Kathryn Anne Miller of Bridgehampton Dies March 17

Kathryn Anne Miller passed away on March 17, 2024, in San Francisco, California at the age of 59.

Kathryn is remembered most as a scholar and a mother. The daughter of Joan (Groark) and Walter R. Miller Jr., Kathryn was born in New York City on April 9, 1964. She spent her early childhood in Pittsburgh, where she attended The Ellis School, delivered the local Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on a yellow skateboard, was the first girl on her little league baseball team, and became a dedicated Steelers fan. She lived in Atlanta during her teenage years and attended The Westminster Schools, excelling in academics, playing tennis, starring in cross-country and track, and even finding time to work at the local Italian restaurant, Giovanni’s. Since childhood – and throughout her life – Kathryn spent her summers in Bridgehampton, NY, with family and life-long friends.

Kathryn graduated in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in English from Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. Afterwards, she taught middle and high school in Millbrook, NY and in Manama, Bahrain. She then remained in the Middle East for another year studying Arabic in Jordan and Egypt, before returning to the United States to attend graduate school at Yale.

Kathryn earned a PhD in history at Yale, studying under Professors John Boswell and Paul Freedman, and launched her academic career focusing on medieval Spain, Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations, and the history of commerce, medicine, and law in the Mediterranean world. Kathryn’s dissertation research took her to Spain and Morocco, leading to the publication of her critically acclaimed book Guardians of Islam: Religious Authority and Muslim Communities of Late Medieval Spain. She took positions as Assistant Professor of History at Stanford and Wesleyan Universities, winning multiple prizes for teaching, and served as a Fullbright Fellow in Rabat, Morocco.

During those years, Kathryn married Philippe Buc in 2001 at St. Mary’s Church in New Haven. She had two children, Oliver (21) and Julien (16), who were the center of her life.

Under another Fulbright, along with fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities and the American Center of Learned Societies, Kathryn moved with her family to Amman, Jordan. She conducted her research at the Center for Strategic Studies, served as Chief of Party for the USAID-funded American Center of Research, and became Associate Professor of International Studies and Human Rights at the University of Jordan. When Kathryn, Oliver, and Julien lived in Amman, their weekends were spent bobbing in the buoyant Dead Sea, exploring the ruins of Jerash, climbing to the monastery at Petra, and overnighting at a bedouin camp in Wadi Rum. During vacation, she led the boys on trips around the Mediterranean – including Greece, Lebanon, and Spain – and they spent summers with their grandparents and family in Bridgehampton and the French countryside.

In recent years, after pursuing research at the NYU campus in Abu Dhabi, Kathryn and Julien moved to San Francisco and closer to Oliver who studies at UCLA. She then assumed a position at the Convent & Stuart Hall School, teaching ethics and world history and world religions, while at the same time worked towards a master’s degree at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University in Berkeley, California.

Kathryn will be remembered by her two sons, Oliver and Julien; her parents, Joan and Walter; three siblings, Meghan, Jenny, and Walter; her cousins and other extended family, and dear friends from around the world. A funeral mass will take place on April 6 at 1 pm at Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Church in Bridgehampton, NY. In memory of Kathryn and in lieu of sending flowers, her family asks for donations to be sent to Mount Tamalpais College, an independent liberal arts college in San Quentin, California, dedicated to educating incarcerated students.