‘I can’t see schools, even high schools, moving right away to any kind of mandate,’ Price said.”

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Lipstadt Co-Authors Op-Ed in ‘The Washington Post’

Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and associated faculty in the History Department, recently published an opinion piece in The Washington Post with co-author Norman Eisen (Brookings). Titled “Denying the Holocaust threatens democracy. So does denying the election results,” the article compares Holocaust denial to the anti-democratic rejection of the results of the 2020 U.S. election, most prominently by Donald J. Trump. Read an excerpt from the piece below along with the full article.

“And there are lessons that can be learned from the active campaign to combat Holocaust denial.

“The first is that we must attack Trump’s big lie before it takes further hold. For years, some — ourselves included — viewed Holocaust denial as a fringe phenomenon and chose not to refute it. Then we found it creeping more and more into mainstream discourse, where we were forced to tackle it after it had spread. It’s too late by that point, though.

“We cannot make that mistake here. We must refute the falsehoods that the president is purveying, which tens of millions of Americans believe, according to opinion polls. And we need to do it now, before it takes further hold, instead of just dismissing the problem. These lies won’t change the outcome of the election. But they don’t just undermine the legitimacy of the new administration — they serve as an illiberal rallying cry in future election cycles and erode the faith that undergirds our democracy.“

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‘Emory Report’ Highlights Recent Honors Won by Eckert and Strocchia

The Emory News Center recently featured honors won by two History Department faculty members. The article highlights Associate Professor Astrid M. Eckert‘s West Germany and the Iron Curtain: Economy, Culture & Environment in the Borderlands (Oxford UP, 2019), which has won awards from the Central European History Society, the German Studies Association, and the European History Section of the Southern Historical Association. In addition, the Emory Report highlights Professor Sharon Strocchia‘s Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy, which was awarded the Marraro Prize by the Society for Italian Historical Studies. Read about other faculty and staff awards from across the Emory campus: “Acclaim: Recent honors for Emory faculty and staff.”

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Emory News Center Features ‘Slave Voyages’ Digital Memorial

The Emory News Center recently featured the Slave Voyages project among initiatives at Emory making an impact. The article discusses the expansion and updating of the digital memorial over the last few years, including through a $300,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation in 2018. Initiated by Dr. David Eltis, Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus, Emory faculty and alumni – including Alex Borucki (PhD, 2011), Daniel Domingues da Silva (PhD, 2011), Jane Hooper (PhD, 2010), Nafees Khan (PhD, 2013), and Allen Tullos (Professor and Co-Director of Emory Center for Digital Scholarship) – continue to constitute the core of the Voyages team. Read the full article here: “Documenting Slave Voyages.”

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Lesser Research Collective Publishes Article in ‘Health Education & Behavior’

Dr. Jeffrey Lesser, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor and Director of the Halle Institute for Global Learning, has published an article in the journal Health Education & Behavior with other members of the Lesser Research Collective, including Emory’s Emily S. Pingel, MPH (Sociology) and Alexandra Llovet. Read the abstract below along with the full article: “Committing to Continuity: Primary Care Practices During COVID-19 in an Urban Brazilian Neighborhood.”

“Decreased engagement in preventive services, including vaccination, during the COVID-19 pandemic represents a grave threat to global health. We use the case of the Bom Retiro Public Health Clinic in São Paulo, Brazil, to underscore how continuity of care is not only feasible, but a crucial part of health as a human right. The long-standing relationship between the clinic and neighborhood residents has facilitated ongoing management of physical and mental health conditions. Furthermore, we demonstrate how the clinic’s history of confronting infectious diseases has equipped it to adapt preventive services to meet patients’ needs during the pandemic. Our academic–community partnership used a multidisciplinary approach, relying on analysis of historical data, ethnographic data, and direct clinical experience. We identify specific prevention strategies alongside areas for improvement. We conclude that the clinic serves as a model for continuity of care in urban settings during a pandemic.“

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Candido and Jones to Discuss ‘African Women in the Atlantic World’ via #Slaveryarchive Book Club

Join the #Slaveryarchive Book Club on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, 5pm EST for a conversation with Dr. Mariana P. Candido, Associate Professor of History, and Adam Jones (University of Leipzig) about their book African Women in the Atlantic World: Property, Vulnerability & Mobility, 1660-1880 (Cambridge UP, 2019). Register at: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMof-moqDorEtPFVs8cN9LnBF2u6J2z2GQm.

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Eckert’s ‘West Germany and the Iron Curtain’ Wins Hans Rosenberg Book Prize

Congratulations to Dr. Astrid M. Eckert, whose book West Germany and the Iron Curtain: Environment, Economy, and Culture in the Borderlands (Oxford, 2019) has won the 2019 Hans Rosenberg Book Prize of the Central European History Society. The prize is awarded to the best book in the field published by a North American resident in 2019. The committee’s appreciation for the book begins with the following praise: “Like a landscape, this book opens the eye and expands the horizon with every chapter, offering new vantage points, unexpected turns, and hidden depths.” The Rosenberg Prize is the third awarded to Eckert’s West Germany and the Iron Curtain, following the 2020 DAAD/GSA Book Prize and the 2020 Smith Award by the European History Section of the Southern Historical Association.

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Dr. Walter C. Rucker, “The Long Hauler,” Featured in Emory News Centers’ Stories of Resolve and Resilience

Dr. Walter C. Rucker, Professor of History, was recently featured in the Emory News Center’s series on stories of resilience and resolve in the face of COVID-19. Rucker describes his experience contracting COVID-19 last year and the lingering effects of the illness. He also discusses how he and his students, some of whose families have also been hit by the illness, have continued to forge a learning community. Watch the interview below and read similar stories from around Emory’s campus: “Our Stories of Resolve and Resilience.”

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LaChance Interviewed by ‘Le Devoir’ on Trump’s Embrace of Death Penalty

Dr. Daniel LaChance, Associate Professor and Winship Distinguished Research Professor in History, 2020-23, gave an interview to the Quebec newspaper Le Devoir on the Trump administration’s last-minute push to carry out executions in its final months. LaChance is a legal scholar working at the intersection of American legal and cultural history, criminology, and literary studies. His first book is Executing Freedom: The Cultural Life of Capital Punishment in the United States (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Read an excerpt below along with the full article.

“The Trump administration enthusiastically embraced the death penalty, summarizes Historian Daniel LaChance, who teaches at Emory University Atlanta, Georgia, in an interview with Le Devoir. ‘In this respect, you can even say that Donald Trump is the deadliest president since the nineteenth century. His provocative support for the death penalty was a key part of his Make America Great Again platform.’ And obviously, he intends to take his project to the end.”

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Price Quoted in ‘The Atlantic’ Article on Quarantine Practices and Pressures

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 in The Atlantic titled “The Real Reason Americans Aren’t Quarantining.” The piece examines how many residents of the U.S. are not able to quarantine in the midst of COVID-19 because of economic and labor pressures. Read an excerpt from the piece below along with the full article.

Conflicts over remote work and leave are the most common type of COVID-19 employment litigation in the U.S., according to a database compiled by the law firm Fisher Phillips. “We don’t really pay people to stay at home to quarantine,” Polly Price, a global-health professor at Emory University, says. But that’s exactly the problem: In a study in Israel, people were more likely to quarantine after exposure to COVID-19 if they were paid during their isolation.