Category / Public Humanities

by emoryhistorydept

History Major Lucia Alexeyev Traces the Lasting Health Effects of U.S. Occupation in Vieques, Puerto Rico


In the summer of 2025, Emory College senior Lucia Alexeyev conducted research about the relationship between U.S. Naval occupation and residents’ health and access to healthcare on the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico. Alexeyev’s project, titled “Military Occupation and Changing Healthcare Landscapes: Vieques and the U.S. Navy, 1941-2003,” was funded by the History Department’s Cuttino Scholarship for Independent Research Abroad.

While in the field, Alexeyev observed the effects of the Trump administration’s rescission of research grants through the Environmental Protection Agency. She chronicled the on-the-ground consequences of – and responses to – those cuts in a piece for Nueve Millones, “Vieques’ health investigator seeks funding after EPA’s cancellation: ‘This is just a rock on the road.‘”

Alexeyev is a History major and Global Health, Culture and Society minor. Dr. Jeffrey Lesser, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of History, serves as her thesis adviser. Read an excerpt from the Nueve Millones piece below and find the full article here.

“Even with how politics has changed in the EPA, Estrada Martinez remains hopeful for the study’s completion. She’s inspired by the Viequense community’s 63-year struggle to remove the Navy from the island, plus an additional 20-year battle to obtain funding for VASAC in the first place. ‘This is just a rock on the road, and we will figure out together how to get rid of it and move forward, right?‘”

by emoryhistorydept

‘Buried Truths’ Season 5 to Premiere


Season 5 of the podcast Buried Truths, hosted by Professor Hank Klibanoff, Professor of the Practice in Emory’s Creative Writing Program and Associated Faculty in the Department of History, has premiered on WABE. Drawing on research over three semesters that involved 35 Emory undergraduate students, this season investigates “the brutal beating and medical neglect that led to the 1957 death of Rev. Clarence Horatious Pickett, a preacher in Columbus, Georgia.” Read more details about the seven-episode season, titled “A Preacher, a Policeman, and a Physician,” here: “WABE Announces August 26 Premiere of Buried Truths’ Season 5, hosted by Pulitzer and Peabody Award Winner Hank Klibanoff.”

“This story has lived in the margins of history for far too long,” said Buried Truths creator and host Hank Klibanoff. “With the help of research by more than 35 Emory University undergraduate students across three semesters, we’ve tried to give Clarence Pickett the attention and dignity that eluded him in life. His story reveals painful truths—not just about one town or one moment, but about how our systems treat the most vulnerable.”

by emoryhistorydept

Crespino Offers Historical Perspectives on U.S. Senate in Briefing to Congress

Daniel S. Holt (Senate Historical Office), Joanne B. Freeman (Yale Univ.), Sarah Weicksel (Briefing Moderator & AHA Executive Director), and Joseph Crespino.

Dr. Joseph Crespino, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty and Divisional Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences and Jimmy Carter Professor of History, recently participated in a Congressional Briefing organized by the American Historical Association (AHA) focused on how the U.S. Senate has changed since its establishment. The briefing took place on Thursday, July 24, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Other presenters included Dr. Joanne B. Freeman (Yale Univ.) and Daniel S. Holt (Senate Historical Office). AHA executive director Sarah Weicksel served as moderator.

The AHA’s Congressional Briefings series seeks to provide Congressional staff members, journalists, and other members of the policy community with the historical context essential to understanding contemporary issues. The sessions are strictly nonpartisan and avoid advancing particular policy prescriptions or legislative agendas.

Crespino and Becca Flikier (C ’17)

While in D.C., Crespino also had the chance to say hello to former History major Becca Flikier, who is now Deputy Chief of Staff for Florida Congresswoman Lois Frankel. Flikier graduated in 2017 with honors, receiving highest honors for her thesis, “The Fall of the Child Savers, The Rise of Juvenile Lockdown, and The Evolution of Juvenile Justice in Twentieth-Century America.” Her thesis chair was Daniel LaChance. Flikier was also a Political Science minor.

by emoryhistorydept

David Eltis Wins W.E.B. DuBois Medal of Honor

David Eltis, Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus of History, has won the W.E.B. DuBois Medal of Honor, Harvard University’s highest award in the field of African and African American studies. The DuBois medal is given to individuals in the United States and across the globe in recognition of their contributions to African and African American culture and the life of the mind.

A specialist in the early modern Atlantic World, slavery, and migration (both coerced and free), Eltis is the author of many prize-winning works, including Economic Growth and The Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Oxford University Press, 1987) and The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (Cambridge University Press, 2000). Eltis co-created the Transatlantic Slave Trade database and website SlaveVoyages.org, a pioneering digital initiative that compiles and makes publicly accessible the records of the largest slave trades in history.

Eltis received the award at the recent conference “SlaveVoyages: New Research & Uncharted Waters,” which was held at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard and featured multiple Emory History graduate program alumni.

Eltis with Daniel B. Domingues da Silva (PhD, 2011) at the recent conference focused on the SlaveVoyages project.

by emoryhistorydept

Golcheski’s ‘AHR’ Article Explores Resilience in Social Movements


Graduate student Amelia Golcheski co-authored an article just published in a special edition of The American Historical Review focused on the theme of resilience. In their article, Golcheski and co-author Jessie Ramey (Chatham Univ.) use the career of activist Kipp Dawson to examine how resilience can operate in social movements even as they encounter setbacks, losses, and violent repression. Golcheski and Ramey’s multimedia, open education website, “Kipp Dawson: The Struggle Is the Victory,” develops the idea of “radical collaboration” and focuses on movement networks, interconnections, and affects. Their contribution includes an introduction to Dawson’s work and a video on the making of the site. The Kipp Dawson site was produced by the Emory University Center for Digital Scholarship, co-directed by Dr. Allen E. Tullos. Read the AHR piece, titled “Love, Hope, and Joy,” and view an interview with Dawson from their site below.

by emoryhistorydept

Lowery, Cahoon Family Endowed Chair Featured by Emory 2036 Campaign

Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery, the Cahoon Family Professor of American History, was recently featured as part of the Emory 2036 campaign. The video feature discusses Lowery’s background and work since arriving at Emory in 2021, including her leading scholarship in the field of indigenous studies, creative practice as a filmmaker, and work building transformative partnerships with indigenous communities. The feature also describes the origins and significance of the Cahoon Family endowed chair, including with commentary by emeritus trustee Susan Cahoon 68C. Watch the full feature below:

Malinda Maynor Lowery featured in an Emory 2036 campaign video.
by emoryhistorydept

Anderson Dissects Changes to Electoral Processes by GA Election Board

Dr. Carol Anderson, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of African American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, has published an article about recent changes made to electoral processes by the Georgia Board of Elections. Co-authored with Norman Eisen (State Democracy Defenders Action) and Lauren Groh-Wargo (Fair Fight), the MSNBC article dissects the implications of these changes, such as a new rule that “lets local elections officials halt vote-counting and delay or even outright refuse certification if they contend there are any irregularities, essentially making the certification of election results discretionary.”

Anderson, Eisen, and Groh-Wargo describe these efforts as laying the foundation for the obstruction of the certification of the 2024 election results in Georgia. Read an excerpt of their piece below along with the full article: “Trump and his allies are previewing their election sabotage plan in Georgia.”

“Trump’s 2020 election interference playbook hasn’t changed, but the MAGA operation has become more sophisticated. Now, there are election deniers holding local elections positions in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania (in addition to Georgia). GOP officials have resisted certifying results in Arizona, Michigan and Nevada. 

“But Georgia elections are facing an attack from Trump’s operation that seems more intense than any of its other efforts across the country. The state’s current lieutenant governor signed a certificate saying Trump won Georgia in 2020 and certifying himself as a false elector. After failing to overturn his 2020 loss, it seems Trump aims to win Georgia by any means, aided by the State Election Board. Trump may be hinting at this strategy, recently claiming he “didn’t need the votes,” an odd statement for a presidential candidate.”

by emoryhistorydept

Alumni Update: Alex Borucki (PhD, 2011)

The History Department was delighted to receive an update from Dr. Alex Borucki, a 2011 alumnus of the graduate program and Professor of History at the University of California Irvine. Read Borucki’s update below:

“I have worked in collaborative research since my days in Bowden Hall by witnessing the creation of the Slave Voyages website fifteen years ago, but I engaged in a radically different way of teamwork more recently.

“In 2021, the writer/cartoonist/marketing mastermind Gonzalo Eyherabide asked me for historical guidance because he was creating a graphic history, or historieta histórica in Spanish, about Joaquín Artigas, an African man who had fought in the wars of independence in the early 1800s Uruguay, and who was enslaved to the family of Uruguay’s founding father, José Artigas.

“As a result of two years of emails and discussions, Gonzalo adapted my article about the U.S. slave ship Ascension to recreate the story of Joaquín’s enslavement in Mozambique (because we knew Joaquín was from there) and, subsequently, his forced crossing of the South Atlantic.

“Early in 2023, Artigas: Un Patriota sin Patria was published in Montevideo, selling 3000 copies in a semester, and a second edition was released by the end of 2023. I met Gonzalo while visiting Montevideo last December when he gifted me a copy of his beautiful work. He also drew on the first blank page of the book a fine depiction of me and him talking in the bar next to the Río de la Plata, or River Plate, where we usually met. He added this inscription: ‘Culture is and must be generosity and solidarity,’ which encapsulates some of the best collaborative research outcomes.”

by emoryhistorydept

Suddler Speaks at Landmark European Soccer Summit on Anti-racism and Gender equity

Carl Suddler (far right) with top current and former European soccer players

Dr. Carl Suddler, Associate Professor of History, recently spoke at a landmark gathering of European soccer players held in the United Kingdom. The conference brought together towering figures of the sport, such as Lilian Thuram, Thierry Henry, Christian Karembeu, Robert Pires, Olivier Dacourt, Zé Maria, Viv Anderson, and Stan Collymore, seeking to advance anti-racist and gender equity initiatives in the game. The Emory News Center published a wonderful feature of Suddler’s experience, including how the players inspired him to expand his talk beyond the planned topic – the history of US activism in sport – to broach why countries around the world struggle to reckon with the racialized inequities and prejudices that have long structured their societies. Suddler is the author, most recently, of Presumed Criminal: Black Youth and the Justice System in Postwar New York (NYU, 2019). Read the full Emory News Center piece here: “Emory professor Carl Suddler speaks at landmark European soccer summit seeking anti-racism, gender-equity actions.”

by emoryhistorydept

Lowery’s New Film ‘Lumbeeland’ Explores Impact of Drug Trade on Lumbee Communities


Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery, Cahoon Family Professor of American History, has written and produced a new short film, titled Lumbeeland. With an all-Native crew and cast (the first film written, produced, and starring members of the Lumbee tribe), Lumbeeland explores the impact of the drug trade on Lumbee communities in Lowery’s birthplace of Robeson county, North Carolina. The film will premiere at the Lumbee Film Festival in July 2024, and the producers are in the midst of a fundraising campaign to support its release to wider audiences. Read a great piece about the origins and aims of the films here, and watch the trailer below.