Category / Graduate Students

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Graduate Student Alejandro Guardado Wins AHA Beveridge Grant


Doctoral student Alejandro Guardado won the Albert J. Beveridge grant from the American Historical Association for his research project, “Reimagining Community: Indigenous Organizing in Mexico’s Neoliberal Turn, 1968–2000.” Guardado’s dissertation centers on Self Determination Movements in Zapotec and Mixe communities in the Sierra Norte of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. He analyzes how Indigenous intellectuals and activists developed networks with micro-regional political coalitions, anthropologists, liberation theologians, and NGOs as a means of renegotiating their relationship to the Mexican government and market forces.

The Beveridge grants support research in the history of the Western Hemisphere, and Guardado was among just 15 graduate students nationwide selected for the prize. Dr. Yanna Yannakis, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of History and Department Chair, serves as Guardado’s dissertation advisor.

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Graduate Student Becca Aponte Publishes Article in ‘Slavery & Abolition’


Second year graduate student Becca Aponte recently published an article in Slavery & Abolition, the premier journal for slavery and emancipation studies. Aponte was a co-author of the article, entitled “Runaway Enslaved Families in Senegal: Mothers, Children, Resistance, and Vulnerabilities, 1857–1903.”

The article was produced as part of the Senegal Liberations Project (of which Aponte is a team member), a digital humanities collaborative formerly funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. This project analyzes the liberation records of 28,930 enslaved Africans who sought freedom between 1857 and 1903. 

Aponte’s research interests center on emancipation, labor, and law in the French empire. Her work investigates how women wove, and were woven into, the financial and familial networks of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Senegal. Drs. Mariana P. Candido, Adriana Chira, and Clifton Crais serve as her advisers.

by emoryhistorydept

Welcoming New Graduate Students

The Emory History Department is excited to welcome five new doctoral students to the department in the fall 2025 semester, along with one graduate exchange student from the University of Augsburg, Germany. Read abridged profiles of the new graduate cohort below and follow the links to read their full biographies on the History Department website.

Savanna Courtney-Durrett received her B.A. and M.A. from the University of North Florida. Her research examines African American women’s entrepreneurship and activism in the funeral business during the early twentieth century. Her graduate work will be advised by Drs. Crystal Sanders, Jason Morgan Ward, and Kali Gross

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Maren Fauth is an exchange student from the University of Augsburg, Germany. She received her B.A. in English and American Studies with a minor in Philosophy in 2024 and is currently pursuing a M.A. in North American Studies. Her research interests include women’s history, African American history, and the history of social protest movements. Fauth’s work will be advised by Drs. Astrid M. Eckert and Laura Nenzi.

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Ziying Lin received her B.A. from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities and M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. Lin studies social history, environmental history, and gender studies, with a particular research interest in the material culture of dowries in Edo Japan. Drs. Laura Nenzi and Julia Bullock will advise her work.

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Mary Elizabeth Marquardt received her A.B. from Princeton University in history and African American studies and her M.A.R. from Yale University. She studies religion, race, and legal history in the U.S. South, with a focus on 20th century interactions between churches and the state. Drs. Joseph Crespino, Mary Dudziak, and Alison Collis Greene will advise Marquardt’s work.

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Yerbol Munai earned a bachelor’s degree in Kazakh Language and Literature and a master’s degree in Turkology from Minzu University of China. He specializes in the modern history of Central Asia, with a focus on the Kazakh and other Central Asian Turkic communities in the early 20th century. Drs. Matthew J. Payne and Hwisang Cho will advise Munai’s work.

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Jayden Trawick-Junta is a native of Portland, OR, and earned his B.A. from Berea College in History and African & African American Studies. He studies race, culture, and sports in the U.S. during the twentieth century, focusing on how Negro League baseball teams interacted with Black communities in their cities. Drs. Carl Suddler and Jason Morgan Ward will advise his work.

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Graduate Student Emilie Cunning Receives LBJ Library Moody Research Grant


History graduate student Emilie Cunning has received a Moody Research Grant from the LBJ Presidential Library. She will head to Austin this fall to conduct archival research on transnational protest cultures in the US and UK in the 1960s-1970s. Her dissertation project is tentatively titled “Transnational Protest Cultures: The Anti-War and Black Power Movements in Britain and the United States, 1960-1974.”

Cunning has developed her dissertation project through varied activities over the last year. In the spring semester, she taught a course related to her research titled “US & the Cold War.” In March, she presented her work at the Boston University American Political History Graduate Conference. The paper focused on transnational anti-war networks during the Vietnam era, specifically on the role of “American Exiles” in Britain who formed a persistent source of opposition to the American war in Vietnam while working with British anti-war groups such as the BCPV and CND.

Earlier this summer, Cunning attended BOCA LONGA at University College London. BOCA LONGA is an annual spring workshop that brings together U.S. historians (both faculty and graduate students) from Boston University, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, University College London, and Emory. She attended along with History Department graduate student Jessica Locklear, Emory College Senior Associate Dean Joseph Crespino, and Profs. Jason Ward, Daniel LaChance and Carl Suddler.


Cunning will defend her dissertation prospectus this August.

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Doctoral Candidate Olivia Cocking Wins Dissertation Fellowships


Doctoral candidate Olivia Cocking has won two fellowships to support her dissertation, titled “France After Empire: Migration, Citizenship, and Social Rights, 1946 – Present.” The European Union Studies Association awarded Cocking its Ernst Haas Dissertation Fellowship, and Emory’s Laney Graduate School awarded her the Emory University Women’s Club Memorial Fellowship. Cocking is completing research and dissertation write up in Paris. She has presented papers at the Society for the Study of French History conference in Manchester, UK, and the Groupe de recherche sur les orders coloniaux colloquium, in Nantes, France.

Cocking has also received honorable mention for the Edward T. Gargan Prize from the Western Society for French History for her paper “‘Je ne comprends pas pourquoi j’ai perdu tous mes droits’: Migration and Welfare in France After Empire.” She presented the paper at the society’s conference in San Francisco in November 2024.

Profs. Tehila Sasson, Judith Miller (co-directors), and Mariana Candido serve on her dissertation committee. 

by emoryhistorydept

History Department Well Represented in Fox Center’s 2025-26 Fellows Cohort


History Department faculty and students are well represented in the recently-announced 2025-26 cohort of fellows at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry. Faculty and graduate fellows will conduct research intersecting with this year’s theme, Life/Story, which draws “inspiration from the many ways humanities fields and disciplines often approach a single life as the entry point for examining broad political, socio-cultural, and historical phenomena.”

Four undergraduate History students will hold Undergraduate Humanities Honors fellowships. These Fellowships support undergraduates as they complete their honors theses, introduce them to the life of the Humanities, and provide a venue for interdisciplinary interchange, mentorship, and conference-style presentation.

View short profiles of the faculty and student fellows below and follow the links to more extended biographies.

Hwisang Cho (Associated Faculty in History) specializes in the cultural, intellectual, and literary history of Korea, comparative textual media, and global written culture. His major work-in-progress is  “Irresistible Fabulation: Moral Imagination and Storytelling in Korean Confucian Tradition.”

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Alejandro Guardado is a 6th year PhD Candidate in the Department of History. His dissertation, “Reimagining Community: Indigenous Organizing in Mexico’s Neoliberal Turn (1968-2000),” examines how Indigenous activists developed political networks to bolster self-determination movements in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

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Leo Raykher is a senior majoring in History. His thesis, titled “Economics, Espionage, and Exile: the Surveilled life of David Drucker, esq.,” examines the life of his great, great uncle David Drucker.

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Thora Jordt is a History and Art History major from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Her project examines the artist Alexandra Exter’s contributions as a costume and set designer for theatre and film between 1915 and 1925, with a focus on the 1924 film Aelita: Queen of Mars.

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Daniel Bell is a rising senior from Chicago, Illinois, double-majoring in Economics and History. His thesis project is centered around Herbert Jenkins, Atlanta’s influential twentieth-century police chief.

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Eunjae Thompson is a senior studying Philosophy and Religion with a minor in History. Their honors thesis, titled “Beyond Capture: Blackened Piety & the Politics of Refusal,” will interrogate how the life-writing genre not only illuminates but draws the boundaries of the human condition.

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Ursula Rall Awarded Fellowship at the McNeil Center at the University of Pennsylvania


Doctoral student Ursula Rall has won a fellowship for at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is working on her dissertation, entitled “Forging Inter-Urban Communities: Spatial Mobilities and Social Networks of Women of African Descent in New Spain, 1580-1740.” Drawing on research in Spain and Mexico, the project explores how the social networks that Black women formed across urban centers were key to the socioeconomic mobility of the Black Mexican population during the seventeenth century. She argues that Afro-descended women had a sense of a shared racialized and gendered community, forming close ties and financial networks that improved their social and material lives.

Rall’s research has been supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Research Abroad Grant, the American Historical Association, the Forum on Early-Modern Empires and Global Interactions, the Conference on Latin American History, and Emory University’s Halle Institute for Global Research. Dr. Yanna Yannakakis, Professor and Department Chair, is Rall’s faculty advisor.

by emoryhistorydept

Jessica Alvarez Starr to Intern with Puerto Rico Archival Collaboration

Jessica Alvarez Starr, a first-year PhD student, will be serving as an intern with the Puerto Rico Archival Collaboration (PRAC) Summer 2025 Graduate Student Internship Program. As part of this 8-week program, Jessica will gain valuable exposure to collections in the Archivo General de Puerto Rico (AGPR) and the University of Puerto Rico’s Colección Puertorriqueña (CPR). Jessica will work alongside archivists to aid in organizing, transcribing, and digitizing efforts for the AGPR while developing their own research project on enslavement and emancipation practices in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. As an intern, Jessica will receive a stipend to cover travel and living costs for their work in San Juan. They are grateful for the opportunity to conduct archival research, gain preservation skills, and develop connections with scholars to advance their studies. Read more information about the PRAC internship. Their dissertation, tentatively titled “Revolutionary Rhetoric: Antislavery and Anticolonial Alliances in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico,” is advised by Drs. Adriana Chira and Yanna Yannakakis.



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Graduate Student Gerardo Manrique de Lara Ruiz Receives IAS Prize


Congratulations to third-year History graduate student Gerardo Manrique de Lara Ruiz on receiving the 2025 Graduate Student Prize from the Institute of African Studies (IAS) at Emory. This prize is presented biennially to a graduate student who has made significant contributions to the IAS, including consistent and meaningful participation in the IAS seminar and a notable impact on the academic life of the Institute. Manrique de Lara Ruiz’s research interests include colonial rule, deliberative politics, sovereignty, and customary law in 20th-century Southern Africa (Botswana and Lesotho). Drs. Clifton Crais and Mariana P. Candido serve as Manrique de Lara Ruiz’s advisors.

by emoryhistorydept

History Department Offers Rich Slate of Courses for Spring 2025 Semester

Faculty and graduate students in the Emory History Department will teach a rich slate of undergraduate courses in the spring 2025 semester. These include offerings at the 200 and 300 levels, as well as many compelling interdisciplinary courses cross-listed with departments across campus. Browse the offerings below.

200-Level Courses

  • HIST 215/AMST 285-1: History of the American West, Patrick Allitt, TTh 11:30am-12:45pm
  • HIST 221/AFS 221-1: The Making of Modern Africa, Clifton C. Crais, TTh 10am-11:15am
  • HIST 228/AMST 228/ EAS 228 1: Asian American History, Chris Suh, MW 2:30pm-3:45pm
  • HIST 239/AAS 239: History of African Americans Since 1865, Kali Gross, MW 10am-11:15am
  • HIST 247: Napoleon’s Europe, Brian Vick, MW 5:30pm-6:45pm
  • HIST 254/MESAS 254: From Pearls to Petroleum, Roxani Margariti, MW 10am-11:15am
  • HIST 265/MESAS 235: Making of Modern South Asia, Hugo Hansen, MW 4pm-5:15pm
  • HIST 267W/AAS 267W: The Civil Rights Movement, Carol Anderson and Lizette London, MW 4pm-5:15pm
  • HIST 270/JS 270/MESAS 275: Survey of Jewish History, Tamar Menashe, TTh 2:30pm-3:45pm
  • HIST 279W/CHN 279W: Post-Mao? China After 1976, Sarah M. Rodriguez, MW 1pm-2:15pm
  • HIST 285/AMST 285-2: The US and the Cold War, Emilie Cunning, MW 11:30am-12:45pm
  • HIST 285-2/AFS 270-2: Colonial Legacies in Africa, Gerardo Manrique de Lara Ruiz, MW 5:30pm-6:45pm
  • HIST 285-3/AFS 270-3: African Nationalism in the 20th Cent., Rene Odanga, 2:30pm-3:45pm
  • HIST 296-1/ JS 271: Jews & Race in U.S. History, Eric L. Goldstein, MW 10am-11:15am
  • HIST 296-2/REL 270-4/JS 271-2: Holocaust Memory in Europe, Israel, & the US, Alicja Podbielska, TTh 11:30am-12:45pm
  • HIST 200W/MESAS 200W: Middle East: Empires to Nations, Courtney Freer, TTh 11:30am-12:45pm
  • HIST 206W/MESAS 202W: South Asia: Empires to Nations, Ruby Lal, MW 2:30pm-3:45pm
  • HIST 214/AMST 285-3: The American Death Penalty, Daniel LaChance, MW 4pm-5:15pm

300-Level Courses

  • HIST 332/MESAS 332: Gandhi: Non-Violence & Freedom, Scott A Kugle, MW 2:30pm-3:45pm
  • HIST 336/AMST 336/LACS 336: Migrants & Borders in the US, Iliana Rodriguez, TTh 10am-11:15am
  • HIST 338/JS 338: Jews of Eastern Europe, Ellie Schainker, TTh 10am-11:15am
  • HIST 342/AMST 385-1: The Old South, Maria Montalvo, TTh 1pm-2:15pm
  • HIST 343 (Part of Sustainability Minor too): History of Skiing & Snowsports, Judith A. Miller, TTh 5:30pm-6:45pm
  • HIST 347: The Industrial Revolution, Patrick Allitt, TTh 2:30pm-3:45pm
  • HIST 348/AMST 348-1/JS 371 3: Ethnic Experience in America, Jonathan Prude, TTh 5:30pm-6:45pm
  • HIST 363W/LACS 363W-1: Sugar and Rum, Robert Goddard, TTh 8:30am-9:45am
  • HIST 368/HLTH 385-10: History of Hunger, Thomas Rogers, TTh 5:30pm-6:45pm
  • HIST 378 /AFS 378-1/ANT 378-1/LACS 378 -1: Human Trafficking: Global History, Adriana Chira, MW 1pm-2:15pm
  • HIST 384/AAS 384-1/ENG 389-1: Slavery in US History & Culture, Michelle Gordon, TTh 4pm-5:15pm
  • HIST 385-1/AMST 385-2/ ANT 385-8: Oral History: Methods/Practices, Jonathan Coulis, TTh 4pm-5:15pm
  • HIST 385-2/AMST 385-3: Information & Power, US History, Matthew Guariglia, MW 10am-11:15am
  • HIST 385-3/JS 371-2/WGS 385-9: Women & Law, 1200-1800, Tamar Menashe, TTh 11:30am-12:45pm
  • HIST 385-4/REES 375-1: The Soviet Cold War, Matthew Payne, MWF 1pm-1:50pm
  • HIST 385-6: Cultures of Romanticism, Brian Vick, MW 1pm-2:15pm
  • HIST 385W-1: Singlewomen/Premodern Europe, Michelle Armstrong-Partida, MW 11:30am-12:45pm
  • HIST 385W-2/AMST 385W-2: Black & Indigenous Histories, Malinda Lowery, MW 10am-11:15am
  • HIST 396-2/CPLT 389-1/ENG 389-2: History, Memory, Literature, Angelika Bammer, TTh 10am-11:15am
  • HIST 396-3/ENG 389-3/PHIL 385-5/CPLT 389-3: No Time to Think!, Elizabeth Goodstein, TTh 4pm-5:15pm
  • HIST 396-4/ GER 375-1, JS 375 1, CPLT 389 4: Making Sense of Fascism, Frank Voigt, TTh 2:30pm-3:45pm
  • HIST 302/CL 329R: History of Rome, Jinyu Liu, MW 2:30pm-3:45pm
  • HIST 323: Reformation Europe & Beyond, Sharon Strocchia, TTh 4pm-5:15pm
  • HIST 325W/CL 325W: The Classical Tradition & American Founding, Barbara Lawatsch-Melton, TTh 2:30pm-3:45pm