Nell Irvin Painter is Edwards Professor Emerita of History at Princeton University. She holds a BA in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, MA in African history from the University of California, Los Angeles, and PhD in American history from Harvard University, as well as honorary doctorates from Wesleyan University, Dartmouth College, and Yale University, among others. Painter is the author of I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays (Doubleday, 2024), The History of White People (W.W. Norton, 2011), Standing at Armageddon (W.W. Norton, 2008), Creating Black Americans (Oxford, 2006), Southern History across the Color Line (North Carolina, 2002), and Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol (W.W. Norton, 1997). Her book Sojourner Truth Was a New Yorker, and She Didn’t Say That is forthcoming by Penguin Random House in 2025. Her memoir Old in Art School was a finalist for a National Critics Circle Award. Painter has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, Radcliffe Institute, and American Council of Learned Societies, among others. She has served as president of the Organization of American Historians and the Southern Historical Association and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She currently serves as chair of the board of MacDowell.