Department Hosts Panel on the American Civil War Online and in the Public Sphere

The image caption explains who is in this photo.
Left to Right: Drs. Susannah J. Ural, Judith Giesberg, Anne Sarah Rubin. and Lesley J. Gordon.

On September 14, 2017, the Department of History was proud to host “The American Civil War Online and in the Public Sphere,” a panel with Susannah J. Ural of the University of Southern Mississippi, Judith Giesberg of Villanova University, and Anne Rubin of the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Each presenter spoke about their respective backgrounds in Civil War digital humanities projects. Dr. Ural documented her work with the Beauvoir Soldiers’ Home, a former Confederate veterans’ home in Biloxi, MS, on the grounds of Jefferson Davis’s last residence. Judith Giesberg presented her projects on a Pennsylvania freedwoman’s diary; the early years of the historically black Cheyney University, the nation’s oldest historically black higher education institution; and her research on information wanted ads placed after the Civil War by freed people in search of relatives. Anne Rubin spoke about her collaborative class with a group of video game development students to create a Civil War online video game. The speakers then discussed recent developments in how the Civil War is viewed and discussed online, and then took questions from the audience.

Thank you to our guests for speaking with us, and thank you to Dr. Lesley Gordon for organizing this event!