Jill Lepore

Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History and chair of the History and Literature Program at Harvard University. She is author of Blindspot (2008) (a novel written jointly with Jane Kamensky) and New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan (2005); an elected member of the Society of American Historians; cofounder of the magazine, Common-place; and a staff writer at The New Yorker. In 2006, she received the Kidger Award for service to the historical profession from the New England History Teachers' Association. Her research has focused on language, cruelty, race, and the writing of history. She is currently working on a biography of Benjamin Franklin and his sister, Jane Mecom.

Lecture topics:

• Speculation and Historical Writing
• Benjamin Franklin and His Ill-Starred Sister

Viewed Saturday, November 21, 2009