Congratulations to history majors Elana Cates, Mary Hollis McGreevy, Samantha Perlman, and Lindsay Petersohn, who were selected for induction into the 100 Senior Honorary Emory Class of 2017. This annual list comprises the most outstanding 100 seniors from Oxford College, Emory College, Goizueta Business School, and the School of Nursing. As explained by the 100 Senior Honorary website, selected students “are deeply committed to their beliefs, pursuits, or passions” and “have made outstanding contributions to Emory through academics, athletics, leadership, volunteerism, or even through personal relationships such as mentoring or helping other students.” Check out the full list of 2017 inductees here.
Category / Undergraduate Students
History Honors Students McGlade and Perlman Receive FCHI Fellowships
Congratulations to History Honors students Hugh McGlade and Samantha Perlman, who have received Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry (FCHI) Undergraduate Humanities Honors Fellowships for Spring 2017. The fellowship receives support from the Emory College of Arts and Sciences Honors Program and aids students completing honors projects for one semester. Along with office space at the FCHI and fellowship resources, recipients participate in a dynamic community of cross-generational scholars. Learn more about the FCHI fellowships and check out the brief profiles of McGlade and Perlman below.
Hugh McGlade is majoring in History and International Studies. He focuses on Latin America, especially Brazil, and is a student of Portuguese. His thesis investigates a hunger alleviation program in Brazil during the early 1940s, exploring questions of capitalism, politics, and cultural exchange.
Samantha Perlman is double majoring in History and African American Studies. Her honors thesis stems from her experience witnessing student protest movements while abroad in South Africa, as well as her interest in American educational reform. Her thesis examines the history of affirmative action at Emory College from 1969 to 1989. By uncovering the story of affirmative action at Emory, her project provides historical context for how Emory can address systemic problems of underrepresentation and promote a more inclusive campus climate.
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.
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.”
Emory Launches First Annual Brazil Week, September 19-23
On September 19, 2016, Emory will inaugurate the first annual Brazil Week, a celebration of the university’s engagement with Brazil. The multidisciplinary series of activities, organized by Emory’s Brazil Initiative through the Claus M. Halle Institute for Global Learning, will involve History faculty and students from Emory and elsewhere. History Department faculty within the Brazil Initiative include Dr. Jeffrey Lesser (Chair and Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of History) and Dr. Thomas D. Rogers (Associate Professor of Modern Latin American History). Check out a schedule of events below, read more about the Brazil initiative, and visit this page to register for the week’s events.
Placing Time: The Power of Mapping Technology for Historical Analysis
Tuesday, September 20
4:00-5:00pm
Oxford Road Building Auditorium
Emory professor Michael Page will present Atlanta Explorer, a project dedicated to building and disseminating geographical datasets and tools for exploring Atlanta’s history. Professor Luís Ferla of Federal University of São Paulo will describe the work of Hímaco: History, Maps, Computers, a collaborative laboratory of historians, geographers, and computer scientists exploring the spatial history of São Paulo. This panel, moderated by Professor Michael Elliott, Interim Dean of Emory College of Arts and Sciences, features the current work of these partners in a new collaboration on Brazilian urban studies.
Zika: A Brazilian Perspective on A Global Challenge
Wednesday, September 21
4:00-5:30pm, followed by a casual reception
Atwood Hall 360
(New Chemistry Building)
Zika virus’ arrival in Brazil and the rest of the world unleashed a storm of public health challenges and media attention. Brazil has been at the forefront of the epidemic and the efforts to address it, and transmission is now ongoing in many areas in the Americas, including Florida and Puerto Rico in the U.S. Dr. Mariana Kikuti, DVM, PhD Candidate, Federal University of Bahia; Dr. Uriel Kitron, Goodrich C. White Professor of Environmental Sciences, Emory University; Dr. Igor Paploski, DVM, PhD Candidate, Federal University of Bahia; and Dr. Lincoln Suesdek, Researcher at Scientific Council of Butantan Institute, Brazil, will provide a brief overview of Zika and its mosquito vector – Aedes aegypti, present findings from their studies in the Brazilian cities of São Paulo and Salvador, and answer questions from the audience.
Bate-Papo: Portuguese Conversational Hour
Friday, September 23
1:00-2:30pm
Great Room, Longstreet-Means Hall
Come join us for pizza and conversations in Portuguese with students, faculty, and staff from across the university and broader community.
Additional cultural events will be organized throughout the week by the Brazilian Student Association (BRASA), including Capoeira Performance/Workshop on Monday, September 19 at 7:30 pm in the Woodruff P.E. Center and a Samba performance. Visit here for updates and details.
Celebrating Emory History Graduating Seniors, 2016
This past April the History Department celebrated the accomplishments and contributions of senior majors and minors in the days before graduation. In addition to their leadership in other areas on campus, these students were celebrated as members of the History Honors Society (Phi Alpha Theta), history honors students, and/or recipients of a Department prize. The Department’s Senior Celebration was held on April 27 in the J. Russell Major Seminar Room.
Honors Students attending the Senior Celebration: (left to right, back row) Jane Chang, Emily Moore, Julia Wahl, Shannon Stillmun; (left to right, front row) Adam Goldstein, Gideon Weiss, Declan Hahn.
Members of the History Honors Society, Phi Alpha Theta, at the Senior Celebration: (left to right, back row) Julia Keating, Prof. Kathryn Amdur – Faculty Advisor, Julia Wahl, Emily Moore, Ami Fields-Meyer, Tom O’Leary; (left to right, front row) Adam Goldstein, Declan Hahn.
Senior Prize Recipients awarded at the Senior Celebration: (left to right) Declan Hahn – the Latin America & Non-Western World Prize; Julia Wahl – the George P. Cuttino Prize in European History; Adam Goldstein – the Matthew A. Carter Citizen-Scholar Award; Shannon Stillmun – the James Z. Rabun Prize in American History; Prof. Brian Vick, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Collaboration between Professor Mark Ravina and History Major TJ Greer Featured on ‘Digital Humanities Now’
Over the last year Dr. Mark Ravina and history major TJ Greer have collaborated on a digital humanities project examining the rhetoric of student activism and university administration responses through text mining. The project was recently profiled by the editors of the website Digital Humanities Now, where the study’s findings will appear in a series of blog posts. Read an excerpt from their first post below (“Mining the Movement: Some DH perspectives on student activism”) and check out the full run here.
This first blog reflects our first preliminary results, but even at this early stage we feel comfortable with two declarations: one empirical and one political. The empirical observation is that university administrations are largely talking past students, employing a radically different vocabulary than that of student demands. Our political observation is that universities need to address student demands seriously and directly, even if that means admitting that some problems are deeply structural and that solutions will require decades rather than months or years.
Roark Prize, Endowed by Young Alumni, Established to Support Undergraduate Research
Retiring Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of American History, Dr. Jim Roark, will be honored with a scholarship for undergraduate research bearing his name. The Roark Prize will support rising seniors in the History Department pursuing research in the United States relating to their honors thesis. The idea for the prize originated with two former history students, Ben Leiner (’14) and Naveed Amalfard (’14), who counted Roark as an inspiring mentor and professor. Read the Emory News Center’s full report on the prize here.
Graduating History Major, Ami Fields-Meyer, Named Emory College Class Orator
Following the university-wide commencement ceremony on May 9, senior history major Ami Fields-Meyer will speak to his fellow graduates as the class orator at the Emory College diploma ceremony. The Los Angeles native arrived at Emory with sights set on a career in politics as an elected official. A history class early on changed his perspective and led him to a major in History (along with a minor in African-American studies) instead of political science.
“[H]e took a history class focused on the history of inequality in the United States. Fields-Meyer discovered life as a self-described news junkie took on greater depth when he understood the historical context of current events.”
Fields-Meyer also highlights his experience in the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases course, co-taught by historian Brett Gadsden and Hank Klibanoff. Gadsden remembers Fields-Meyer fondly from the class: “One thing I’ve really admired is his efforts to bridge the past and the present, to really think about the gap between the two, and understand the echoes of history. That’s testimony to me of a dynamic mind.”
In addition to his accomplishments as a Dean’s Achievement Scholar, Fields-Meyer co-founded TableTalk, an initiative designed to spur conversations between groups at Emory that would not likely otherwise interact.
Read the full profile on Fields-Meyer here.
Graduating History Major Takuya Maeda Profiled for Innovative Scholarship
In May of 2016 senior Takuya Maeda will graduate with highest honors in history. Maeda was recently profiled for his research accomplishments at Emory, most especially his work on the use of funds from the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 “set aside for the Japanese-American community to develop educational efforts and awareness about internment” during World War II. Maeda received a grant from the Scholarly Inquiry and Research at Emory (SIRE) program to conduct this research, which his mentor Professor Daniel LaChance described as “groundbreaking.” Maeda plans to continue and expand this project through graduate work in history. Read the full profile on Takuya here.
