Brook Thomas recently–and happily–retired as a  Chancellor’s Professor (Center in Law, Society, and Culture) at the University of California-Irvine. Prof. Thomas has written many books and articles about the relation between US law, literature, and history, most recently The Literature of Reconstruction: Not in Plain Black and White  (2017). Since completing that project, he continues to publish on Reconstruction, including essays on Huckleberry Finn,  domestic terrorism and some Reconstruction poems by Sidney Lanier, and another on Reconstruction historiography. He also gave a talk for a Reconstruction symposium on Capitol Hill link: https://www.c-span.org/video/?428386-1/horatio-batemans-recontruction-engraving.