Joseph Crespino

Interim Dean Joe Crespino is one of the nation’s leading historians of the twentieth-century United States, with research expertise in modern political history, civil rights, and the American South. He is serving as interim dean of Emory College of Arts and Sciences for the Spring 2026 semester, until a permanent dean assumes the role this fall. 

Crespino is the Senior Associate Dean of Faculty, Divisional Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Jimmy Carter Professor of History at Emory University. His scholarship focuses on the political and cultural history of the United States and the American South since Reconstruction. 

He is the author of three books and the co-editor of a collection of essays. His work has appeared in leading academic journals as well as national publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, and The Wall Street Journal. His most recent book, Atticus Finch: The Biography—Harper Lee, Her Father, and the Making of an American Icon, was published in 2018 by Basic Books. He is currently contributing chapters on twentieth- and twenty-first-century U.S. history to America: A Narrative History, a leading textbook published by W.W. Norton and co-authored with David Emory Shi, Daina Ramey Berry, and Amy Murrell Taylor. 

His research has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Academy of Education. In 2014, he served as the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in American Studies at the University of Tübingen and has been named a Distinguished Lecturer by the Organization of American Historians.