Category / Public Humanities

by emoryhistorydept

Doctoral Student Becca Aponte Publishes Two-Part Series in AHA’s ‘Perspectives’


Third-year doctoral student Becca Aponte (African history) has published a pair of articles in the American Historical Association’s newsmagazine Perspectives on History. Aponte’s columns examine the theme “Africa, Women, and the Global History of Capitalism” through contemporary and historical commerce and culture in Dakar, Senegal.

The columns intersect with Aponte’s research in French West Africa, which (as she describes) examines “how women constructed alternative regimes of property, credit, and commerce across a century of imperial expansion in rural Senegal – from the abolition of slavery to the dismantling of colonial subjecthood.” Aponte’s graduate work is advised by Professors Mariana P. Candido, Adriana Chira, and Clifton Crais.

Read about Aponte and the other summer 2026 Perspectives columnists here, and find links to her two columns:

“Capitalism at Ground Level”

By Becca Aponte
Published July 30, 2026

“Small Property, Big Meanings”

By Becca Aponte
Published September 15, 2026

by emoryhistorydept

Allitt Offers Analysis of Royal Visit for Newsweek, AJC, and 11Alive


Dr. Patrick Allitt, Cohoon Family Professor of American History, provided insightful analysis and historical context about the recent four-day visit of King Charles III and Queen Camilla to the United States. Allitt wrote an op-ed for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “King Charles III and America’s curious love affair with the British monarchy,” and was interviewed on the Atlanta NBC News affiliate 11Alive (“Why Americans remain fascinated by the monarchy“).

Allitt was also quoted in a Newsweek article that examined the visit and its significance. Read a section of the Newsweek piece below, and find the full article here: “King Charles to Address Press Dinner Shooting in Landmark Congress Speech.”

Patrick Allitt, Professor of History at Emory University, told Newsweek: “The king’s had a lifetime of experience in not talking about policy details. I think when he was younger, he periodically did make some rather gauche intrusions into policy questions, particularly about the environment but gradually, he’s learned the lesson that his job is to be head of state and not head of government

Allitt argued the monarchy was a powerful tool for warming up public opinion and said that “because the British monarchy is insanely popular in America, even Trump has got the good sense to realize, ‘I can only benefit from showing the king and his wife a good time’ and avoiding all the things which have created rancor between himself and Starmer.

“So it’s actually a very non-political event, even though people will construe it as being one with political resonances.”

“The nature of politics in both countries is that people from different parts of the spectrum disagree about the rights and wrongs of what’s happening,” he continued, “but I think that the really astonishing part of this whole story is that for nearly 250 years, or since 1815, since the end of the War of 1812, Britain and America have never gone to war against each other.

“And usually when one empire is in decline and another one is in the ascendance, they fight over it but in this case, they never did.”

by emoryhistorydept

Emory Students Analyze “Sports, Power, and Society” in Course Co-Taught by Suddler


In the spring 2026 semester, Dr. Carl Suddler, Associate Professor of History, and Emory sociologist Dr. Karida Brown have offered an interdisciplinary course called “Sports, Power, and Society.” Building on the “Last Lectures” series, a curriculum developed by Civil Rights icon and sociologist Dr. Harry Edwards, the course analyzes how sport intersects with an array of topics, from race, politics, and fashion to urban planning, inequality, and global power.

Students in the spring course have benefitted from the proximity of the upcoming FIFA World Cup, which will bring the high-stakes global soccer to Atlanta and 15 other host cities in North America this summer. Atlanta and Los Angeles are the only two cities in the U.S. to host both a summer Olympic games and the World Cup. This fact, Suddler and Brown argue, have made Emory the ideal place to study the power of sport in shaping culture, cities, economies, and everyday life.

Emory History graduate students Andrew Aldridge (U.S. History, 5th year) and Tymesha-Elizabeth Kindell (U.S. History, 2nd year) serve as teaching assistants for the course.


Fox 5 Atlanta recently interviewed Suddler about the offering, the World Cup’s impact on Atlanta, and parallels between the 2026 mega event and the 1996 Olympics. Find the conversation here: “Emory offers class on impact of FIFA World Cup.”

by emoryhistorydept

LaChance Speaks at GSU Law Event about the Death Penalty


L-R: Herman Lindsey, Cortney Lawler,  Corinna Barret Lain,  Katherine Raeymaekers (Consul General of Belgium), Daniel LaChance


Dr. Daniel LaChance, Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellow in Law and Associate Professor of History, recently spoke at a public event about the death penalty hosted by the School of Law at Georgia State University. Organized by the consulates of Belgium, France, Ireland, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the event was titled “Justice or Injustice? Moral and Legal Questions Around Capital Punishment.” Find the full program here.

LaChance is a legal scholar working at the intersection of American legal and cultural history, criminology, and literary studies. He is the author of Executing Freedom: The Cultural Life of Capital Punishment in the United States (University of Chicago Press, 2016) and Crimesploitation: Crime, Punishment, and Pleasure on Reality Television (Stanford University Press, 2022).

by emoryhistorydept

Allitt Moderates Conversation with Jon Meacham at the Atlanta History Center


The Atlanta History Center (AHC) recently hosted Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham in conversation with Dr. Patrick Allitt of the Emory History Department. Meacham spoke about his new book, American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union (Penguin Random House, 2026), which “unites centuries of essential American voices to understand our national debates and divisions from 1619 to the present.” David Plazas, opinion editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, published a piece about the AHC event (subscription required) here.

Allitt is Cahoon Family Professor of American History and the author of seven books, including, most recently, A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (Penguin Random House, 2014).

by emoryhistorydept

Camille Goldmon (PhD, ’22) Publishes ‘Black HiSTORIES’ Series on TikTok and IG


Dr. Camille Goldmon (PhD, ’22), Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina, is publishing a series of stories on Instagram and TikTok for Black History Month. Titled “Black HiSTORIES,” the series broaches topics ranging from early efforts by Carter G. Woodson to celebrate Black history to the lives and work of seminal figures like Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Fannie Lou Hamer.

Goldmon’s research centers on twentieth-century United States history, Southern history, and agrarianism. She completed her dissertation, “On the Right Side of Radicalism: African American Farmers, Tuskegee Institute, and Agrarian Radicalism in the Alabama Black Belt, 1881–1940,” in 2022 under the advisement of Dr. Carol Anderson.

Find the series via her handle camigoldmon on Instagram and TikTok.

by emoryhistorydept

Sanders Contextualizes Struggle Over MLK’s Legacy


Dr. Crystal R. Sanders, Associate Professor of African American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, recently contributed analysis to the article: “Stevie Wonder’s Battle for MLK Day and the New Challenges to King’s Legacy.” Sanders helps to chronicle the critical role that prominent figures like Wonder played in securing the establishment of the federal holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr., which was signed into law in 1983. Sanders also offers fascinating analysis of the struggle to get the holiday observed on state and local levels, including in her hometown of Clayton, North Carolina (see more on this below). A specialist in the twentieth-century history of the U.S., Sanders is the author, most recently, of the multiple prize-winning book A Forgotten Migration: Black Southerners, Segregation Scholarships, and the Debt Owed to Public HBCUs (UNC Press, 2024).

Read an excerpt from the Capital B News article below and find the full piece here.

“Whether we’re talking about the local, state, or federal level, it took a lot of maneuvering to get this holiday,” Sanders said.

She grew up in Clayton, a small North Carolina town about 15 or 20 minutes from Raleigh. She recalled how her father, the first Black American elected to the Clayton Town Council, basically had to trick the council into recognizing the holiday, even after North Carolina had adopted it as a state holiday in 1983.

“After several failed attempts at getting the holiday recognized, my father introduced a motion that the town would observe all holidays observed by North Carolina,” she said. “And many of his colleagues didn’t think twice. They voted in the affirmative. Later, during that same meeting, an elderly white man said, ‘Wait, did I just vote for the King holiday?’ And my father said, ‘You most certainly did.’”

by emoryhistorydept

Lowery Delivers Remarks at Fourth Annual Muscogee Teach-In

Sarah Woods/Emory Photo/Video


Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery, Emory Cahoon Family Professor of American History and a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, recently delivered remarks at the fourth installment of the annual Muscogee teach-in. The event brings representatives of the Muscogee Nation, displaced from the site of Emory’s campus in the early 1800s, to campus to teach Muscogee history and culture and to continue fortifying relationships with the Emory community. Since arriving at Emory in 2021, Lowery has been instrumental in building those relationships, including through programming at Emory’s Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies and curricular offerings in the History Department and beyond.

Lowery is the author of The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle (UNC Press, 2018) and Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation (UNC Press, 2010). She has also produced Peabody Award-winning and Emmy-nominated films.

Read the Emory News Center’s full feature about the teach-in: “Muscogee Teach-in spotlights sovereignty, storytelling and dance.”

“The United States is on Indigenous land at all times…So, Native American and Indigenous studies is relevant to all of us.”

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.”