In the fall of 2019 the Emory History Department welcomed four new faculty members. In the third of four posts, the following profiles the work of Assistant Professor Maria R. Montalvo. Dr. Montalvo completed her Ph.D. at Rice University in 2018.

Tell us about the focus of your research and principal current project. 

My research centers on the history of slavery, capitalism, and the law in the nineteenth-century United States. My current book project, tentatively titled “The Archive of the Enslaved: Power, Enslavement, and the Production of the Past,” examines the relationship between the production of enslaved property and the production of the past. Building on my analysis of over 17,000 sets of antebellum New Orleans court records, my project illuminates the significant connections between historical processes of commodifying enslaved human beings and the construction and preservation of the documentary archive.

Was there a particularly memorable moment from archival or field research that has had a lasting impact on your work or career?

Tracing an enslaved woman named Sarah Connor throughout much of her life and across the nineteenth century has been a transformative experience. Connor’s life and choices were shaped and constrained by the realities of living as an enslaved and, later, free woman of color in the nineteenth-century United States. Finally locating her last will and testament in Washington, D.C., after much time spent trying to learn about her through the words of her enslavers, was an experience I will not soon forget.

What sort of courses—undergraduate or graduate—are you most excited to offer at Emory?

I am most excited to offer courses for students at all levels where we can work together to not only learn about the past and how historians work to reconstruct it but also improve our reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. In the survey course I’ll be teaching this fall (American History Until 1877) as well as the senior research seminar I’ll be leading in the spring (Enslaved People and the Archive), the development of historical knowledge takes center stage in my classroom. I’m thrilled to be able to offer students the opportunity to do the work of historians while learning how to be more engaged individuals.

What drew you to Emory? 

Emory not only expects but also does everything it can to make sure that its faculty have every opportunity to succeed as scholars and as teachers. From the moment I set foot on campus, I have had zero doubts that Emory’s supportive community as well as its commitment to its faculty and its students make it the perfect place for me to grow as an educator and a historian. The sky’s the limit here, and I look forward to becoming an active member of the history department and the wider Emory community.

In the fall of 2019 the Emory History Department welcomed four new faculty members. In the second of four posts coming in the next two weeks, the following profiles the work of Assistant Professor Carl Suddler. Suddler completed his PhD at Indiana University, Bloomington and was Assistant Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University before coming to Emory.

Tell us about the focus of your research and principal current project. 

As a scholar of African American history whose research interests lie at the intersections of youth, race, and crime, I am committed to developing better understandings of the consequences of inequity in the United States. My research and teaching interests are related to twentieth-century U.S. history, African American urban history, histories of crime and punishment, the carceral state, sport history, and histories of childhood and youth. My first book, Presumed Criminal: Black Youth and the Justice System in Postwar New York (New York University Press, 2019) points to a critical shift in the carceral turn between the 1930s and 1960s when state responses to juvenile delinquency increasingly criminalized black youths and tethered their lives to a justice system that became less rehabilitative and more punitive.

In researching the criminalization of black youth for my first book, I was struck by how the state extended its surveillance powers through recreation and organized sports. As early as the late nineteenth century, there were calls from city authorities to increase recreational spaces and facilities to curb youth crime. It was assumed that to prevent delinquent behaviors, city authorities needed to better occupy youths’ idle time with structured activities that reinforced valuable life lessons, encouraged them to take instructions, and ordered them to follow rules. Thus, sports were used to distract youths from the social ills that city life presented––poor housing, disproportionate access to education, and inadequate healthcare––while providing an escape and promoting an ill-advised “way out” for its most vulnerable players.

In my current projects, I am examining these connections, including the unchallenged use of discretion in both sports and criminal justice, to bring together histories of the carceral state and sports studies.

Was there a particularly memorable moment from archival or field research that has had a lasting impact on your work or career?

I was in the throes of the archive for the first book when the Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture in Harlem acquired James Baldwin’s personal papers. This was big for me, because Baldwin was engaged in some of the more critical moments of the New York City history that I touch on in the book and it allowed me to connect them to a historical giant.

What sort of courses – undergraduate or graduate – are you most excited to offer at Emory?

My research and scholarly insight relate directly to my teaching interests – so whenever, I have an opportunity to teach courses that engage various intersections of youth, race, and crime, I get excited. This semester, I’m looking forward to both undergraduate courses – a research seminar on sports in American history and culture and a postwar African American urban history course. In the Spring, I am planning to teach a graduate readings course on mass incarceration.

What drew you to Emory? 

The students and the intellectual community drew me to Emory. When I was a postdoctoral fellow at the James Weldon Johnson Institute (jwji) for the Study of Race and Difference in AY2015–2016, I got a sneak peek about what it was like to be at Emory. I taught an undergraduate course, which allowed me to engage with students regularly –– and I was blown away by their level of dedication. I also engaged with various faculty and participated in a weekly colloquium with visiting scholars from across the country.

 

 

In the fall of 2019 the Emory History Department welcomed four new faculty members. In the first of four posts coming in the next two weeks, the following profiles the work of Assistant Professor Chris Suh. Suh completed his PhD at Stanford University in 2018.

Tell us about the focus of your research and principal current project. 

My research focuses on several interrelated topics: the United States in the Pacific, Asian American history, and the role of ideas about race and ethnicity in shaping human life.

My current book project, tentatively titled At the Dawn of the Pacific Era, charts the rise of the United States as a Pacific power in the first half of the twentieth century, a process that entailed an unprecedented level of overseas imperial expansion and immigration restriction. My project takes as its starting point that the United States began to rise as a Pacific power during the “Progressive Era”—a period mostly known for the surge of reform movements dedicated to the expansion of democracy and eradication of social problems caused by industrial capitalism. I argue that historical figures of this era genuinely came to see empire and exclusion as “progressive” because American policies were deliberately shaped to allow for the selective inclusion of certain Asians in imperial governance of the Pacific as they appeared to acquire the virtues of Western “civilization.” The policy of selective inclusion did not aim to end racial inequality. Yet from the perspective of certain race leaders at the time, this policy represented an opportunity for the non-white races to climb up the racial hierarchy and claim their place within the world of empires, not as “subject races,” but as one of the “civilized” powers.

Was there a particularly memorable moment from archival or field research that has had a lasting impact on your work or career?

I actually came to work on my book project after encountering the incredible diary of Yun Ch’i-ho, class of 1893, the first international student at Emory. Although Yun is well known in Korean history, much less is known about his exceptionally perceptive observations of how ideas about race shaped not only American domestic policy but also foreign policy. As a Korean educated in the Jim Crow South, Yun was particularly well positioned to see, even after his return to Korea, how ideas about race were crucial to maintaining the imperial order in the Pacific that the United States helped construct in the 20th century. When I was in graduate school, I visited Emory’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library to look at Yun’s papers and published a portion of my research in the Journal of American History under the title, “What Yun Ch’i-ho Knew: U.S.-Japan Relations and Imperial Race Making in Korea and the American South, 1904–1919” (2017).

What sort of courses – undergraduate or graduate – are you most excited to offer at Emory?

I am excited to have the opportunity to introduce students to the tools of the historian and help them understand our present moment through several courses that relate to my research interests.

This fall, I will be teaching a research seminar called “Transpacific Lives” that explores the history of US-Pacific relations through biographies, autobiographies, and historical monographs whose narratives are driven by an identifiable cast of central figures. I am hoping that students will make use of the rich archival collection at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library and discover interesting historical connections that have been obscured by nation-bound narratives, just as I did with my work on Yun Ch’i-ho.

Also related to my research is a lecture course on Asian American history, which I will teach in spring. It will investigate several timely issues including legal and illegal immigration, structural and cultural racism, and liberal and conservative politics. In addition to traditional historical sources, I will use photographs, film, music, art, and works of fiction as a lens through which to interpret multiple dimensions of Asian American lives as well as American society at large.

In addition, I am very excited to offer this fall a lecture course titled “Sounds of the Century: Understanding 20th Century US History through Popular Music,” which draws on my undying personal interest in popular music. The course will explore race, gender, sexuality, class, and nation through various kinds of music and social movements in the 20th century. I hope this course will offer students an interdisciplinary angle to understand many pressing issues in today’s political culture and cultural politics.

What drew you to Emory? 

Working at Emory is a dream come true for me. Not only did I already have interest in Emory’s relationship with the Pacific World through my research, I was also deeply impressed by Emory’s institutional commitment to create an educational environment for students from all backgrounds. Emory is home to world-class faculty, staff, and students, and I am excited to join this thriving community.