Category / Undergraduate Students

by abritt

Emory Launches First Annual Brazil Week, September 19-23

image of mosquito silhouette

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.

brazil-week-placing-time-flier-copy-1

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.

 

by abritt

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

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.

PhAT

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.

Sr Prize Recipients

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.

 

 

 

by abritt

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.

Screen Shot 2016-06-07 at 11.34.45 AM

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.

by abritt

Roark Prize, Endowed by Young Alumni, Established to Support Undergraduate Research

Story image

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.

by abritt

Graduating History Major, Ami Fields-Meyer, Named Emory College Class Orator

Story image

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.

by abritt

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.

Story image

by abritt

President Jimmy Carter Discusses the Importance of History and Archives with Students from Spring Course Taught by Dr. Joseph Crespino

On April 21 President Jimmy Cater was on Emory’s campus to speak to students in a session titled “Why Archives Matter: Memory, Meaning and History.” Included in the event where students from Dr. Joseph Crespino’s spring undergraduate course on the history of politics and race in the United States. Aside from a lively question and answer period with the attendees, the event served to highlight recent renovations at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library. Read more about the event on the Emory News Center’s site here.

photo description

by abritt

Three History Majors Recognized in Woodruff Library Undergraduate Research Award Contest

The panel of judges for the 2016 Woodruff Library Undergraduate Research Award recognized the outstanding scholarship of three History Department majors. Samantha Keng and Zixuan (Armstrong) Li each received $500 prizes for undergraduate research papers. Keng’s paper, sponsored by Professor Carol Anderson, is titled “Model Minority Awakenings: Vincent Chin, Asian America’s Emmett Till.” Li’s work, titled “Doner Kebab: Symbol of German Multiculturalism in the Turkish Immigration Question,” was supported by Dr. Astrid Eckert. A third History Department major, Emily Moore received an Honorable Mention. Titled “‘A Casket Full of Precious Memoirs’: The Town of Washington’s Conception of Its Own History,” Moore was sponsored by Dr. Leslie Harris. Congratulations to these students and their advisers on outstanding work. Descriptions of each piece can be found in the Emory Undergraduate Research Journal (EURJ) from pages 66-69. Also see the news release on the Woodruff library’s Scholar Blog.

From left to right: Emily Moore, Zixuan (Armstrong) Li, Samantha Keng, & Hannah ConwayFrom left to right: Emily Moore, Zixuan (Armstrong) Li, Samantha Keng, & Hannah Conway

 

by abritt

Spring 2016: Graduate Students Design and Teach Courses to Emory Undergraduates

Each semester students from Emory’s History graduate program enter the classroom to teach courses they have designed and developed through the TATTO program. This spring five third-year graduate students are teaching dozens of Emory undergraduates, exposing them to fascinating topics ranging across time and space.

These courses enable graduate students to gain valuable experience teaching subjects directly linked to their own research interests. More broadly, the experience forms part of the History Department and Laney Graduate School’s holistic training that prepares graduate students for careers in teaching and research.

Below are the five courses being taught this semester, along with links to the profiles of each instructor and the syllabi: