Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor and Chair of African-American Studies, was recently interviewed by journalists from TIME and Slate in the wake of the Buffalo massacre earlier this year. Carried out at a local grocery store, the racially-motivated shooting left 10 people dead. Anderson’s contributions in these interviews draw especially from insights in her most recent book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021). Read each of the conversations here: “What the Buffalo Shooting Says About Black America’s Fraught Relationship With Guns” (TIME) and “The Dangerous Idea That Links the Buffalo Shooting and the Insurrection” (Slate).
Lipstadt on PBS: ‘Racism and Antisemitism “Firmly Intertwined”‘
Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently interviewed about the links between racism and antisemitism on the PBS program “Amanpour & Co.” Lipstadt spoke on the heels of her installation as the State Department’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, an ambassador-level position. Read the full transcript and watch the interview here: “Amb. Lipstadt: Racism and Antisemitism “Firmly Intertwined.”
Anderson on NPR: How Politicians Pick Their Voters
Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor and Chair of African-American Studies, was recently interviewed on the NPR Politics Podcast. In an installment of the podcast’s book club, host Danielle Kurtzleben talked to Anderson about her work One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2018). Their conversation centered on how “redistricting and state voter restrictions work to shape who really has a say in elections.” Listen to the interview here: “Here’s How Politicians Pick Their Voters.”
Alum Cameron Katz (’21) Connects Young Adults to History through ‘Made by Us’ Project
Emory History alum Cameron Katz has been busy since graduating in 2021. She has been working on a project called Made By Us, which connects 18-30 year olds with more than 150 museums and historic sites. Their biggest program is the “Civic Season,” Juneteenth – July 4th, a dedicated time to explore what you stand for through activities, events, resources, and more in order to become a more informed, engaged citizen year-round.
The FREE Kickoff Party took place at the Atlanta History Center in Midtown on Sunday, June 12, from 2-7PM. Anchoring celebrations happened all across the country at the same time.
Support for the 2022 Civic Season is generously provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Coca-Cola Company and AMERICAN HERITAGE® Chocolate.
Russia’s War on Ukraine: A Personal Conversation with Anastasiia Strakhova
History doctoral candidate Anastasiia Strakhova, whose research centers on Modern Jewish history, East European history, and migration, recently participated in a conversation about Russia’s war on Ukraine. The conversation was hosted by Prof. Chad Gibbs and the College of Charleston’s Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program. Strakhoka is a native of Kharkiv and was on a writing fellowship in Germany when Russia invaded Ukraine. Find the conversation here as well as below:
Vice President Harris Ceremonially Swears in Ambassador Deborah E. Lipstadt
Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently sworn in as ambassador by Vice President Kamala Harris. Lipstadt will serve as the State Department’s special envoy to combat antisemitism. Read more about Lipstadt’s new post via the Emory News Center (“Emory historian Deborah Lipstadt confirmed as U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism“) and Yahoo News (“Kamala Harris swears in envoy to combat antisemitism“). Also read below a quote from Lipstadt about the rising tide of hatred and racism across the globe, which she gave in an interview with NPR after the anti-black mass shooting in Buffalo, NY.
“The rising threat of anti-Semitism, the rising threat of racism, the rising degree of conspiratorial thinking, it’s not just a threat to the welfare of specific groups in this country – we saw it against the African American community in a tragic, tragic way this past week – but it’s a national security threat. It’s a threat to our communal welfare. And the need is immediate. And the need is great.”
Arturo Luna Loranca Receives Sheila Carson Dissertation Completion Fellowship
Doctoral candidate Arturo Luna Loranca has been awarded the 2022-’23 Sheila Carson Dissertation Completion Fellowship. The fellowship provides financial support for an advanced graduate student in the History doctoral program to complete their dissertation. Loranca’s dissertation “Canines and the Making of Mexico City: Three hundred years of human-dog encounters, 1521-1821,” is advised by Drs. Javier Villa-Flores, Yanna Yannakakis, and Karen Stolley.
Emory Honors Lesser, Payne, and Suh for Teaching and Advising
Multiple History Department faculty were recognized at the conclusion of the spring 2022 semester with honors and awards from the university. Dr. Jeffrey Lesser, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor and Director of the Halle Institute for Global Learning, was awarded the Eleanor Main Graduate Student Mentor Award. Dr. Matthew J. Payne, Associate Professor, received the Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award. Dr. Chris Suh, Assistant Professor, was given the Emory College Award for Academic Advising. Read about other honors and awards conferred at the spring 2022 commencement: “Faculty and staff honored for excellence in teaching, mentoring and more.”
Menashe Awarded the Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize by the German Historical Institute
Incoming faculty member Dr. Tamar Menashe, a historian of late medieval and early modern Jewish and European history, was recently awarded the Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize by the German Historical Institute. Menashe’s dissertation is titled “The Imperial Supreme Court and Jews in Cross-Confessional Legal Cultures in Germany, 1495-1690.” A graduate of Columbia University, Menashe will join Emory’s Department of History and the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies this fall as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. She will begin her appointment as the Jay and Leslie Cohen Assistant Professor of History and Jewish Studies in Fall 2023.
Dr. Claudia Kreklau (Ph.D., ’18) Publishes Article on Bismarck and Gender in ‘German History’
Emory History alum Dr. Claudia Kreklau published an article in the April issue of the journal German History. Titled “The Gender Anxiety of Otto von Bismarck, 1866–1898,” the piece is Kreklau’s fourth published article. Kreklau completed under Ph.D. in 2018 under the advisement of Dr. Brian Vick. She is Associate Lecturer at the University of St. Andrews. Read the abstract of the article below along with the full piece here.
“Building on critical re-examinations of the ‘Bismarck myth’ and scholarship on the fin de siècle crisis of identity in Europe, this article examines key vignettes in the political career of Otto von Bismarck during Prussia’s era of expansion and consolidation, c.1866–1898, through the lens of gender. It finds the legendary ‘Iron Chancellor’ experienced extreme gender-anxiety to the point of social dysphoria until the 1870s. Assigned feminine roles and lacking political decision-making power, Bismarck resorted to tantrums, tears, threats of self-harm and suicide, suffered mental breakdowns and enacted the kinds of ‘feminine’ intrigue of which he accused Europe’s royal women throughout his life. To stabilize their own identity in the early 1870s, he and his contemporaries weaponized misogyny to deflect accusations of femininity away from themselves and onto women at court. Bismarck claimed to have led negotiations in a masculine manner in the era of Europe’s colonial cabinet diplomacy. After his death, contemporaries studied the shape and measurements of Bismarck’s head to find an explanation for his alleged genius and marketed the statesman as an example of potent masculinity. Early hagiographic instrumentalizations of Bismarck should be read as part of a wider attempt to legitimize forms of white masculine rule and justify limited political participation in this period.”