Honoring an Unlicensed Humanist

Leon Kass, the National Endowment for Humanities announced today , will be receiving the U.S. government’s most prestigious honor for intellectual achievement in the humanities. This May, Kass will be delivering NEH’s thirty-eighth annual Jefferson Lecture, entitled: “‘Looking for an Honest Man’: Reflections of an Unlicensed Humanist.”

Kass, a an occasional First Things contributor, is professor at the University of Chicago, fellow in social thought at the American Enterprise Institute, and former chair of the President’s Council on Bioethics. As Carole M. Watson, NEH acting chairman, said, “Leon Kass is an outstanding scholar, a gifted teacher, and one of our nation’s leading humanists. He has brought the wisdom of the humanities to bear on many topics, from bioethics to courtship , and his dedication to undergraduate teaching in the humanities has benefited a generation of students.”

The lecture will be held in Washington D.C.’s Warner Theater on May 21, 2009, at 7 pm. Tickets are free of charge and will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Submit your request by May 1 via the online form at www.neh.gov .