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Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

Africa, Past and Future: A Conversation with Toyin Falola

Posted by: Dan Turello

Members of the Scholars Council are appointed by the Librarian of Congress to advise on matters related to scholarship at the Library, with special attention to the Kluge Center and the Kluge Prize. The Council includes distinguished scholars, writers, researchers and scientists. “Insights” is featuring some of the work of this highly-accomplished group of thinkers. …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

Theories on the Origins of the Life: An Interview with Astrobiology Chair Nathaniel Comfort

Posted by: Dan Turello

In March, Astrobiology Chair Nathaniel Comfort interviewed four pioneering scientists about their roles in developing key models for the origins of life. The program titled “The Origins of the RNA World,” was part of Comfort’s year-long residency at the Kluge Center working on a book project about the genomic revolution’s impact on origins of life …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

Law, Religion, and Liberty: A Conversation with John Witte, Jr.

Posted by: Dan Turello

Members of the Scholars Council are appointed by the Librarian of Congress to advise on matters related to scholarship at the Library, with special attention to the Kluge Center and the Kluge Prize. The Council includes distinguished scholars, writers, researchers, and scientists. “Insights” is featuring some of the work of this highly-accomplished group of thinkers. …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

A Conversation with Author and Literature Scholar Peter Brooks

Posted by: Dan Turello

A 2016 distinguished visiting scholar at the Library of Congress, comparative literature scholar Peter Brooks is writing and researching a new book on how novels relate to history and societal self-understanding, drawing in particular on Flaubert’s novel, “Sentimental Education.” At the Library of Congress, he has been using the collections of the European Reading Room …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

Commemorating Dante Alighieri, Keen Political Observer

Posted by: Dan Turello

Dante’s Commedia is celebrated for its beautiful verse about love, friendship, theology, and philosophy. It captures the early 14th century world, and celebrates a characteristic rationality of the Middle Ages—a world in which everything had its proper place and right ordering. One of the strands found throughout the text is an ongoing reflection on the …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

War and Superheroes: How the Writer’s War Board Used Comics to Spread its Message in WWII

Posted by: Dan Turello

Historian Paul Hirsch was a Caroline and Erwin Swann Foundation Fellow for Caricature and Cartoon at The John W. Kluge Center in summer 2015. His research explored the intersection of visual culture, race, policymaking, and diplomacy from World War II through the post-Cold War period. Paul, your work investigates the convergence of comic book publishing …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

Michael Sandel at the Library of Congress

Posted by: Dan Turello

You’re sitting on a trolley car, careening down a train track. There are five men ahead working on the track and you will kill them all if you proceed. You can’t stop, but what you can do is veer off onto a separate track and kill only one man instead of five. Do you do …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

Religious Practice in America and Around the World: A Conversation With Mark Noll

Posted by: Dan Turello

Members of the Library of Congress Scholars Council are appointed by the Librarian of Congress to advise on matters related to scholarship at the Library, with special attention to the Kluge Center and the Kluge Prize. The Council includes distinguished scholars, writers, researchers, and scientists. “Insights” is featuring some of the work of this highly-accomplished …