Thirty years ago, digital history shared in the hopeful vision of the early internet. Today, that vision is clouded as the possibilities of history broaden but curricula narrow, as artificial intelligence offers new tools that hold out new insights but also threaten to engulf scholarship and teaching. In this talk, Prof. Edward Ayers will grapple with these challenges and suggest that digital history still holds promise.

Please register for this Zoom webinar via the link provided.

This event is part of the Denbo Center for Humanities & the Arts' 2025-26 Distinguished Lecture Series. 

Edward Ayers (BA, 1974) received the National Humanities Medal at the White House for making our nation’s history available in new ways. He has been named National Professor of the Year and served as the president of the Organization of American Historians. Ayers currently heads two digital projects at the University of Richmond, where he is president emeritus: _New American History_ and _Bunk_.  He is the author of prizewinning books on the history of the United States: The Presence of Mine Enemies: Civil War in the Heart of America, winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Beveridge Prize; The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction, a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; and The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America, winner of the Lincoln Prize and the Organization of American Historians’ prize for best book on the Civil War era. His most recent books are _Southern Journey: The Migrations of the American South, 1790-2020_ and _American Visions: The United States, 1800-1860_. Ayers graduated from UT summa cum laude and in 2021 received the Distinguished Alumni Award from UT’s College of Arts and Sciences.