A staff writer at The New Yorker since 2008, and a contributor since 2005, Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University. Her essays and reviews have also appeared in the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Washington Post, as well as the Journal of American History, American Quarterly, and Common-place, a magazine she co-founded. Her recent books include a biography of Benjamin Franklin's sister, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin (2013), The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death (2012), and The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle for American History (2010).
Rachel Arteaga is a PhD student in English, researching affect theory and the modern American novel.
Jessie Kindig is a doctoral candidate in History, studying constructions of American empire in the context of the Korean War and the "postwar Pacific."
Frances McCue is the Writer-in-Residence for the Undergraduate Honors Program and author of The Car that Brought You Here Still Runs:
Revisiting the Northwest Towns of Richard Hugo (2010) and The Bled (2010).
Participants should read two of Lepore's essays, available online:
"Battleground America: One Nation Under the Gun":
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/23/120423fa_fact_Lepore
"Birthright: What's next for Planned Parenthood?":
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/14/111114fa_fact_Lepore