Courses Offered:

Law, Science and Technology
Health Care Law
Property

Professional Biographical Information:

Edward J. Larson is the Talmadge Chair of Law and Russell Professor of American History at the University of Georgia and the recipient of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in History. His areas of expertise are: health care law, science and technology law, bioethics, property law and legal history.

An author of six books and over 100 published articles, Larson writes mostly about issues of law, science and medicine from a historical perspective. His first book, Trial and Error: The American Controversy Over Creation and Evolution (1985, expanded editions 1989 and 2002), chronicles the legal battles over teaching evolution in American public schools. His second book, Sex, Race, and Science: Eugenics in the Deep South (1995), examines the legislative history of eugenics. For his 1997 book, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion, Larson became the first sitting law professor to receive the Pulitzer Prize in History.

Last year, Larson published another title, The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison (co-authored by Michael Winship and published by Random House). His other recent publications include Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory and a property law casebook (co-authored with Professor Jim Smith). Currently, Larson is editing a volume of Clarence Darrow's writings for the Modern Library and is writing a book on the presidential election of 1800.

Larson has published several law review articles, eight referred history articles and dozens of other articles, most relating to law and science or medicine. These articles have appeared in such varied journals as Nature, Atlantic Monthly, Scientific American, The Wilson Quarterly, The Nation, The Wall Street Journal, the Michigan Law Review, the Virginia Law Review and The British Journal for the History of Science. He is the co-author or co-editor of four additional books. 

The Fulbright Program named Larson to the John Adams Chair in American Studies for 2001, and he received the 2000 George Sarton Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Larson lectures and speaks on history, law and bio-science for academic, professional and public audiences. He has been invited to give endowed or funded lectures at 40 colleges and universities, including the California Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Vanderbilt University. He has given papers at over 30 academic conferences in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia; taught in China, France, Austria and the Netherlands; and made legal and medical education presentations to professional legal, judicial and medical groups throughout America. He is frequently interviewed by broadcast and print media, including multiple appearances on major programs for PBS, the History Channel, Court TV, CNN and C-SPAN.

Before accepting a teaching position at Georgia in 1987, he served as associate counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, counsel for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, and as an attorney with a major Seattle law firm.

He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1979 and his Ph.D. in the History of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984. In 2004, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters by The Ohio State University.

Larson is married to pediatrician Lucy Larson. They have two children, Sarah and Luke.

Online Article:
A Life in Writing: A Voyage to the Origin of Species