Category / Public Scholarship

by abritt

Rodriguez’s Class Inspires Pioneering, Undergraduate-Curated Exhibit on Latinx History

“Consciousness is Power: A Record of Emory Latinx History”

Emory Libraries has showcased a pioneering exhibit on Latinx histories in recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month. Titled “Consciousness is Power: A Record of Emory Latinx History,” the exhibit was curated by Arturo Contreras, a fourth-year student majoring in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. In the Emory News Center piece about the exhibit, Contreras describes how History Department Assistant Professor Yami Rodriguez helped to inspire the project through her class “Migrants, borders and transnational communities in the U.S.” Read an excerpt from the Emory News Center Article below along with the full piece here: “Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with an Emory Libraries pop-up exhibit.”

As a student, Contreras wanted to integrate his community work into his academic life. In spring of 2022, he enrolled in Yamileth “Yami” Rodriguez’s special topics history class to expand as a scholar in the field of Latinx studies. Rodriguez, an assistant professor of history at Emory, inspired and supported Contreras in proposing his exhibit project to the Emory Libraries Events and Exhibits team. 

“Yami’s presence is what Emory needed, especially for students wanting to be involved with their respective communities,” Contreras says. “Her field of study and method of facilitating makes the classroom an environment of belonging and safety to explore intellectual curiosity.” 

“Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with an Emory Libraries pop-up exhibit,” September 14, 2022.

by abritt

Anderson on PBS: ‘The Significance of Juneteenth’

Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor and Chair of African-American Studies, appeared on the PBS show Amanpour & Co. last month to discuss the significance of the Juneteenth emancipation holiday. The U.S. government recognized Juneteenth, which marks the day in 1865 that the last slaves in Galveston, Texas learned that they were free, as a federal holiday in 2021. Anderson is the author, most recently, of The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021). Watch the interview with Anderson here: “The Significance of Juneteenth.”

by abritt

Graduate Student Jessica Markey Locklear Participates in UMBC Roundtable

Doctoral student Jessica Markey Locklear recently participated in a conversation hosted by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Albin O. Kuhn Library. Titled “Indigenous Community Archiving and Collective Memory,” the virtual roundtable centered on community archiving projects within American Indian communities of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Locklear was joined in the conversation by Siobhan Hagan (founding director, Mid-Atlantic Regional Moving Image Archive), Tiffany Chavis (Consulting Archivist, UMBC), and Ashley Minner (Assistant Curator for History and Culture, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian). Locklear’s dissertation, advised by Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery, is titled “The Other Lands We Know: Lumbee Migrations and the Maintenance of Indian Identity, 1880-1980.”

by abritt

Anderson Contributes to ‘NYT’ Panel “Where Does American Democracy Go From Here?”

Dr. Carol Anderson recently contributed to a New York Times panel focused on the theme “Where Does American Democracy Go From Here?” The six panelists offer historical and contemporary perspectives on the state of democracy in the U.S., which has fallen in recent rankings that measure the vitality of democracies across the globe. Anderson is Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department. She is the author, most recently, of The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury Press, 2021). Read one of Anderson’s contributions to the panel below and find the full piece here.

“Anderson: What we’re seeing, I liken it to a land, sea and air attack. The land attack is on voting rights. That is one of the ways that you begin to undermine democracy. The sea attack are these attacks against teaching critical race theory and “divisive” topics, so you can erase people from American history and erase the role of various people in American history. And the air attack is the loosening of Texas and Tennessee both passed laws allowing for permitless carrying of firearms in 2021; the Georgia State Legislature passed a similar bill this year. This is a full-blown assault on American democracy that’s going after voting rights, that’s going after education and that is reinforcing political violence as an acceptable method of bringing about your political aims. That’s where we are, and that’s why this moment is so dangerous.“

by abritt

U.S. Senate Confirms Klibanoff and Dudley to Federal Civil Rights Cold Case Review Board

The U.S. senate has confirmed James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism Hank Klibanoff and Rose library instructional archivist Gabrielle M. Dudley to the federal Civil Rights Cold Case Review Board. Established in 2019 and convened in 2022, the panel has received authorization through 2027 to investigate unsolved cases from the Civil Rights era. Klibanoff is director of the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Emory and host of the award-winning podcast Buried Truths. Read more about the federal cold cases panel and Atlantans’ significant roles within it: “Civil rights cold case board to have unique Atlanta flavor.”

by abritt

SlaveVoyages Featured, Eltis Quoted in ‘NYT’ Article

The digital memorial and database project SlaveVoyages, spearheaded by Emeritus Professor David Eltis and maintained by numerous Emory faculty and alumni, was recently featured in an article in The New York Times. The piece, “We Still Can’t See American Slavery for What It Was,” provides an overview of the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans as well as the history of SlaveVoyages itself. Originating in the 1960s, the database was recently expanded with a new section titled “Oceans of Kinfolk” that includes information on trafficking within North America in the first half of the nineteenth century. The New York Times columnist, Jamelle Bouie, situates this expansion in the context of a broader reflection about how data on slave trafficking can provide access to or, alternatively, obscure the lived experiences of the enslaved. The Steering Committee of SlaveVoyages includes the following Emory History faculty and alumni: Allen E. Tullos (Professor, Emory History Department), Alex Borucki (PhD 11, Associate Professor, UC-Irvine), and Daniel B. Domingues da Silva (PhD 11, Associate Professor, Rice University). Read Bouie’s article here: “We Still Can’t See American Slavery for What It Was.”

by abritt

“Visions of Slavery,” Co-Organized by Walter C. Rucker, Awarded Prestigious Mellon Foundation Grant

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded Emory College a $225,000 grant for a year-long investigation of the histories of unfreedom in the Black Atlantic. The grant will support a symposium titled “Visions of Slavery,” which is co-organized by Dr. Walter C. Rucker, Professor of History, and Bayo Holsey, Associate Professor of Anthropology. The event will take place as a part of Mellon’s 2022-2023 Sawyer Seminar series and involve faculty from other university campuses across Atlanta. History Department faculty Mariana Candido and Adriana Chira are part of the working group for the seminar. Read more about the symposium via the Emory News Center as well as the Department of African American Studies.

by abritt

Scully Quoted in ABC’s Digital Essay on Sara Baartman

Dr. Pamela Scully, Vice Provost of Undergraduate Affairs, Professor in WGSS and African Studies, and Affiliated Faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in a digital essay published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The piece, “The fight for Sarah Baartman,” discusses the life, death, and legacy of Sara Baartman. Scully and Dr. Clifton Crais, Professor of History, co-authored a biography of Baartman in 2009, titled Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography (Princeton UP). Read the essay here: “The fight for Sarah Baartman.”

by abritt

Anderson Contributes to 11Alive Program ‘Drawing Conclusions’

Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor, recently contributed to the 11Alive news station’s “Drawing Conclusions” series. The series follows two Georgia parents who address their skepticism of Critical Race Theory and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in public schools with a range of experts. Anderson, associated faculty in the History Department and, most recently, the author of The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021), was the first expert the parents interviewed. Find a video of the segment below and read more about the series here: “These parents questioned critical race theory and DEI programs in public schools. They interviewed experts and here’s what they found.”

by abritt

Alumni Update: Jeffrey S. Reznick (PhD, 1999)

Jeffrey S. Reznick (PhD 1999), chief of the History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH), has written the first study of Rudolf H. Sauter (1895–1977), the German-born artist, poet, cultural observer and nephew of the famed novelist John Galsworthy. To be published by Anthem Press in January 2022, War and Peace in the Worlds of Rudolf H. Sauter: A Cultural History of a Creative Life reveals its subject as a creative figure in his own right who produced an intriguing body of artistic and literary work spanning from World War I through the Cold War. Additionally, connected to his leadership of the NLM History of Medicine Division, Reznick recently co-authored “History matters: in the past, present & future of the NLM” in the Journal of the Medical Library Association. The article explains how—since the release of the 2015 report of the NIH’s Director’s advisory committee on the future of the National Library of Medicine—history continues to matter at NLM with its History of Medicine Division achieving many collaborative contributions toward the advancement of the library in the 21st century and for the benefit of historical research today and tomorrow.