UR president to discuss life after the Civil War at annual Peple lecture

February 20, 2008

Edward L. Ayers, president of the University of Richmond and a leading scholar on the history of the American South, will discuss "Building New Lives After the Civil War" at the university's annual Edward C. and Mary S. Peple Library Lecture, Feb. 26 at 6 p.m.

Ayers has authored or edited 10 books, including "The Promise of the New South, Life After Reconstruction," a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He created "The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War," a Web site that has attracted millions of users and won major prizes in the teaching of history.

Previously dean of arts and sciences at the University of Virginia, where he began teaching in 1980, Ayers was named the National Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2003. He has received a presidential appointment to the National Council on the Humanities, served as a Fulbright professor in the Netherlands and been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Named for Edward Peple, an English professor and administrator at University of Richmond for 41 years, and his wife Mary, the annual lecture is a forum for leading writers and scholars. The event is sponsored by Friends of the Boatwright Memorial Library, an organization founded by the Peples.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit library.richmond.edu or call 804-289-8454.