Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff receives first-ever Ken Burns Award

Stacy Schiff's prolific career in historical research and film was celebrated at the Gregory J. Grappone Humanities Institute, where she received the first-ever Ken Burns Award.

This prestigious award honors those whose lives and work have made impactful contributions to the humanities and deepened understanding of human connections in a greater society.

Award recipient, Stacy Schiff has dedicated her life to writing best-selling books and prolific essays. In 2000, Schiff won the Pulitzer Prize for “Véra, Mrs. Valdimir Nabokov”. In 2005, she won the George Washington Book Prize and became a 2024 miniseries for her work, “A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America”.

Her bestselling biography, “Cleopatra: A Life” (2010) has been translated into 35 languages and in 2015 Schiff authored “The Witches: Salem, 1692”, described by the New York Timesas “a thriller-like narrative". Her 2022 biography “The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams”, was hailed by the Wall Street Journal as “a tour de force.” Furthermore, Schiff also appeared in the Ken Burns documentary “The American Revolution.”

Saturday night’s ceremony featured a recorded presentation by Ken Burns, an American filmmaker and popular historical documentarian whose work has made significant contributions to American history and the humanities, reflected on the importance of an award that pays tribute to people whose lives and work have significantly advanced the public understanding of history. He went on to explain why Schiff was the perfect recipient for this inaugural award.

“I am delighted to honor Stacy with this award,” said Burns. “I cannot say enough about the significance of her contributions to our understanding of history and humanity, and the joy of collaborating with her.”

English Professor Gary Bouchard, executive director of the Gregory Grappone Humanities Institute, said the award was created to honor Burns’s renowned career in filmmaking and history. “We want to celebrate individuals who, like Ken, challenge conventional thinking around the shared human experience and its intersection with history, art, and culture.”

“Ken raises the bar to a new level for all of us,” Buchard continued. “With each visit to campus, he expands our thinking around history’s relevance today…Interrogating the past to live better lives today and help shape a better future—this is exactly the kind of engagement the Grappone Institute aims to foster.”

Burns said he is humbled by and grateful for this new partnership. “This award reflects values I cherish and have always relied upon in others—rigorous scholarship, artistic excellence, moral seriousness, and a commitment to animating the human spirit and promoting the common good.”