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Alumni Update: Marnie Florin (BA, 2008; MA, 2008)

Marnie Florin, who graduated high honors from Emory in 2008 with both a BA and MA, has been at Google for just under a year working in Finance Operations. Marnie’s real passion, however, has been organizing diversity training sessions. Ze created a Transgender @ Google training that has been given to over 10 different offices worldwide and had over 300 participants since its launch in May. The training was mentioned in the NY Times and USA Today. Marnie is also working to establish monthly meetings where Googlers can meet and discuss sensitive topics, like race in America, in a safe and open environment.

Marnie Florin. Photo Credit Jason Henry for The New York Times
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Alumni Update: Belle Tuten (PhD 1997) and James (Jim) Tuten (PhD 2003)

Jim and Belle Tuten, both former PhD students in the Emory History Department, now live in Huntingdon, PA, where they are full professors in the History Department at Juniata College (a liberal arts college of 1600 students). This year they will celebrate 18 years at Juniata. They have two sons, ages almost 16 and 11. Jim is currently writing a biography of Edward Gantt, the highest ranking Confederate officer to change sides during the Civil War. Belle’s research has turned mostly to the history of medicine, and she is working on a long-term project on the history of breast diseases.

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Michael D. Thompson (Ph.D., 2009) Publishes ‘Working on the Dock of the Bay: Labor and Enterprise in an Antebellum Southern Port’

Michael D. Thompson (Ph.D., 2009), who recently was tenured and promoted to the rank of UC Foundation Associate Professor of American History at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, has published Working on the Dock of the Bay: Labor and Enterprise in an Antebellum Southern Port (University of South Carolina Press, 2015), a study of waterfront work and workers in Charleston, South Carolina, between 1783-1861.  Thompson’s manuscript for this project was awarded the 2011 Hines Prize from the College of Charleston’s Program in the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World (CLAW).

book jacket for Working on the Dock of the Bay

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David Eltis and Allen Tullos Win NEH Digital Humanities Implementation Grant

Drs. David Eltis and Allen Tullos recently won a Digital Humanities Implementation Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The NEH program “is designed to fund the implementation of innovative digital-humanities projects that have successfully completed a start-up phase and demonstrated their value to the field. Such projects might enhance our understanding of central problems in the humanities, raise new questions in the humanities, or develop new digital applications and approaches for use in the humanities.” Drs. Eltis and Tullos applied for funds to enhance the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (also known as slavevoyages.org) by adding additional records about the intra-American movement of enslaved persons and to recode the underlying database to allow for long term sustainability.

voyages

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Dr. Joseph Crespino on “Go Set a Watchman” in ‘The New York Times’

Professor Joseph Crespino published the following article in The New York Times on July 16: “”Go Set a Watchman,’ released to much fanfare this week, may have been an apprentice work for Harper Lee’s classic 1960 novel, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ but, in a way, the earlier book seems more sophisticated. It offers a subtle and surprising exploration of racial politics, and not merely because of the racist comments of Atticus Finch, one of the most beloved figures in American literature.” Crespino is the author of Strom Thurmond’s America (Hill & Wang, 2012).

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Alumni Update: Alexander Colonna (BA, 1998)

A graduate of Emory and former history major, Alexander Colonna is now an acute care surgeon at the University of Utah. He is also completing a Master of Science in Clinic Investigation, with a thesis/project titled “Measuring Sleep in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit.” Among his responsibilities is leading in the teaching of 4th year medical students that do sub-internships at the University of Utah.

Alexander’s eldest son turns 6 in November and is starting kindergarten next week. His daughter just turned three, and his youngest is now four months old. He became a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons last year. In addition, he is in the Army Reserves and has served in Iraq in 2011 and Afghanistan in 2013. Alexander’s wife Sarah is also faculty at the University of Utah, currently serving as a clinical instructor in the Oncology department. Soon to be promoted to assistant professor, she is in the MSCI program but will be finished with it this academic year.

Alexander and his wife are busy but couldn’t be happier!

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Erica Sterling (BA, ’15) Selected for John Lewis Fellowship

A recent graduate of Emory and former history major (doubled with Psychology), Erica Sterling recently was selected to receive the new John Lewis Fellowship. Read more about Erica and the fellowship here, or check out this brief description from the Emory News Center:

Three Emory students have been selected to receive the John Lewis Fellowship, a new human-rights focused educational program launched in partnership with the National Center for Civil and Human Rights (NCCHR) and Humanity in Action (HIA), Inc., an international educational organization.

Students and recent graduates from 119 universities applied for the new fellowship — named for civil rights icon U.S. Rep. John Lewis — which brings an inaugural class of 20 American and 10 European scholars to Atlanta this summer for a four-week program that explores the history and contemporary politics of diversity and minority rights in the United States.

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Dr. James V.H. Melton Publishes ‘Religion, Community, and Slavery on the Colonial Southern Frontier’

James V.H. Melton, Professor of History, has published a new monograph with Cambridge University Press titled Religion, Community, and Slavery on the Colonial Southern Frontier. See below for a description of the new work.

This book tells the story of Ebenezer, a frontier community in colonial Georgia founded by a mountain community fleeing religious persecution in its native Salzburg. This study traces the lives of the settlers from the alpine world they left behind to their struggle for survival on the southern frontier of British America. Exploring their encounters with African and indigenous peoples with whom they had had no previous contact, this book examines their initial opposition to slavery and why they ultimately embraced it. Transatlantic in scope, this study will interest readers of European and American history alike.

Religion, Community, and Slavery on the Colonial Southern Frontier

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Dr. Leslie Harris to Speak at Georgia Archives

Dr. Leslie Harris will speak at the Georgia Archives’ upcoming “Lunch and Learn” lecture series. Harris will discuss Slavery and Freedom in Savannah, co-edited with Daina Ramey Berry and released on the University of Georgia Press in 2014. The volume won the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council’s Excellence in Documenting Georgia’s History award. More information about the event can be found here.