Curriculum Vitae
Edward L. Ayers
Education
Teaching and Administrative Positions
Books
Awards for Scholarship
Awards for Teaching and Service
Grants and Fellowships
Digital Humanities
National Service
Faculty Senate – University of Virginia
Professional Activities
Articles, Essays, and Reviews
Education
B.A.–University of Tennessee, American Studies, 1974 summa cum laude
M.A.–Yale University, American Studies, 1977
Ph.D.–Yale University, American Studies, 1980
Teaching and Administrative Positions
President, University of Richmond, 2007–present
Buckner W. Clay Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia, 2001–2007
University of Virginia, Assistant Professor, 1980–1986; Associate Professor, 1986–1992; Professor, 1992–1993; Hugh P. Kelly Professor, 1993–2007
Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Palo Alto, 1999–2000
John Adams Professor of American Studies, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, 1995
Books
The Crucible of the Civil War: Virginia from Secession to Commemoration, edited with Gary Gallagher and Andrew Torget (University of Virginia Press, 2006)
What Caused the Civil War? Reflections on the South and Southern History, (W.W. Norton, 2005)
In the Presence of Mine Enemies: War in the Heart of America, 1859–1863, (W.W. Norton, 2003)
The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War—The Eve of War, CD-ROM and book, co-authored with Anne S. Rubin (W. W. Norton and Company, 2000)
American Passages: A History of the United States, co-author (Harcourt, 2000); second edition (Thomson Wadsworth, 2003); third edition (Thomson Wadsworth, 2006)
The Oxford Book of the American South: Testimony, Memory, and Fiction, edited with Bradley Mittendorf (Oxford University Press, 1997)
All Over the Map: Rethinking American Regions, co-editor and co-author, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996)
The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (Oxford University Press, 1992; paperback edition, 1993; abridged edition, 1995; 15th Anniversary Edition, 2007)
The Edge of the South: Life in Nineteenth-Century Virginia, co-edited with John C. Willis (University Press of Virginia, 1991)
Vengeance and Justice: Crime and Punishment in the Nineteenth-Century American South (Oxford University Press, 1984; paperback edition, 1986)
Awards for Scholarship
Albert J. Beveridge Award, American Historical Association, for the best English-language book on the history of the United States, Canada, or Latin America from 1492 to the present, December 2004
Bancroft Prize for Distinguished Book in American History, Columbia University, March 2004
Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, School of Graduate Studies Award for Outstanding Achievement, Yale University, May 2003
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected as member in 2001
E-Lincoln Prize for Best Digital Project on the Era of the American Civil War, given by the Gilder-Lehrman Institute and Gettysburg College, 2001 ($40,000)
Elected to Society of American Historians, 1994
Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley Award, given by the Southern Historical Association for the best book in Southern history, 1993
James Rawley Prize, given by the Organization of American Historians, for best book on the history of race relations in the United States, 1992
National Book Award, Finalist for Nonfiction, 1992
Pulitzer Prize, Finalist for History, 1992
Phi Beta Kappa Prize for best book by University of Virginia faculty member, 1992
J. Willard Hurst Award for Best Book in American Legal History, co-winner for 1984-1985, Law and Society Association
Awards for Teaching and Service
U.S. Professor of the Year for Research and Doctoral Universities, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and Council for Support and Advancement of Education, (CASE Award), 2003
James Harvey Robinson Prize for Outstanding Aid to Teaching History, American Historical Association (AHA), 2002
Arthur Stocker Award for Outstanding Teaching, ODK Honor Society, University of Virginia, 2002
Virginia Social Science Educator of the Year by the Virginia Social Studies Association, 2001
David A. Harrison III Award for Distinguished Service to the University of Virginia, 1997
Teacher of the Year, Phi Eta Sigma, Freshman Honor Society, 1993
The Raven Award for Distinguished Service to the University of Virginia, 1993
State Council of Higher Education in Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award, 1991 (a $5,000 award and statue presented by Virginia's Governor)
Distinguished Faculty Award, IMP Society, 1990
University of Virginia Alumni Board of Trustees Distinguished Young Teacher Award, 1986
Grants and Fellowships
National Endowment for the Humanities for “Building Digital Communities,” 1998
National Endowment for the Humanities, Teaching with Technology Initiative, 1997-1999, for the Valley of the Shadow Project
University of Virginia Institute for Advanced Study Sesquicentennial Associateship, 1990, 1984-1985
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Fellowship, 1987
Carter G. Woodson Institute for Afro-American and African Studies
Research grants, 1986 and 1981
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 1984-1985
Digital Humanities
“The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities,” with William G. Thomas III, American Historical Review (December 2003) and at http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/AHR
Director: “The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War,” an electronic archive (http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu)
Virginia Center for Digital History, 1998-2001, Founding Executive Director
Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, 1991, co-founder and one of first two fellows
National Service
National Council for the Humanities, 2000-2004, appointed by the President of the United States to advise the National Endowment for the Humanities
National Council for History Education (NCHE), Executive Board, 2003-present
Council for Library and Information Resources (CLIR), Executive Board, 2002- 2006
Testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources on the reauthorization of the National Endowment for the Humanities
Faculty Senate – University of Virginia
Chair, Faculty Senate, 1998-99; represented faculty at Board of Visitors meetings, State Council of Higher Education of Virginia sessions, oversaw passage of Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies degree, launched university-wide discussion on technology; created a faculty speakers’ bureau; awarded Harrison Awards for Undergraduate Advising
Chair, Academic Affairs Committee, Faculty Senate, 1996-97; oversaw the University-Wide Conversation on Teaching and secured fund of $300,000 to improve teaching in each unit of the University
Professional Activities
Organization of American Historians, Executive Council, 2005
Advisory Board, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005
American Historical Association, Publications Advisory Committee, 1998
Merle Curti Prize Committee, Organization of American Historians, 1998
Merle Curti Prize Committee, Organization of American Historians, 1997
National Digital Library Advisory Committee, Library of Congress, 1997-1999
Charles Sydnor Prize Committee, Southern Historical Association, 1997
Board member, Center for the Study of the American South, UNC-Chapel Hill, 1997-present
Membership Committee, Organization of American Historians, 1992-1995
Program Committee, Organization of American Historians, 1988
Southern Historical Association Membership Committee, 1984-1985
Articles, Essays, and Reviews
"The American Civil War, Emancipation, and Reconstruction on the World Stage," Magazine of History 20 (January 2006)
“The First Occupation, What the Reconstruction period after the Civil War can teach about Iraq,” The New York Times Magazine
“Flagship Universities Must Pursue Excellence and Access,” Chronicle of Higher Education (April 22, 2005), with Nicole Hurd (May 29, 2005)
“Doing Scholarship on the Web: 10 Years of Triumphs—and a Disappointment,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (January, 30, 2004)
“Why IT Has Not Paid Off as We Hoped (Yet),” Educause Review (November/December 2003), with Charles Grisham
“The Inevitable Future of the South,” in Fred Hobson, ed., South to the Future: An American Region in the 21st Century (University of Georgia Press, 2002)
“Cyberspace, U.S.A,” in William Leuchtenberg, ed., American Places: Encounters with History (Oxford University Press, 2001)
“Worrying About the Civil War,” in Karen Halttunen and Lewis Perry, eds., Moral Problems in American Life: New Perspectives on Cultural History (Cornell University Press, 1999)
“When the North is the South: The Netherlands,” in Southern Cultures (Winter 1998)
“An American Nightmare,” New York Times Book Review, May 3, 1998
Momentous Events in Small places: The Coming of the Civil War in Two American Communities (Marquette University Press, 1997)
“Many Faces of the New South,” Washington Post Book World (January 26, 1997)
“The White Album,” The New Republic, March 25, 1996
“Black Intellectuals in the 1990s,” in Social and Secure? : Politics and Culture of the Welfare State, Hans Bak, et al, eds. (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1996)
“Narrating the New South,” Journal of Southern History (August 1995)
“The Civil War,” in Richard W. Fox and James Kloppenberg, eds. A Companion to American Thought (Blackwell, 1995)
“The South, the West, and the Rest,” Western Historical Quarterly (Winter, 1994) “Unmodern Masters,” The New Republic, December 26, 1994
“Stories of Scottsboro,” The New Republic, July 11, 1994
“The Strange Career of Thomas Jefferson: Race and Slavery in American Memory, 1943-1993” co-authored with Scot A. French, in Peter Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies (University Press of Virginia, 1993)
“Homicide and History,” in Esther Mackintosh, ed., Inequality and Current Problems, a book sponsored by the Kettering Foundation for discussion in National Issue Forums (1992)
“W. J. Cash, the New South, and the Rhetoric of History," in Charles Eagles, ed., The Mind of the South Fifty Years Later (University of Mississippi Press, 1992)
“Legacy of Violence,” American Heritage (October 1991)
"The World Liberal Capitalism Made," Reviews in American History, June 1991
“Honor and Martialism in Prussia and the Old South: A Comment,” in Kees Gispen, ed., What Made the South Different? (University Press of Mississippi, 1990)
“Prisons” and “Honor” essays in Charles R. Wilson, ed., Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 1989)
The Heart of American History," Virginia Quarterly Review, Fall 1989
“Everyman as Master," Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer 1987
"The Birth of Jim Crow," Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer 1984
“Northern Business and the Shape of Southern Progress: The Case of Tennessee’s ‘Model City’,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Summer 1980
Review essays: "Science and the Seánce," Reviews in American History, 1979