Dr. Sharon T. Strocchia, Professor of History, will give a talk entitled “Women and Healthcare: Lessons from the Italian Renaissance” on March 22 at 4pm via Zoom. The event will include a panel discussion with Dr. Ruth Parker, Professor of Medicine in the Emory University School of Medicine, and Dr. Kylie Smith, Associate Professor in the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and Associated Faculty in the History Department. Strocchia’s talk will draw on her most recent and multiple-prize-winning book, Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy (Harvard UP, 2019). Find out more information and register for the event by emailing Becky Herrin (bherrin@emory.edu).
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Suddler to Moderate Panel, “Beyond the Games: Black Women & Sports – Past, Present, and Future”
Dr. Carl Suddler, Assistant Professor of History, will moderate the upcoming panel, “Beyond the Games: Black Women & Sports – Past, Present, and Future.” The event will feature Renee Montgomery (Executive and Co-owner, The Atlanta Dream), Elisabeth Akinwale (Co-founder of the 13th Flow Performance System), Keiko Price (Emory’s Clyde Partin Sr. Director of Athletics), and Lanita Gregory Campbell (Director of Emory’s Office for Racial and Cultural Engagement). The event, which coincides with Women’s History Month, will take place on Thursday, March 18, at 4:30pm. The Department of History is a sponsor of the event, which is also part of the 2021 Sports History Lecture Series.
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.“
Anderson Comments on GA Senate and House Voting Legislation
Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in an article in Atlanta Magazine. The piece focuses on the dozen bills currently alive in the Georgia state House and Senate that are focused on voting issues. Opponents critique this legislation as Republican efforts to curb voting rights in the wake of Democratic victories in the 2020 presidential election and for the state’s two senate seats in early 2021. Read an excerpt from the piece quoting Dr. Anderson below along with the full article: “Here’s what’s going on with voting legislation in Georgia and why opponents say it’s clear ‘voter suppression.'”
“But Emory University professor Carol Anderson, author of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy, says Republican lawmakers are going on a “bonanza” to deter alleged voter identity theft, despite no proof of voter fraud in recent elections. “They are targeting American citizens and denying them their right to vote,” she says. Anderson, an expert on the country’s history of voter suppression, says that the nature of the bills wasn’t surprising, but it was the sheer volume of bills introduced in Georgia during the current session that has garnered widespread attention, even as other states propose similar legislation.“
Slave Voyages Launches Consortium
Slave Voyages, a preeminent resource for the study of slavery and a digital memorial, recently launched a cooperative consortium with six other institutions to ensure its sustainability. The consortium includes Emory, the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture at William & Mary, Rice University, and three campuses at the University of California that will assume a joint membership: UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine and UC Berkeley. Slave Voyages contains the records of tens of thousands of trans-Atlantic and inter-American slaving voyages, and users can submit new records as they are encountered.
The database grew out of the archival research of Dr. David Eltis, Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus in the Emory History Department. Dr. Allen E. Tullos, Professor of History and Director of the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship, has worked on an extensive update and expansion of the project since 2018. He serves on the project’s steering committee, along with Emory History Department graduate alumni Dr. Alex Borucki (University of California, Irvine) and Dr. Daniel B. Domingues da Silva (Rice University). Read more about launch of the consortium through a quote from Eltis below along with articles in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and from the Emory News Center.
“‘The launch of the SlaveVoyages.org consortium is an innovation not just for scholars of slavery, but for all soft money digital humanities projects,’ says David Eltis, Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus of History and co-director of the SlaveVoyages project. ‘At long last, this consortium opens up a route to sustainability.‘
Klibanoff Discussues Arbery Case on Anniversary of His Death for WABE’s ‘A Closer Look’
Hank Klibanoff, James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently a featured guest on “A Closer Look,” a show produced by Atlanta’s NPR affiliate, WABE. Hosted by Rose Scott, the interview focuses on the investigation of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery one year ago this past February. Klibanoff, who directs Emory’s The Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project, dedicated season three of his podcast, “Buried Truths,” to the Arbery case. Listen to the episode here: “Activist, Legal Analyst, Professor Discuss The Ahmaud Arbery Case One Year After His Death.”
Anderson Honors Life and Legacy of Amelia Boynton in ‘The Guardian’
Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in an article honoring the life and legacy of Amelia Boynton. Published in The Guardian, the piece provides an overview of the work of the influential Selma-based civil rights activist, who was instrumental in the grassroots organizing that led to Voting Rights Act of 1965. Read an excerpt from the article quoting Anderson below along with the full piece: “Fight to vote: the woman who was key in ‘getting us the Voting Rights Act.‘”
“‘She got us the Voting Rights Act,’ said Carol Anderson, a historian at Emory University.
“‘It’s one of the ‘failings,’ and I’ll put that in quotes, of the writings of the civil rights movement, is that women who are key in organizing are written out,’ she added. ‘The grassroots work of Mrs Boynton just didn’t get the kind of respect and honor that it deserved.'”
Goldstein Moderates Conversation on Antisemitism at Emory Dental School
Dr. Eric L. Goldstein, Associate Professor of History and Judith London Evans Director of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, recently moderated a conversation about antisemitism at the Emory University Dental School. The talk featured Dr. Perry Brickman, author of the 2019 book Extracted: Unmasking Rampant Antisemitism in America’s Higher Education (Morgan James Publishing). Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and associated faculty in the History Department, wrote the forward for Extracted. Atlanta’s Breman Museum hosted the event as a part of their Atlanta Jewish History Talks winter series. Read more about the conversation here.
Lipstadt Offers Tribute to George Shultz for Work Supporting Emigration of Soviet Jews
Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and associated faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in a Jewish Telegraphic Agency article. The piece, “In extraordinary tribute, George Shultz hailed by Jewish leaders for helping free Soviet Jews,” praises the efforts of former U.S. secretary of state George Shultz (1982-89) to enable emigration of Soviet Jews from the USSR. Shultz died earlier this month at the age of 100. Read an excerpt quoting Lipstadt below, along with the full article.
“Deborah Lipstadt, professor of Holocaust studies at Atlanta’s Emory University, recalled an interview that Shultz gave the Los Angeles Times shortly after his term as secretary of state had ended. Asked to name the most memorable moment of his time in office, he said it was when he received a phone call from refusenik Ida Nudel announcing she was finally ‘home in Israel.‘
“That he told the press this was the highlight of his tenure gives you not only a measure of the man, but also a measure of how important this issue was for him,’ Lipstadt said. ‘We are privileged to have been touched by him.‘”
Klibanoff Comments on Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act
Hank Klibanoff, James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism and Associated Faculty in the History Department, recently commented on the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act for the Courthouse News Service. Conceived of by New Jersey high school students and signed into law in 2019, the Cold Case legislation directs the National Archives and Record Administration to compile documents related to unsolved cases of the civil rights era. A five-member board designated to review those documents has yet to be appointed. In the article Klibanoff discusses the significance of the legislation, which he sees as opening up productive avenues for solving cold cases and achieving justice for victims and their families. Read an excerpt from the piece below along with the full article: “Empty Board Hampers Effort to Release Records on Civil Rights-Era Killings.”
“Hank Klibanoff, director of the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Atlanta’s Emory University, said the law will help researchers dig into old documents on these killings ‘without having to jump through three, four, five hoops.‘
“It’s a process Klibanoff knows well: He had to file two different requests, one to the FBI and another to the National Archives, to get information about the killing of Isaiah Nixon, a Black man shot in 1948 for voting in Georgia.
“Klibanoff said the law drafted by the students – known formally as the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018 – could make more of a difference than when the federal government tried to reopen a bunch of the cases a few years ago in the hopes of closing them. In many instances, the government closed the cases when they concluded there was no one left alive to prosecute.
“‘This, you don’t have to have a living perpetrator,’ Klibanoff said. ‘This allows the perpetrators – even if they are deceased – to still face the judgement of history. This allows historians, or families and newspaper reporters, to come in, look at them and write stories about what the record shows happened.‘”