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by abritt

Eric Goldstein in ‘The Atlantic’

Dr. Eric Goldstein, Associate Professor of History, offered his expertise on questions of American and Jewish history and culture for an article in The Atlantic titled “Are Jews White?” The piece, written by Emma Green, explores how “Trump’s election has reopened questions that have long seemed settled in America—including the acceptability of open discrimination against minority groups.” Check out an excerpt from Goldstein’s contributions to the article below and read the full piece.

“Jewish identity in American is inherently paradoxical and contradictory,” said Eric Goldstein, an associate professor of history at Emory University. “What you have is a group that was historically considered, and considered itself, an outsider group, a persecuted minority. In the space of two generations, they’ve become one of the most successful, integrated groups in American society—by many accounts, part of the establishment. And there’s a lot of dissonance between those two positions.”

by abritt

Patrick N. Allitt on CSPAN: American Environmental History and the California Gold Rush

Dr. Patrick N. Allitt, Cahoon Family Professor of American History, recently delivered a lecture on the California Gold Rush of the mid-nineteenth century on CSPAN’s “Lectures in History” program. The lecture comes from a section of the class “American Environmental History” that Allitt gave on Emory’s campus in Atlanta on 19 September 2016. Check out the 50-minute lecture on the CSPAN website.

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by abritt

Alumna Sarah Van Dell on Beijing, UNO, and Serena Williams in ‘Medium’

Emory History Department alumna Sarah Van Dell, a former History major and Chinese Studies minor, recently published a terrific piece on the website Medium. The article, “22 Grand Slams? How I Beat Serena in UNO — at the Beijing airport,” chronicles Dell’s journey to Beijing to cover the China Open – the city’s first major tennis event – shortly after graduating in 2004. Enjoy the article here.

by abritt

Dr. Belle Tuten (PhD alumna) on “The Mansplaining Hordes”

Dr. Belle Tuten,  W. Newton and Hazel A. Long Professor of History at Juniata College, wrote a piece “The Mansplaining Hordes” on the blog Smart Women Talking. Tuten received her PhD from Emory’s History Department in the 1990s with Steve White. Read an excerpt of the post below and check out Tuten’s full post.

“As a college professor I have the luxury of having at least some claim to knowledge about my own expertise on my own turf (although many college students may not consider it knowledge worth having; that is a different problem). But I’m a professor in the humanities. There is certainly a different conundrum for my female and non-binary colleagues and colleagues of color in the social and natural sciences. I cannot help but think that as the humanities have more and more female etc. professors, the humanities get more and more sidelined by the “real” [read: quantitative?] social and physical sciences, from which female and nonbinary students and students of color are dropping out at demonstrably higher rates than straight white male ones. Is that also a statement on the nature of authority?”

 

by abritt

The 2016 Election in the Classroom: History Department Courses and Contemporary Politics

The Emory News Center recently featured two History Department courses in a piece examining offerings across the campus this semester that are engaging contemporary politics and especially the 2016 election. The courses from the Department are: “Race and the American Presidency” (Dr. Brett Gadsden) and “Popular Culture and Politics in the United States” (Dr. Daniel LaChance). Read more about each of the courses at “Unprecedented election cycle provides focus for courses.”

 

 

by abritt

Dr. Deborah Lipstadt on ‘Denial’ in the “Los Angeles Times”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH7ktvUWaYo]

The Los Angeles Times recently profiled Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies, following a weekend where the showing of film Denial was expanded throughout the United States. Based on Lipdstadt’s 2005 History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier, Denial tracks her 1996 libel case in a British court for accusing author David Irving of denying the Holocaust. Read the full piece here: “Denial’s’ real-life scholar who fought Holocaust revisionists says movie confronts those ‘who think it’s OK to change facts.”

“In a sense Lipstadt sees herself as similarly carrying on the legacy — speaking, via her scholarship, for a generation that can’t speak for itself. As depicted in the film, survivors would come up to her outside the trial and ask why none of them could testify; she had the difficult task of explaining to them, and herself, why the unimaginable possibility of silence was actually the wiser course and that allowing Irving to harangue them or twist their words in a cross-examination setting would do neither them nor the case any good.

“Lipstadt in this regard walks a fine line, feeling the emotion of the tragedy but practicing the rigor of its study.”

by abritt

Joseph Crespino in Conversation with Natasha Trethewey on History and Poetry at “Neil Asks” Event

Emory professors Joe Crespino, Kevin Young and Natasha Trethewey discuss poetry and history at the "Neil Asks" event.

Dr. Joseph Crespino, Jimmy Carter Professor of History, recently participated in a discussion about history and poetry with Natasha Trethaway, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing, director of the Creative Writing program and former U.S. poet laureate. Moderated by Kevin Young, Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing and curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, the conversation marked the 8th edition of the “Neil Asks” event. Check out an excerpt from the Emory News Center article below and read the full piece.

Both Crespino and Trethewey agreed that, with history and poetry, “there is always borrowing across the line,” as she noted. Crespino views that borrowing as a necessity, saying that even with regard to 20th-century history, where we are blessed with so much source material, still “there are so many silences in the archives” that need unpacking, whether by poets or historians.

 

by abritt

Professor Carol Anderson in ‘U.S. News’ Article: “Donald Trump’s Dismal Appeal to Black Voters”

Dr. Carol Anderson, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of African American Studies, was recently quoted in a U.S. News article “Donald Trump’s Dismal Appeal to Black Voters,” written by Joesph P. Williams.  Anderson analyzes Trump’s recent comments on contemporary race relations and his strategy to gain support among black voters. Anderson is the author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide (Bloomsbury, 2016). Read an excerpt of the article below or the full piece.

The black community understands stop-and-frisk to be “a tool of intimidation and criminalization,” Anderson says. “Again, the ‘outreach’ is not about courting black voters.”

Anderson doubts the college-educated whites Trump apparently covets would go for such a bald appeal to racial solidarity, but she argues the problem is with the messenger – in this case, a bombastic, occasionally crass, former reality-TV star – and not the message.

“If he were a more-skilled, more-nuanced politician, yes, it would work,” Anderson says. Kicking off his 1980 presidential campaign, she says, President Ronald Reagan “declared his love for states’ rights in Neshoba County, Mississippi, the site of a triple murder of civil rights workers. Reagan walked away with the white vote.”

Coming out of the Civil Rights Movement, “the key was to use dog whistles – crime, welfare, forced busing, neighborhood schools – to trigger a Pavlovian anti-black response, without being openly racist,” Anderson explains. “It was racism with plausible deniability and it worked for years. Trump, however, didn’t dog whistle, he just barked: ‘Mexicans are rapists, criminals, and drug mules. Muslims are terrorists – ban all of them.'”

by abritt

Dr. Deborah Lipstadt’s “History on Trial” Adapted to the Big Screen

Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies, authored History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier (Harper Perennial, 2005) about her experiences in 1996 facing libel charges for asserting that British author David Irving had distorted truth in his denials of the Holocaust. A decade after the book’s release, Lipstadt’s trial will be the subject of the film “Denial,” opening October 7 in Atlanta. Read more about Lipstadt’s story and the film.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5PREFWXTgI]

by abritt

Patrick Allitt in ‘The Spectator’: “The women who paved the way for Hillary’s bid for the White House”

Dr. Patrick N. Allitt, Cahoon Family Professor of American History, recently penned an article for The Spectator titled “The women who paved the way for Hillary’s bid for the White House.” With an eye to the upcoming presidential election, Allitt surveys the long history of women from the United States in electoral politics as voters and candidates. Check out the excerpt below and the full article.

“American women, in other words, have been important to women’s participation in politics on both sides of the Atlantic. The outcome in November will show whether any office remains out of reach to female candidates. “