Students in Dr. Joseph Crespino‘s fall 2017 class, “History 385: Right-Wing America,” produced short documentary films that were screened on November 29 at the “Documenting the Right” Student Film Festival. Students took advantage of Emory’s rich library holdings in crafting videos whose themes ranged from racism in the career of George Wallace to Atlanta’s motto as the “city too busy to hate.” Read more about the project on the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship Blog: “Emory history class uses digital storytelling to study political movements.”
Category / Public Scholarship
President Jimmy Carter Visits Dr. Tehila Sasson’s “Origins of Human Rights”
President Jimmy Carter recently visited Prof. Tehila Sasson’s class, “Origins of Human Rights.” The students engaged the President on foreign policy, civil rights, decolonization, the Camp David Accords, and the Cold War. President Carter answered questions ranging from the hostage crisis in Iran, women’s rights, North Korea, to human rights in the age of Trump.
Daniel LaChance Makes Appearance on Al Jazeera
Assistant Professor of History Daniel LaChance recently made a television appearance on Al Jazeera. He discussed President Trump’s tweets calling for the “death penalty for the NY terrorist attacker.” LaChance is a specialist in the history of capital punishment and author of Executing Freedom: The Cultural Life of Capital Punishment in the United States (University of Chicago Press, 2016).
Allen Tullos in ‘Fortune’: “Roy Moore Makes Ted Cruz Look Like a Democrat”
Professor of History Allen Tullos recently published an article in Fortune, titled “Roy Moore Makes Ted Cruz Look Like a Democrat.” The piece addresses Alabama’s recent Republican primary and the victory of Roy Moore over Luther Strange. Tullos, who is editor of Southern Spaces and Co-Director of Emory Center for Digital Scholarship, authored Alabama Getaway: The Political Imaginary and the Heart of Dixie (Athens: UGA Press, 2011).
Department Co-Sponsors Symposium, “Between the Ivory Tower and the Prison: Recent Public Scholarship on Mass Incarceration”
The History Department is co-sponsoring a symposium on Emory’s campus September 28-29. The event features Daniel LaChance, Assistant Professor of History, along with scholars from other universities nationwide. Join for any or all sessions.
September 28
23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement
- Featuring Keramet Reiter (Dept. of Criminology, Law and Society – University of California – Irvine)
- 10am – 12pm
- School of Medicine, Room 178P
The Art/Crime Archive
- Paul Kaplan (School of Public Affairs – San Diego State University)
- 2pm – 4pm
- School of Medicine, Room 178P
Film Screening and Discussion: The Prison in Twelve Landscapes
- Featuring Brett Story (documentary filmmaker; Visiting Fellow, Center for Media, Culture and History – New York University)
- 5pm – 7:30pm
- Rita Anne Rollins Building, Room 252
September 29
Preparing for a Career as a Public Intellectual: A Panel Discussion
- Moderated by Daniel LaChance (Dept. of History, Emory University)
- Panelists: Paul Kaplan, Keramet Reiter, Brett Story
- 10am – 12pm
- Rita Anne Rollins Building 252
Dr. Ernest Freeberg (Ph.D., 1995) to Present at National Archives at Atlanta
Ph.D. alumnus Ernest Freeberg (1995) will return to Atlanta on September 16 to present at a symposium, The Great War Over Here: Stories from the Home Front, held at the National Archives at Atlanta. Freeberg is Department Head and Professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and the author of Democracy’s Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent (Harvard UP, 2010). View more details about the event here.
LaChance to Speak at AJC Decatur Book Festival
Dr. Daniel LaChance, Assistant Professor of History, will speak at the AJC Decatur Book Festival on Sunday, September 3. A specialist in the history of capital punishment, LaChance’s talk is entitled “Executing Freedom: The Cultural Life of Capital Punishment in the United States.” Read more about the talk here.
Daniel LaChance on GPB: ‘How Americans Change Their Tune On The Death Penalty’
Assistant Professor of History Daniel LaChance recently appeared on Georgia Public Broadcasting’s show On Second Thought to discuss changing perceptions among the U.S. populace about capital punishment. LaChance published his first book, Executing Freedom: The Cultural Life of Capital Punishment in the United States, last year with the University of Chicago Press. Listen to the full interview here.
Edward Hatfield (PhD, ’15) Named Managing Editor of ‘New Georgia Encyclopedia’
Congratulations to Dr. Edward Hatfield, alumnus of the graduate program in American history, for being named managing editor of the New Georgia Encyclopedia. The publication, first launched in 2004, was the first state encyclopedia designed for the web. The project is run by the Georgia Humanities Council. Hatfield was an advisee of Dr. Joseph Crespino.
Dr. Carol Anderson on President Trump and Black History in ‘The Boston Globe’
Professor Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, was recently quoted in an article in The Boston Globe titled “Trump’s blind spot on black history worries scholars.” The May 3 article (by Astead W. Herndon) examined the reactions of numerous leading historians, including Dr. Anderson, to the U.S. president’s comments about American and especially black history. “From the first moments of the Trump administration, historians said in interviews, they were baffled along with other Americans by factual inaccuracies flowing from the White House. But in the months that followed, and especially this week, scholars said their initial surprise has turned to deep dismay over Trump’s seemingly ill-informed views of US history, especially as it relates to racial minorities.” Read Dr. Anderson’s contribution to the article below and check out the full piece here.
“‘There seems to be this kind of disdain for the reality of African-American history,’ said Carol Anderson, a professor at Emory University who specializes in black studies.
“‘When you don’t care enough about something to learn about it, yet you open up your mouth to speak about it — that’s contempt,’ Anderson said.”