The Ruth Ratner Miller Memorial Award for excellence in American History was established in 1998 and is sponsored by her four children to honor the life of their mother, Ruth Ratner Miller.
In the kick-off event for the 28th annual Concord Festival of Authors (running October 16 - 31, 2020), the Concord Free Public Library will present this year's award to Jill Lepore, the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker.
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The Ruth Ratner Miller Memorial Award for excellence in American History was established in 1998 and is sponsored by her four children to honor the life of their mother, Ruth Ratner Miller.
In the kick-off event for the 28th annual Concord Festival of Authors (running October 16 – 31, 2020), the Concord Free Public Library will present this year’s award to Jill Lepore, the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker.
A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, her many books include the international bestseller These Truths and This America. Her latest book is IF THEN: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future.
Much of Lepore’s scholarship explores absences and asymmetries in the historical record, with a particular emphasis on the histories and technologies of evidence. A prize-winning professor, she teaches classes in evidence, historical methods, the humanities, and American political history. (On teaching the writing of history, see How to Write a Paper for This Class.) In 2017, she launched the Democracy Project: Arguing with American History, a one-semester undergraduate course on the history of the United States, undertaken through weekly debates in which students use primary sources to argue over competing historical interpretations of turning points in American history. She also teaches at Harvard Law School.
ABOUT THE CFA
Sponsored by the Friends of the Concord Free Public Library, this year’s Concord Festival of Authors is being held as a series of 25 virtual literary events hosted in collaboration with local organizations, including: Anti-Racism Panel Discussion with The Robbins House * CFA Breakfast with the Authors * Debut Novelists with A Mighty Blaze * Historical Conversations with the Concord Museum * Little Women Book-to-Film Presentation with Orchard House *Mass Book Award Roundtable *The Miller Award and Keynote speaker with the Concord Free Public Library * Multiple Panels such as Children’s Authors, Young Adult Writers, LGBTQ+ Memoirists, Mystery Night *Virtual Writing Workshops with Be Well Be Here * Literary Events with Debra’s Natural Gourmet, First Parish Transcendentalism Council, Thoreau Society / Thoreau Farm, Walden Woods Project and more! All are welcome!
For more info, see ConcordFestivalofAuthors.org.
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