The Nau Center is honored to once again co-host this year's American Civil War Museum symposium. The 2019 Symposium will share with attendees some of the ideas and insights that have informed the planning of the Museum’s new flagship exhibition, “A People’s Contest: Struggles for Nation and Freedom in Civil War America.” The symposium will feature the historian advisers who helped shape the exhibit lecturing on the importance of military history, of African Americans, and of Southern Unionists, and fundamental questions of causation and “contingency” in the Civil War.
In addition to the historian advisers, the symposium will feature a keynote address by Jon Meacham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, George H. W. Bush, and most recently, author of The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels. The symposium will be held at the Library of Virginia (800 E. Broad St., Richmond, Virginia, 23219) on Saturday, March 2, from 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 pm.
Other speakers include:
Dr. Edward Ayers is Tucker-Boatwright Professor of History and President Emeritus, University of Richmond, and president of the Museum’s Board of Trustees.
Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander is Professor of History and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Norfolk State University and formerly director of the Joseph Jenkins Roberts Center for African Diaspora Studies.
Dr. Paul Quigley is James I. Robertson, Jr., Associate Professor in Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech and director of the Center of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies.
Dr. Kathryn Shively is Associate Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Dr. Elizabeth Varon is Langbourne Williams Professor of American History at the University of Virginia and associate director of the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History.