I can't think of anything that would move me more. 'I couldn't be more surprised,' said Professor Maier. She's 'one of the very rare individuals who performs at a supremely high level in professional achievement, teaching and Institute service,' he said when announcing the award at the May 20 faculty meeting. Bras, chairman of the Killian award committee and professor and department head of civil and environmental engineering. Professor Maier is 'a genuine all-rounder,' said Rafael L. The award carries an honorarium of $8,000. The recipient is named Killian Award Lecturer for one academic year, during which he/she presents one or more lectures on professional activities to the MIT community. Killian Jr., former president and chairman of MIT. Professor of History, is the recipient of this year's Killian Faculty Achievement Award.įor more than 25 years, the Killian Faculty Achievement Award has recognized extraordinary accomplishments by full-time members of the MIT faculty, honoring the late James R. American historian Pauline Maier, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's William R. Maier skillfully traces the progress of the Declaration from political event to sacred text'.CAMBRIDGE, Mass.

This is cultural history at its best - a work that irrevocably changes our perspective on how America came to be. She also sheds new light on Abraham Lincoln's role, in his Gettysburg Address, in making the Declaration the sacred scripture of American freedom and equality.

In a pathbreaking work that revolutionizes our understanding of the Declaration of Independence, Pauline Maier strips away the accumulated misconceptions and misplaced reverence that have long surrounded this epoch-making document.ĭrawing upon dozens of other 'declarations of independence' written to protest the repression of the colonies by King George III, as well as carefully analyzing the drafts of the Declaration eventually signed on July 4, 1776, Maier reveals the extent to which Thomas Jefferson's words and ideas were indebted to popular political beliefs. 'The definitive statement of the Declaration of Independence as the embodiment of the American mind and historical experience'.

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