Panel Discussion, Lecture and Book Signings Focus on Civil War

Three prominent Civil War historians are coming to UA to discuss how the Civil War is relevant in the current political climate. They will also be using digital projects in research and in the classroom.

“The American Civil War Online and in the Public Sphere: A Panel Discussion,” will be held Sept. 14, 5-6:30 p.m. at 30 ten Hoor Hall.

Dr. Susannah J. Ural is co-director of the Dale Center for the Study of War & Society in the history department at the University of Southern Mississippi; Dr. Judith Giesberg is professor and director of graduate studies in the department of history at Villanova University; and Dr. Anne Sarah Rubin is history professor and associate director of the Imaging Research Center at the University of Maryland.

Ural is a war and society scholar by training, and her work focuses on soldiers and families of the U.S. She will present “The Beauvoir Veteran Project: Digitizing a Social History of Mississippi’s Confederate Home,” which is tied to the site: beauvoirveteranproject.org/.

Giesberg has directed three digital projects with her students: Memorable Days: The Emilie Davis Diaries; A Great Thing for Our People: The Institute for Colored Youth in the Civil War Era; and Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery. She is editor of the “Journal of the Civil War Era,” and will present “Learning Together: Doing Digital History with your Students.”

Rubin co-authored the award-winning “Valley of the Shadow,” an interactive history of the Civil War in two communities. She will present “Replaying the Past: Building Games for the History Classroom.”

The event is free and open to the public. Lesley J. Gordon, the Charles G. Summersell Chair of southern history, will moderate. Authors’ books will be available for sale and signing.

Lecture and Book Signing

In other news, the history department will also host a lecture and book signing on Sept. 20 featuring Dr. Matthew Karp. The event, held in 30 ten Hoor Hall from 5-6:30 p.m., is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Charles G. Summersell Chair of Southern History.

Karp, assistant professor of history at Princeton University, will be speaking about his first book, “This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy,” (Harvard Press, 2016). In 2017 the book won awards from the Society of Historians for American Foreign Relations and the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic.