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Reuther (Ph.D., ’16) Publishes ‘The Bonds of Kinship in Dahomey’ with IU Press


Dr. Jessica Catherine Reuther, a 2016 graduate of the doctoral program and Associate Professor of History at Ball State University, has published her first book, The Bonds of Kinship in Dahomey: Portraits of West African Girlhood, 1720–1940 (Indiana University Press, 2025). Relying on research throughout the world – from Benin, Senegal, France, and Switzerland to the United States – The Bonds of Kinship in Dahomey examines the common practice of girl fostering, or “entrusting,” in the kingdom and later colony of Dahomey (now the Republic of Benin) from 1720 to 1940. Reuther’s book draws from her dissertation, “Borrowed Children, Entrusted Girls: Legal Encounters with Girlhood in French West Africa, c. 1900-1941,” which was advised by Dr. Kristin Mann, Professor Emerita.

Read the abstract of The Bonds of Kinship in Dahomey below and consider purchasing a discounted copy during Women’s History Month from IU Press with code U25WHM (discount is 40%).

From the 1720s to the 1940s, parents in the kingdom and later colony of Dahomey (now the Republic of Benin) developed and sustained the common practice of girl fostering, or “entrusting.” Transferring their daughters at a young age into foster homes, Dahomeans created complex relationships of mutual obligation, kinship, and caregiving that also exploited girls’ labor for the economic benefit of the women who acted as their social mothers.

Drawing upon oral tradition, historic images, and collective memories, Jessica Reuther pieces together the fragmentary glimpses of girls’ lives contained in colonial archives within the framework of traditional understandings about entrustment. Placing these girls and their social mothers at the center of history brings to light their core contributions to local and global political economies, even as the Dahomean monarchy, global trade, and colonial courts reshaped girlhood norms and fostering practices.

Reuther reveals that the social, economic, and political changes wrought by the expansion of Dahomey in the eighteenth century; the shift to “legitimate” trade in agricultural products in the nineteenth century; and the imposition of French colonialism in the twentieth all fundamentally altered—and were altered by—the intimate practice of entrusting female children between households. Dahomeans also valorized this process as a crucial component of being “well-raised”—a sentiment that continues into the present, despite widespread Beninese opposition to modern-day forms of child labor.

by emoryhistorydept

Picone (Ph.D. ’19) Publishes ‘Landscaping Patagonia’ with UNC Press


Dr. María de los Ángeles Picone (PhD, 2019) has published her first book, Landscaping Patagonia: Spatial History and Nation-Making in Chile and Argentina, with UNC Press. Focused on northern Patagonia in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, the inventive monograph charts how an array of people who lived in, governed, and traveled through this region “sought to construct versions of Chile and Argentina based on their ideas about and experiences in geographical space.” Dr. Emily Wakild, a leading environmental historian of Latin America, describes Landscaping Patagonia as a “masterful, field-changing work.” She continues: “The Patagonian landscape takes center stage as Picone brings to life the people who inhabited this ecologically and culturally expansive region.” Picone, currently an Assistant Professor of History at Boston College, completed her dissertation under the advisement of Drs. Jeffrey Lesser, Thomas D. Rogers, and Yanna Yannakakis in 2019. Read the full abstract of Landscaping Patagonia below.

In late nineteenth-century Latin America, governments used new scientific, technological, and geographical knowledge not only to consolidate power and protect borders but also to define the physical contours of their respective nations. Chilean and Argentine authorities in particular attempted to transform northern Patagonia, a space they perceived as “desert,” through a myriad of nationalizing policies, from military campaigns to hotels. But beyond the urban governing halls of Chile and Argentina, explorers, migrants, local authorities, bandits, and visitors also made sense of the nation by inhabiting the physical space of the northern Patagonian Andes. They surveyed passes, opened roads, claimed land titles or leases, traveled miles to the nearest police station, rode miles on horseback to escape the police, and hiked the landscape.

María de los Ángeles Picone tells the story of how people living, governing, and traveling through northern Patagonia sought to construct versions of Chile and Argentina based on their ideas about and experiences in geographical space in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By repositioning the analytical focus from Santiago and Buenos Aires to northern Patagonia, Picone reveals how a wide array of actors, with varying degrees of political, economic, and social power, assigned distinctive—and sometimes conflicting—meanings to space and national identity.

by emoryhistorydept

Crespino, Jimmy Carter Professor of History, Remembers Life and Legacy of Former President

Members of Joe Crespino’s “Carter Presidency” seminar course visiting Jimmy Carter’s Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, in 2018.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter died on December 29, 2024, at the age of 100. Dr. Joseph Crespino, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty and Divisional Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Jimmy Carter Professor of History, has helped to shape of popular understandings of Carter’s life and legacy, including in the days since his passing. Carter nurtured a “unique collaboration” with Emory University, which included regular end-of-term visits to Crespino’s “Carter Presidency” seminar course. Crespino was named the first Jimmy Carter Professor in 2014. View a presentation Crespino recently gave about Carter’s legacy, along with a list of recent articles from, and media citations of, Crespino focused on the former president.

by emoryhistorydept

Crespino Helps to Reevaluate Legacy of Carter Presidency

Dr. Joseph Crespino was recently quoted in the Voice of America article, “At 100, former President Jimmy Carter’s legacy reevaluated,” which reappraises Carter’s presidency following his 100th birthday in early October 2024. An expert in the political and cultural history of the twentieth-century United States, Crespino is among multiple historians who contest conventional narratives of Carter’s presidential administration – as opposed to his much-celebrated post-presidency – as an unequivocal failure. Crespino developed this analysis, in part, through conversations with the former president, who would regularly visit campus to engage with students in Crepino’s courses in Bowden Hall.

Crespino is Senior Associate Dean of Faculty and Divisional Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences and the inaugural Jimmy Carter Professor of History. Read an excerpt of the VOA piece below along with the full article.

“Putting human rights front and center in American foreign policy — no president had done that in the way that Jimmy Carter had,” Crespino told VOA during a recent interview at his office on campus at Emory University. “It was important in shifting the balance of power in the Cold War, but it was also an important moment in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to reassert once again America’s moral responsibilities in the world.”

by emoryhistorydept

Welcoming New Doctoral Students

The Emory History Department is excited to welcome six new doctoral students to the department in the fall 2024 semester. The students’ specializations encompass – and compellingly transcend – an array of geographic, thematic, and chronological borders. Read abridged profiles of the new graduate cohort below and follow the links to read their full biographies on the History Department website.

Jessica Alvarez Starr received her B.A. (Spanish and History) and M.A. (Latin American Studies) from the University of Florida. Her undergraduate and master’s research focused on antislavery and anticolonial activism in nineteenth-century Puerto Rico, topics that she plans to expand upon for her dissertation. Her graduate work will be advised by Drs. Adriana Chira and Yanna Yannakakis.

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Becca de los Santos received her B.A. (French and History) from Stanford University. As an undergraduate she worked on the Senegal Liberations Project and conducted research in France and Senegal for her prize-winning honors thesis. Her graduate research interests include slavery, abolition, and emancipatory trajectories in the nineteenth-century French Empire, especially Senegal, Réunion, French Guiana, and Guadeloupe. Drs. Mariana P. Candido, Adriana Chira, and Clifton Crais will advise her work.

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Minju Kang received her B.A. from Ajou University and M.A. Seoul National University. Her master’s work focused on early modern Japan, particularly the impact of shogunate and domain policies on a small city in the Kantō region. Kang’s dissertation is tentatively titled “State Power and Local Society: Shogunate-Domain Relations in Japan’s Transition from the Early Modern to the Modern Era.” Drs. Laura Nenzi and Tonio Andrade will advise Kang’s work.

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Tymesha-Elizabeth Kindell received her B.A. in History and Sustainable Development from Columbia University. A native of Atlanta, her research centers on race, social, and sports movements in the nineteenth and twentieth century U.S., especially in the American South during the New South Era. Drs. Carl Suddler and Jason Morgan Ward will advise Kindell’s work.

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Pauli Purim Manfredini received her B.A. and M.A. from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná. Her research focuses on histories of gender and health, particularly in twentieth-century Brazil. Her dissertation is tentatively titled, “From Menstruation to Menopause: The Medicalization of Women’s Bodies in Early 20th-Century Brazil.” Drs. Jeffrey Lesser, Thomas D. Rogers, and Kylie M. Smith will advise her work.

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Yuan Wang received his B.A. from Anhui University and master’s degrees from Shanghai International Studies University and Duke University. His research tracks China’s unique developmental path to modern prosperity in a global context and since early modern period. His doctoral work will examine China’s silk industry and its maritime trade, particularly from 1540 to 1690. Wang’s graduate work will be advised by Drs. Tonio Andrade and Laura Nenzi.

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by emoryhistorydept

Celebrating Senior Prize Recipients

The Undergraduate Committee is pleased to announce the recipients of the History Department’s Undergraduate Senior Prizes for 2023-2024. They are:

George P. Cuttino Prize for the best record in European History: Harrison Helms

James Z. Rabun Prize for the best record in American History: Joe Beare

The African, Asian, and Latin American History Prize for the best record in African, Asian, and Latin American History: Orion Jones and Yingyi Tan

Matthew A. Carter Citizen-Scholar Award: Anhhuy Do

These awards were presented at our in-person Senior Celebration on Wednesday, May 1, 2pm – 3:30pm, in the Emory Student Center. Congratulations to all!

by emoryhistorydept

Navyug Gill (Ph.D., 2014) Publishes ‘Labors of Division’ with Stanford UP


Dr. Navyug Gill, Associate Professor of History at William Paterson University and a 2014 alum of the doctoral program, has published his first monograph. Gill’s book, Labors of Division: Global Capitalism and the Emergence of the Peasant in Colonial Panjab, was published by Stanford University Press this year. The work examines the history of landholding peasants and landless laborers and their implications for a new form of capitalist hierarchy in colonial India and the globe. Gill completed his doctoral work under the supervision of Dr. Gyanendra Pandey, Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor. Read the abstract of Labors of Division below, along with the Introduction and Table of Contents on the Stanford UP website.

One of the most durable figures in modern history, the peasant has long been a site of intense intellectual and political debate. Yet underlying much of this literature is the assumption that peasants simply existed everywhere, a general if not generic group, traced backward from modernity to antiquity. Focused on the transformation of Panjab during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this book accounts for the colonial origins of global capitalism through a radical history of the concept of “the peasant,” demonstrating how seemingly fixed hierarchies were in fact produced, legitimized, and challenged within the preeminent agricultural region of South Asia. Navyug Gill uncovers how and why British officials and ascendant Panjabis disrupted existing forms of identity and occupation to generate a new agrarian order in the countryside. The notion of the hereditary caste peasant engaged in timeless cultivation thus emerged, paradoxically, as a result of a dramatic series of conceptual, juridical, and monetary divisions.

Far from archaic relics, this book ultimately reveals both the landowning peasant and landless laborer to be novel political subjects forged through the encounter between colonialism and struggles over culture and capital within Panjabi society. Questions of progress, exploitation and knowledge come to animate the vernacular operations of power. With this history, Gill brings difference and contingency to understandings of the global past in order to re-think the itinerary of comparative political economy as well as alternative possibilities for emancipatory futures.

by emoryhistorydept

Alumni Update: Justin Rubino (C ’22), from History in ATL to Science in NYC

Honors History alum Justin Rubino recently shared news with us about his professional path since graduating in the spring of 2022. Rubino is currently working at Success Academy, a charter school in NYC, as a 6th grade science teacher. Success Academy is the top-performing public school system in NYC with locations in the Bronx, Harlem, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. While Rubino had originally planned to teach history, he is enjoying teaching science and helps out the students with their history questions from time to time ;).

Are you an Emory History alumnus? Please send us updates on your life and work!

by emoryhistorydept

Lowery’s New Film ‘Lumbeeland’ Explores Impact of Drug Trade on Lumbee Communities


Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery, Cahoon Family Professor of American History, has written and produced a new short film, titled Lumbeeland. With an all-Native crew and cast (the first film written, produced, and starring members of the Lumbee tribe), Lumbeeland explores the impact of the drug trade on Lumbee communities in Lowery’s birthplace of Robeson county, North Carolina. The film will premiere at the Lumbee Film Festival in July 2024, and the producers are in the midst of a fundraising campaign to support its release to wider audiences. Read a great piece about the origins and aims of the films here, and watch the trailer below.

by emoryhistorydept

Chira to Lead Inaugural Study Abroad Program to Cuba


The Emory History Department will inaugurate a study abroad program in Cuba in May 2024. Titled “History, Environment, and Society,” the 4-credit program will be led by Dr. Adriana Chira, Associate Professor of History, and be run in collaboration with the Fundación Antonio Nuñez Jiménez de la Naturaleza y el Hombre in Havana and Learn from Travel. Highlights of the program include: experiencing a rumba street party, visiting a tobacco farm, and snorkeling at a starfish reserve. If you are interested and/or have questions, please contact Prof. Chira at adriana [dot] chira [at] emory [dot] edu.