Learn all about Ed and Abby Ayers‘s “Discovery of America Tour’ here. A taste: My wife and I are embarking on a journey. We are looking for traces of America’s past from the first six decades of the 19th century,...
Ed Ayers
Ed Ayers: The history classroom is a “community of trust”
University of Richmond historian Ed Ayers recently visited a high school history classroom. He reflects on what he saw here. A taste: I recognized in those two sessions what I had learned four decades ago when I started teaching history:...
Ed Ayers on what COVID-19 has revealed about the state of digital history
According to the University of Richmond historian Ed Ayers, “the sudden transition to online schooling has shone a light on the state of digital history.” He adds: “What we’ve seen hasn’t been very encouraging. Can we do better?” Here is...
Ed Ayers on Trump’s White House history conference
Here is University of Richmond historian Ed Ayers at The Washington Post: Despite the sustained offensive by those who would save America’s honor, the insidious enemy apparently endures, as dangerous today as ever, worthy of frontal attack by the president...
What do the Virginia history standards say about African Americans?
Mel Leonor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports on the Virginia African American History Education Commission recent report on the Virginia state history standards. It found some serious problems. For example, the standards suggest that slavery was not the cause of the Civil War....
Ed Ayers: The “past can’t be reduced to static variables and predictable outcomes”
Here is the University of Richmond historian‘s piece at Medium: History is best explained by supple narratives of sequence, change, and consequence. We call those narratives stories. All humans understand stories and explain themselves and their worlds in stories. Even...
Ed Ayers on Teaching History
This entire piece is worth reading. Here is American historian Ed Ayers: History is hard to teach. It is not a bounded field of knowledge that can be conveyed in stages and steps. It does not operate by rules or...
The American History Podcast *Backstory* Will End Production in 2020
Here is the announcement: Charlottesville, VA— After more than three hundred episodes that have reached millions of listeners over the last twelve years, BackStory, the American history podcast produced by Virginia Humanities, will record its final episode this summer. The...
What is Socialism?
National Public Radio’s “Here and Now” explores this question with historians Ed Ayers and Nathan Connolly. Here are some highlights: On the definition of socialism Connolly: “I think many people would assume that socialism is very un-American. But there...
*BUNK* Picks “Evangelical Fear Elected Donald Trump” as Best American Religious History Read of 2018
[vimeo 230965017 w=640 h=360] BUNK is a history website founded by award-winning American historian Ed Ayers and edited by Tony Field. It is published by the University of Richmond. Read more about it here. Today I learned that BUNK chose...
Ed Ayers
This is a great piece on the noted American historian. A taste of Gary Robertson’s article at Richmond Magazine: In a life that continues to be marked by leadership, accolades and influence, Ed Ayers — the son of a Tennessee used-car...
Edward Ayers on Confederate Monuments
Last weekend Edward Ayers gave a stirring and inspiration presidential address at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians in Sacramento. (See our coverage here). The title was “Everyone Their Own Historian.” I was not in Sacramento for...
What is Bunk?
It is a new history project from Edward Ayers and Tony Field. Thanks to Kevin Levin for bringing this to my attention. Watch: [vimeo 230965017 w=640 h=360] Learn more about here....
Historian Edward Ayers
Ed Ayers is a Civil War-era historian and a “pioneer” in the field of digital humanities. After 27 years teaching history at the University of Virginia, he served eight years as the president of the University of Richmond. He currently...
Ed Ayers Delivers Commencement Address at University of Mary Washington
Edward Ayers is the President Emeritus at the University of Richmond, an innovator in the field of digital history, and one of our best historians of the 19th-century American South. On Saturday he delivered the commencement address at the University...
Ed Ayers and Natalie Zemon Davis Receive National Humanities Medals
Ed Ayers Glad to see these two excellent historians receive this distinguished honor. Here is a taste of Vanessa Varin’s report at AHA Today Among the list are historians Edward L. Ayers, a current AHA member, and Natalie Zemon Davis, […]
Ed Ayers on the Digital Humanities, MOOCs, and Technology in Higher Education
When Ed Ayers has something to say about the digital humanities I tend to listen–attentively. Today the Chronicle of Higher Education is running a piece by Ayers titled “A More Radical Online Revolution.” He introduces his readers to the “History...