Who Wrote the Federalist Papers? by Varya Kluev ’25

Who Wrote the Federalist Papers? by Varya Kluev ’25, Wednesday March 5, 1:00 – 1:50pm, North Science Building 015, Wachenheim, Statistics Colloquium

Abstract: Known for their pivotal role in advocating for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the Federalist Papers are a collection of essays written by the shared pseudonym “Publius,” a collective name for Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. But who actually wrote them? In this talk, we will explore the application of Bayesian inference to the problem of disputed authorship, focusing specifically on the twelve contested Federalist papers. By examining the assumptions and advantages of using word frequencies for stylometric analysis in tandem with relevant probability distributions, we can leverage our quantitative methods to help attenuate the uncertainties in authorship attribution.