By Jill Yesko, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-5371
Posted 9-15-08
Dr. Jill Lepore. Photo by Nina Subin.
GREENSBORO, NC – Before the 2000 presidential election, few people had ever heard the term “hanging chads” used to describe errors with punch card paper ballots.
With the 2008 presidential election on the horizon and the accuracy of voting machines in the news, Dr. Jill Lepore, the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University, will deliver the Richard S. Wells Lecture.
Lepore’s topic will be “Paper Trail: The Rise and Fall of the Paper Ballot.”
The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held Thursday, Sept. 18, at 7:30 p.m. in the Jaylee M. Mead Auditorium of the Patricia A. Sullivan Science Building.
She is the chair of Harvard’s History and Literature Program and a regular contributor to The New Yorker. Her most recent book, “New York Burning,” was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. Her other books include “A is for American” and “The Name of War,” winner of the Bancroft Prize.
Lepore is a Distinguished Lecturer of the Organization of American Historians and has served as a consultant for television documentaries, historical museums, and archival collections.
“Blindspot,” a novel written in collaboration with Jane Kamensky, will be published by Spiegel and Grau in December 2008. It is set in pre-Revolutionary Boston.
The Richard S. Wells Lectures were established in 2005 by Keith Sutton Wells, who received a master’s degree in history from UNCG in 2002. The series is named for Richard S. Wells, the retired David Ross Boyd Professor of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma.
For more information visit www.uncg.uncg/his.
