Harvard University Press recently published a Q&A with Dr. Sharon T. Strocchia, Professor of History, about her newest book, Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy (Harvard UP, 2019). The exchange, which was published as part of Women’s History Month, outlines the major themes and historiographic contributions of Strocchia’s monograph. Read the piece on the Harvard UP Blog: “Q&A with Sharon Strocchia.”
Category / Research
Daniel Thomas (20C), History Major and Fox Center Honors Fellow, Writes About Separatism in Eastern Ukraine
Daniel Thomas, a senior double major in history and international studies, recently wrote a piece about his research on separatism in Eastern Ukraine for the blog of the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory. Thomas is a 2019-’20 Fox Center Humanities Honors Fellow, completing his honors thesis with a regional focus on the Donbas in Eastern Ukraine. The thesis draws on archival research and interviews that Thomas conducted in Kyiv in 2019. Associate Professor Matthew Payne is Thomas’ adviser. Read an excerpt from the post on the Fox Center’s blog below along with the full piece: “Neighbors against Neighbors: A historical study of separatist groups and rhetoric in Eastern Ukraine.”
The Fox Center’s generous grant has afforded me both the privilege of working in a tightly-knit epistemic community and the ability to conduct further research into my topic. The lump sum that I received as a part of my fellowship helped fund my interview-collecting over the Winter Break in Kyiv. Hearing the lived experiences of the Donbas’ denizens contributed a great deal to this project. I spoke with refugees and former separatist affiliates who dealt first-hand with the destructive repercussions of Donbasian separatism. Their accounts and lives illustrated that identity is more of a practice in subjectivity than it is an objective truth. Although my interviewees admitted that the separatist cause was rooted in a real problem (the callousness many politicians, both in Eastern and Western Ukraine, had towards the poor), they also admit that the separatists’ cause did little to ameliorate the Donbas’ desperate situation. Instead, it amplified it, displacing millions upon millions of Donbasians from their homeland. Without their insight, this thesis would have been at best a clueless meditation on a “forgotten” conflict…
Rogers and Manuel Publish Op-Ed in ‘The Brazilian Report’
Thomas D. Rogers, Arthur Blank/NEH Chair in the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences and Associate Professor of History, recently published an opinion editorial with his collaborator Jeffrey T. Manuel in The Brazilian Report. The piece, titled “U.S. ethanol industry should take a leaf out of São Paulo’s book,” explores how ethanol policy and programs in São Paulo, Brazil, could inform energy administration in the United States. Rogers and Manuel are writing a transnational study of ethanol policy in Brazil and the U.S. Read the full article (paywall protected): “U.S. ethanol industry should take a leaf out of São Paulo’s book.”
Department of History Workshop to Feature ‘Ethanol Lands’ by Rogers and Co-Author Manuel (CANCELLED)
The next meeting of the History Department Workshop will feature Dr. Thomas D. Rogers’s current book project, “Ethanol Lands: Energy, Agriculture, and Sustainability in the United States and Brazil.” Rogers is co-authoring the book with Dr. Jeffrey T. Manuel, Associate Professor of Historical Studies at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. The workshop will take place on Friday, March 20, from 12-1:30pm in the Major Seminar Room. Please RSVP to Becky Herring (becky [dot] herring [at] emory [dot] edu) if you plan to attend. 
Schainker, Yates Featured Among Emory’s Robust Contingent of Fulbright Scholars
Emory University was recently named a top producer of Fulbright scholars by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Six professors and administrators were awarded Fulbright Scholar Awards in 2019-20. Those awardees include Dr. Ellie R. Schainker, Arthur Blank Family Foundation Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies. Schainker will conduct research in Israel and Lithuania for her current project, “Rites of Empire: Jewish Religious Reforms in Imperial Russia, 1850-1917.” Read our earlier story about Dr. Schainker’s project: “Schainker Wins Fulbright Global Scholarship and Fellowship at Moscow’s Jewish Museum & Tolerance Center.”
The awardees also include former academic department administrator Kelly Yates, who is now assistant director of the Halle Institute for Global Research. Yates received a Fulbright position in the U.S.-Germany International Education Administrators Program, which creates links with the societal, cultural and higher education systems of other countries.
Read about the other awardees in the last year from the Emory News Center: “Emory named a top producer of Fulbright Scholars.”
Event to Showcase Strocchia’s Work on Women and Healthcare in the Italian Renaissance (CANCELLED)
On Wednesday, March 25, the Department of History will host an event, “Women and Healthcare: Lessons from the Italian Renaissance,” marking the publication of Dr. Sharon T. Strocchia’s newest book, Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy (Harvard UP, 2019). Dr. Strocchia’s discussion of the book will be followed by a panel with Dr. Ruth Parker (Emory University School of Medicine) and Prof. Kylie Smith (Woodruff School of Nursing). The event will take place from 4:30 pm-6:30 pm in the Jones Room of Woodruff Library.
See the Event flyer below, and also read a recent History Department Q&A with Dr. Strocchia about Forgotten Healers.
History Major Emily Sharp To Present Honors Thesis at Hopkins’ Inaugural Undergraduate Research Symposium
Undergraduate student Emily Sharp, who is a double major in history and English, will present her history honors thesis at the inaugural Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium at Johns Hopkins University in April. Her thesis is titled, “Roy Cohn’s America: Conservatism, Sexual Politics, and Memory in 21st Century America.”
Department of History Workshop to Feature Crais’s New Book Project
Dr. Clifton Crais, Professor of History and Director of the Institute for African Studies, will present at the Department of History workshop on Friday, February 21, in the Major Seminar room in Bowden Hall. Crais will be sharing the introduction to his new book project, tentatively titled “A Global History of the Present, 1750-1914.” Lunch will be provided. RSVP to Becky Herring at becky [dot] herring [at] emory [dot] edu.
Tom Chaffin (PhD, ’95) Captures Friendship Between Jefferson and Lafayette in ‘Revolutionary Brothers’
Congratulations to Tom Chaffin (PhD, ’95) on the publication of his new book, Revolutionary Brothers: Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Friendship that Helped Forge Two Nations (St. Martin’s Press, 2019). Steeped in primary sources, Revolutionary Brothers casts fresh light on the remarkable, often complicated, friendship between Jefferson and Lafayette. The Wall Street Journal describes Chaffin’s book as “A gripping narrative that offers a revelatory perspective on the combined origins of two nations . . . compelling drama and instructive history.” Read more about Chaffin’s work on his website.
Jason Morgan Ward Speaks on C-SPAN Panel ‘Reinterpreting Southern History’
Dr. Jason Morgan Ward, Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies, recently contributed to a panel on C-SPAN about new approaches to understanding the history of the South. The panel, which took place at the 2019 Southern Historical Association annual meeting, included Ward along with other authors from the upcoming edited volume Reinterpreting Southern Histories: Essays in Historiography (LSU Press, 2020). Find video of the full panel at “Reinterpreting Southern History.”