Miller Center

William Lee Miller

Portrait of William Lee Miller

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William Lee Miller is Scholar in Ethics and Institutions at the Miller Center. From 1992 until his retirement in 1999, Mr. Miller was Thomas C. Sorensen Professor of Political and Social Thought and Director of the Program in Political and Social Thought at the University of Virginia. He was professor of religious studies from 1982 to 1999, and chaired the Department of Rhetoric and Communication Studies from 1982 to 1990.
 
Prior to coming to the University of Virginia, he taught political science and religious studies at Indiana University, where he was also the founding director of the Poynter Center on American Institutions, and at Yale University and at Smith College.
 
During the 1960s, he served for six years as a member of Board of Aldermen, a government entity, of New Haven, Conn. William Lee Miller served as a speech writer for U.S. presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson’s campaign in 1956. He was also a contributing editor and writer for The Reporter magazine. 
 
View his curriculum vitae.

Miller Center Projects


William Lee Miller’s book, Lincoln’s Virtues: An Ethical Biography, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in January 2002. Mr. Miller said he chose Lincoln for his most recent research because “Lincoln’s presidency is a case study in political ethics that applies continuously.”
   
As a political ethics scholar, Mr. Miller is interested in how American leaders have legitimized politics using moral terms.

Selected Publications

Miller has written numerous articles and books. A selection of his writings is listed below. For a complete list of his writings, please see his curriculum vitae.

     
  • Arguing About Slavery: The Great Debate in the United States Congress, Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.
  • The Business of May Next: James Madison and the Founding, University Press of Virginia, 1992.
  • The First Liberty: Religion and the American Republic, Alfred A. Knopf, 1986.
  • Yankee from Georgia: The Emergence of Jimmy Carter, Times Books, 1978.
  • Of Thee, Nevertheless I Sing: An Essay on American Political Values, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975.
  • The Fifteenth Ward and the Great Society, Houghton Mifflin, 1966.