Bio: Orville Vernon Burton

Orville Vernon Burton has been at the University of Illinois since 1974 where he is currently Professor of History and Sociology and a Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. He is an affiliate of the Afro-American Studies and Research Program and a member of the Campus Honors Program. He is the author of more than a hundred articles and the author or editor of seven books (one of which is on cd-rom), including In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina (University of North Carolina Press, 1985, fifth printing 1998), "A Gentleman and an Officer": A Social and Military History of James B. Griffin's Civil War (Oxford, 1996, second printing 1999 -- with Judy McArthur), and two books co-edited with Robert C. McMath, Jr. on nineteenth-century southern communities. He was named a University Scholar in 1988. Burton's research and teaching interests include race relations, family, community, politics, religion, and the intersection of humanities and social sciences.