I love The New Yorker. To me, it’s a real national treasure. I grew up in Europe, continue to spend time there every year, and read the media from several countries on a regular basis. And quite simply – nothing like The New Yorker exists in the Old World.
Founded in the mid-1920s and fusing aesthetic modernism and American democratic culture, The New Yorker remains a unique combination of journalism, commentary, and criticism – and, lest we forget, some of the most cutting-edge literature around. And while its name and event listings have stayed New York-centric (captured with some tongue in cheek in Saul Steinberg’s famous 1976 cover), the magazine’s utterly cosmopolitan coverage really has made it the most national of publications. It simply feels relevant week after week, whether you are in Champaign or Chicago, Los Angeles or New York.
Saul Steinberg's 1976 cover
So one of the festival events I am really thrilled about is the Baskes lecture by Jill Lepore, one of The New Yorker’s standout writers!
First, though, a shout-out to the Baskes family. Without their generous support, this wonderful event would not be possible. Like a number of other families and individuals, they have created an endowment whose annual income allows CHF to invite the kind of national and international figures our audience associates with the festival’s marquee events. Thank you!
Jill Lepore
So back to Jill Lepore, one of the most remarkable intellectuals working in the US today. Lepore is a historian of 17th and 18th-century America who established her reputation with her first book, the multi-award winning The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity (1998). It was a highly innovative study, approaching a brutal 17th-century conflict between colonists and Native Americans through the diaries, books, articles, and plays that gave it various retrospective meanings. Lepore followed this effort with the 2005 book New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan. It is a remarkable account of an infamous 1741 episode in which a series of fires led to an orchestrated panic and the violent deaths of dozens of black men. Lepore is masterful in her recreation of 18th-century Manhattan (where a full fifth of the population was enslaved), earning her a much deserved nomination for the Pulitzer Prize.
Lepore is an amazing historian – but, and this is less common among academics, she is also a marvelous writer. And that combination brought her to the attention of The New Yorker, leading to her appointment as a staff writer in 2005. Mind you, her day job isn’t too shabby either – she is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University, where she also chairs the famed History and Literature Program.
But back to The New Yorker. There, Lepore has been writing a series of widely celebrated articles on notable episodes in the history of American culture. Her topics have been brilliantly eclectic, ranging from dictionary writer Noah Webster to board game inventor Milton Bradley. More recently, she has also gotten political. You might have seen her piece on the historical resonances of the Tea Party Movement, which ran in the May 3 issue. That much-discussed essay will also form the basis of a book, The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History that will be published in the fall.
At the CHF, Lepore will speak about yet another fascinating topic: the history of ideas about life and death, the theme of another book currently underway. In particular, she will turn her attention to one of the great old questions: “What came first? The chicken or the egg?” I have a hunch that she will equivocate on that one – but what she will elucidate is the fascinating history by which scientists came to understand that mammals come from eggs.
I listen to The New Yorker podcasts all the time – and I know what a dynamic speaker Lepore is. With such a great topic, we are in for a real treat. All thanks to the Baskes family!
Lecture
#604: Sat, Nov. 13 12:00 - 1:00 PM
Tags: The New Yorker, life and death, politics, history, literature
