Austin Peay State University’s Kristofer Ray named visiting scholar to University of Michigan’s Eisenberg Institute

Clarksville, TN – Dr. Kristofer Ray, Austin Peay State University associate professor of history, was recently named a visiting scholar to the University of Michigan’s Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies.

He will spend the summer at the Institute, working on his next book, titled “Cherokees, Europeans and Empire in the Tennessee Corridor, 1670-1763.”

The Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies aims to stimulate imaginative new scholarship and innovative teaching, contributing to the study of history nationally as well as transmitting new modes of historical understanding to successive generations of students.

It is envisioned as a place where faculty, graduate students and visitors can draw on common scholarly ground to examine diverse approaches to the study and the teaching of history.

While at the University of Michigan, Ray will also serve as an Earhart Foundation Fellow at the university’s William L. Clements Library.

Ray is a scholar of early American history and the author of several academic papers and a book pertaining to this time period. He is the editor of the forthcoming collection, “Before the Volunteer State: New Thoughts on Early Tennessee History, 1670-1800,” which will be published by the University of Tennessee Press this November.

He also serves as the senior editor of the Tennessee Historical Quarterly, a scholarly journal produced by the Tennessee Historical Society. In 2012, he appeared on an episode of the Discovery Channel mini-series “How Booze Built America,” hosted by Mike Rowe.

For more information, contact the APSU Department of History and Philosophy at 931.221.7919.