Category / Grants and Fellowships

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Rall Wins Scobie Award from Conference on Latin American History

Congratulations to graduate student Ursula Rall on receiving the James R. Scobie award from the Conference on Latin American History. The Scobie provides up to $1,500 for an exploratory research trip abroad to determine the feasibility of a Ph.D. dissertation topic dealing with some facet of Latin American history. Rall’s project is entitled, “The Spatial Mobility of African and Afro-Descended Women in the Colonial Spanish Americas.” Rall is advised by Drs. Yanna Yannakakis and Javier Villa-Flores. Read more about the project and Rall’s field research plans below.

The pre-dissertation research I plan to do this summer will explore the migration patterns of free and enslaved women of African descent in the seventeenth century centered on urban New Spain. Depending on travel restrictions and archive access, this research will either happen in Mexico City or within the United States at the Gilcrease Museum and Tulane University Library. This archival work will help determine the feasibility of my dissertation work, in which I plan to the trace patterns of spatial mobility of free and enslaved women of African descent and the social connections they made and maintained.

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Dr. Abigail Meert (PhD, ’19) Wins NEH Fellowship

Congratulations to Dr. Abigail Meert, a 2019 PhD graduate in African history, on winning a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Meert received a summer stipend for her project “Suffering, Struggle, and the Politics of Legitimacy in Uganda, 1958–1996.” She will conduct archival research in Uganda and the United Kingdom along with semi-structured follow-up interviews with previous informants. The expected outcome of the research is an academic article as part of her book project on the Ugandan Civil War from 1981–1986. Meert is Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M International University.

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Yaza Sarieh (‘18Ox, ‘20C) Wins 2020-21 Henry Luce Foundation Fellowship

Congratulations to recently graduated History major Yaza Sarieh (‘18Ox ‘20C) on receiving the Henry Luce Foundation Fellowship for 2021-2022. Yaza was also the recipient of the History Department’s Matthew A. Carter Award, given annually to a graduating student who exemplifies high academic achievement and good works in the community. Sarieh is one of only a dozen Emory students to win this prestigious fellowship in the university’s history. Read the Luce Foundation’s profile of Sarieh below, along with the same from the Emory News Center: “Two recent Emory graduates selected for prestigious Luce Scholars Program.” Also, learn about the other Luce fellowship winners from this past year here.

“Yazmina Sarieh graduated from Emory University in May 2020 with a Bachelor’s degree in History and Arabic. Born and raised in a small immigrant community outside of Nashville, Tennessee, Yazmina has always had a passion for service, social justice and diversity. At Emory, she co-directed Behind the Glass, an organization connecting students with undocumented detainees who were being held in a nearby detention center. She led initiatives at Georgia Organics, a food justice organization, managing a project that mapped demographics, health disparities and nutritional assets in order to alleviate food insecurity among schoolchildren. She has volunteered with the International Rescue Committee to support the integration of newly arrived refugees from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Democratic Republic of Congo and Honduras. While interning at the Carter Center, she worked on large-scale conflict resolution with international actors regarding the Syrian Civil War, specifically advocating for the rights of internally displaced populations. As a Gilman Scholar at al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco and the Sultan Qaboos University in Manah, Oman, Yazmina connected with people around the globe, engaging in cross cultural dialogue and integrating into diverse communities. She was named a Phi Beta Kappa scholar upon graduation, and received the Matthew A. Carter Citizens Award from the Emory History Department, given to one student who best exemplifies academic achievement and good works in the community. Yazmina is motivated to work in migrant rights and advocacy, hoping to create more efficient policy, programming and infrastructure that will enhance economic growth, social inclusion and political stability among marginalized communities. During her free time, Yazmina loves to preserve her Palestinian heritage through embroidery, reading ethnographies and caring for her plants.“

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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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History Majors Gaytán, Kelly, Hutton, and Katz Selected as Fox Fellows

Four Emory History majors have been selected as Spring 2021 Fox Center Undergraduate Humanities Honors Fellows. Nayive Gaytán (Spanish and History), Ryan Kelly (History and Art History), Colin Hutton (History), and Cameron Katz (History and English/Creative Writing) will benefit from the Fox Center’s intellectual community next semester as they complete their honors research projects. Read more about the Fox Fellows programs here.

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PhD Student Robert Billups Wins Grant for Research at LBJ Presidential Library

Third-year graduate student Robert Billups has been awarded a Moody Research Grant for his current project, titled “White Supremacist Bombings and Arsons Against U.S. Civil Rights Institutions, 1940-1975.” The grant, which is underwritten by The Moody Foundation and awarded by a faculty committee from the University of Texas at Austin, will support Billups as he conducts research at the LBJ Presidential Library. Billups is advised by Joseph Crespino, History Department Chair and Jimmy Carter Professor, and Allen Tullos, Professor and Co-Director of Emory Center for Digital Scholarship.

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History Major James Goodman Wins Fellowship at James Weldon Johnson Institute

Congratulations to Jason Goodman on winning one of the coveted undergraduate fellowships at the James Weldon Johnson Institute (JWJI) for the Study of Race and Difference. Jason is a history major and is undertaking a fascinating cultural history of mass incarceration in the late twentieth century United States. The U.S. became the most punitive country in the world not only through the passage of harsh sentencing laws and massive investments in prisons and policing, but also through changes in the nation’s political culture. Popular culture became a site in which an increasingly punitive political culture was reflected, reinforced, and occasionally contested. Jason’s work aims to shed new light on how films worked to legitimize harsh punishment. The fellowship will provide Jason with a work space at the JWJI House for the remainder of the 2020-’21 academic year, a book allowance, and academic mentoring.

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Junior History Major Annie Li Selected as a 2020-2021 Imagining America Joy of Giving Something Fellow

Junior history and sociology double major Annie Li is among eight undergraduates nationwide selected as a 2020-2021 Imagining America Joy of Giving Something Fellow. The fellowship, which includes a tuition scholarship, mentorship and financial support for a community arts project, recognizes Li’s work on Emory’s “Stories from the Pandemic” project. For her community arts project, Li plans to make a film about the experiences of Chinese Americans in Atlanta during the emergence and spread of COVID-19. This idea was inspired by a spring 2020 course on Asian-American history that Li took with Dr. Chris Suh, Assistant Professor of History. Learn more about the fellowship via the Emory News Center’s article, “Emory student receives fellowship grant for humanities work.”

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LaChance Named Winship Distinguished Research Professor for 2020-23

Congratulations to Dr. Daniel LaChance, Associate Professor and Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellow in Law and the Humanities, on being named a Winship Distinguished Research Professor for 2020-23. LaChance is an expert in twentieth century American legal history and culture. The Winship Distinguished Research Award is given to tenured faculty who demonstrate singular accomplishments in research and is designed to encourage further scholarly research and research-based teaching.

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Dinner Awarded Fellowships from ACLS and Princeton

Dr. Deborah Dinner, Associate Professor of Law and associated faculty in the History Department, has received two fellowships this year. The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) awarded Dinner the Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship for Recently Tenured Scholars, which she will use at the Kluge Center, Library of Congress, in 2022-2023. In addition, Dinner received the the Law and Public Affairs Fellowship from Princeton University, where she will hold a visiting, residential appointment for the academic year 2020-21. Read more about these awards and Dinner’s work here.