Christopher Lawton

Christopher Lawton is a historian whose work is focused on the cultural and social history of the American south. His public-facing projects over the last decade have been funded by multiple grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (2017, 2018, 2023), as well as Georgia Humanities (2012), the Spencer Foundation (2021), the Spencer and William T. Grant Foundations (2022), and Monument Lab (2024). He is co-author, with Laura Nelson and Randy Reid, of Seen/Unseen: Hidden Lives in a Community of Enslaved Georgians (UGA Press, 2021), which won the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council’s Award for Excellence in Documenting Georgia's History and was shortlisted for the American Library Association's Best Historical Materials. He has published articles on 19th-century southern history, history and K-12 education, and the historical landscapes of Georgia. He is co-founder and director of a non-profit dedicated to connecting digital humanities with place-based education across the state. These community-based projects (often in partnership with UGA's Willson Center for Humanities and Arts) have been profiled by the National Humanities Alliance and in BuzzFeed News, Georgia Magazine, Flagpole, the Athens Banner-Herald, and UGA College of Education News. He has spoken about his work across the United States, as well as in Australia, Canada, Germany, and the U.K.