Category / Research

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Honors Student Cameron Katz Discusses Experience as Undergraduate Fellow at the Fox Center

History major and honors student Cameron Katz recently published a piece on the blog of Emory’s Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry reflecting on her time as an undergraduate humanities fellow. Katz discusses her research, which centers on Florida’s felony disenfranchisement law, as well as how the pandemic has shaped her experience as a student and scholar. Read an excerpt from the post below, along with the full piece: “Shared Scholarship During the Pandemic.”

“The opportunity to present my research to a group of scholars was also very beneficial. My history honors thesis examines the racial implications of Florida’s felony disenfranchisement law – the rule which revokes a person’s right to vote on account of a felony conviction – which was on the books from 1838 to 2018. Because my temporal framework is so large, working to condense it to a short presentation for an audience less familiar with the history really helped me to streamline my main argument, which I think is one of the most challenging aspects of large projects. Hearing feedback about my presentation allowed me to narrow my presentation even further so that I could convey my work in an accessible and informative manner. Later this month, I will be presenting my research at the Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Symposium so the additional practice at the Fox Center has helped me to prepare.“

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Undergraduate Honors Students Present Thesis Proposals Throughout April

Throughout the month of April History majors at Emory are presenting their honors thesis proposals via Zoom. Their fifteen research projects range widely in period, place, and theme, from an analysis of African-American funeral directors in Jim Crow Georgia to a study of diplomatic relations between Russian cosmonauts and U.S. astronauts. Read about the student projects (including their faculty mentors) by clicking on the flyers below, and email Ms. Lakesia Hayes for the zoom link to the final round of presentations on Monday, April 26, from 2:40-4pm EDT.

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Lesser to Present Opening Lecture at Federal University of Paraná

Dr. Jeffrey Lesser, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of History and Director of the Halle Institute for Global Reserch, will deliver the opening lecture for the history graduate program at the Federal University of Paraná. Lesser’s lecture, titled “Structural Health: Immigrants, the State and Urban Geography in São Paulo, 1870-2020,” draws from his research based in the Bom Retiro neighborhood of the city of São Paulo. The lecture will be livestreamed on YouTube on April 28 at 4pm EDT.

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Andrade Gives Wallace T. MacCaffrey Distinguished Lecture in History at Reed College

In late March Dr. Tonio Andrade, Professor of History, delivered the Wallace T. MacCaffrey Distinguished Lecture in History at Reed College. Andrade’s talk, “The Last Embassy: The 1795 Dutch Mission to the Qianlong Court,” focused on a little-studied embassy to the Qing court: the Dutch mission of 1794–95. The talk draws from research Andrade conducted for his forthcoming book, The Last Embassy: The Dutch Mission of 1795 and the Forgotten History of Western Encounters with China (Princeton UP, June 2021). Find out more about the event here.

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Suh’s Work Highlighted in “Race, Equity, Resilience, and Social Justice Research” Feature

The Office of the Senior Vice President for Research recently featured the work of Dr. Chris Suh, Assistant Professor of History, in a series on Race, Equity, Resilience, and Social Justice Research at Emory. Suh’s research centers on race, ethnicity, and inequality, especially the United States’ engagement with the Pacific World and Asian migration to the United States. Read an excerpt from the feature below along with the full piece: “Race, Equity, Resilience, and Social Justice Research at Emory University.”

“When someone tells Chris Suh that history repeats itself, he replies—not necessarily.

“‘The past only repeats itself if you choose to see it that way,’ he says. And it’s the historian’s job to help uncover those surprises or variations in the archival record that challenge conventional assumptions.“

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Margariti to Discuss Foundational Legend of Islam’s Arrival in India in Carlos Museum Webinar

Dr. Roxani Margariti, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, will present research at an upcoming virtual event hosted by Emory’s Michael C. Carlos Museum. Margariti will present with Dr. Scott Kugle, Professor of South Asian and Islamic Studies, on the foundational legend of Islam’s arrival in India. The legend includes the miracle of the splitting of the moon (inshiqaq al-qamar), first alluded to in the Qur’an as a divine sign and developed as a miracle of the Prophet Muhammad in the exegetical tradition. Margariti and Kugle will discuss how the interplay between the legend and the miracle story forms the subject of a fascinating 18th-century Indian painting that draws on the Mughal painting tradition and can be viewed at the exhibition Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place. The event will take place Tuesday, February 23, at 4pm. Register to attend here.

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Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project Partners with National Center for Civil and Human Rights to Produce Exhibit about the Victims of 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre

Emory’s Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project will partner with the National Center for Civil and Human Rights to produce an exhibit about the more than two dozen Black Atlanta residents murdered in what has become known as the Atlanta Race Massacre of 1906. The exhibit will make up part of a three-story expansion to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights funded by a $17 million grant by the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. Hank Klibanoff, James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism and Associated Faculty in the History Department, is the director of the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project. The Blank Family Foundation grant will support the continuation of research by Klibanoff, along with undergraduates in his course the Cold Cases Project, into the Black lives lost to the massacre. Read an excerpt from the Emory News Center feature of the project below along with the full article: “Grant to help Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project uncover Atlanta’s racial history.”

“Who were these people? What did they do, how did they live, how did they die? We know enough from our preliminary research to see the victims were people living on the right side of the law, but they became political pawns, expendable because of their race,” says Klibanoff, a professor of practice in Emory’s Creative Writing program.

“We’ll be seeking to animate their lives to give them the historical justice that was denied them by law enforcement and the judicial system in 1906,” he adds.

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Rogers and Manuel in ‘The Hill’: “Biden’s carbon farming policy must heed recent lessons”

Thomas D. Rogers and collaborator Jeffrey Manuel (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) published an opinion piece in The Hill as a part of its “Changing America” series. The piece shares lessons from the Renewable Fuels Standard that are relevant to the new Biden administration’s plans to reduce carbon with agriculture. Rogers and Manuel are writing a transnational history of ethanol in Brazil and the United States. Rogers is Associate Professor of Modern Latin American History and Arthur Blank/NEH Chair in the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences (2018-2021). Read an excerpt from The Hill article below along with the full piece: “Biden’s carbon farming policy must heed recent lessons.”

Third, and perhaps most importantly, the history of the RFS offers a stark reminder that there are no silver bullet solutions in agriculture. When high oil prices and political instability threatened the U.S. economy in the early 2000s, many policymakers saw ethanol as a panacea. As comedian Stephen Colbert joked at the time, “we solved the energy crisis. The answer was ethanol. Corn plus magic equals gasoline.” Fifteen years later, we understand that ethanol was hardly a cure-all for energy shortages or the environment. It has solved some problems — namely what to do with all the corn grown in the United States — but it has created new ones, including more and more nitrate-laced water in the Corn Belt and depleted topsoil. So it will be for carbon farming. Changing agricultural practices to sequester more carbon is undoubtedly a good idea. But it is just one of many changes needed to make agriculture more sustainable in the 21st century. Once carbon sequestration dollars begin flowing to farmers, it will be crucial to remember that it is just one solution among many needed to tackle our climate crisis.

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History Major Scott Benigno Publishes Research in ‘The Haley Classical Journal’

Scott Benigno

History major Scott Benigno recently published a paper, “A Martyrdom that Overshadowed Heresy: Saint Lucian of Antioch,” in The Haley Classical Journal. Scott’s paper originated in the course “Byzantium: Gold, Glory, and Gore in the Eastern Roman Empire,” taught by graduate student Mary Grace Gibbs-DuPree. Scott’s assignment was to pick a saint and explain how this saint came to be included in the Byzantine religious calendar. Saint Lucian of Antioch was so appealing, Scott thought, because he gained sainthood for having died for his faith but, during his lifetime, had strayed from Church doctrine. The journey from a class assignment based on a keen observation to a published paper was still long, though: “The peer-editing and review process was tough,” Scott said, “and I have never dug deeper to find sources than I did for this paper. It was a very rewarding experience.” Find the article here: “A Martyrdom that Overshadowed Heresy: Saint Lucian of Antioch.”

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Chira Organizes CLAH Roundtable “Freedom Before the Age of Revolution”

Dr. Adriana Chira, Assistant Professor of History, organized a roundtable for the recent virtual conference organized by the Conference on Latin American History. Titled “Freedom Before the Age of Revolution,” the conversation brought Chira into conversation with Fernanda Bretones (University of Florida), Mariana L. Dantas (Ohio University), Mary E. Hicks (Amherst College), and Alexandre Pelegrino (Vanderbilt University).