Historian to Speak at UA on Slavery and the Law in the Post-Revolutionary South as Part of Summersell Lecture Series

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Dr. Laura F. Edwards, associate professor of history at Duke University, will give a lecture entitled, “Was it a Crime when John Mann Shot Lydia? Slaves, Law and Justice in the Post-Revolutionary South” on Monday, Oct. 28, at 7:30 p.m. in 30 ten Hoor Hall at The University of Alabama.

Edwards’ lecture is the seventh presented by the Summersell Fund in Southern History and the UA department of history.

Edwards is author of “Gendered Strife and Confusion: The Political Culture of Reconstruction,” published by the University of Illinois Press and “Scarlett Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: Southern Women in the Civil War Era,” also published by Illinois. She is currently doing research on the reconfiguration of domestic relations, patriarchy, and the status of white women and enslaved women and men in the early 19th century.

A graduate of Northwestern University, Edwards earned both her M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina. She has taught at the University of Chicago, the University of South Florida, and UCLA before coming to Duke in 2001.