Books
Practicing Ethics: Where’s the Action?
– The Hastings Center Report 20 (1):5-12, January/February 1990.Human Being and Citizen: Plato’s Apology of Socrates and the Humanities
– In Philippe Desan, ed., Engaging the Humanities at the University of Chicago (Chicago, IL: The College of the University of Chicago, 1995), 39-42.Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying
– University of Notre Dame Press, February 2000.Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Courting and Marrying is an anthology of source readings offered as a response to the contemporary cultural silence surrounding love that leads to marriage. It… More
Seeking to Balance Values of Science and Humanity
– Pam Belluck, New York Times, August 11, 2001.Excerpt: As one might expect, Dr. Leon Richard Kass, the University of Chicago professor who will head President Bush’s council on bioethics, has written on subjects like cloning,… More
The Crimson Birthmark
– William Safire, New York Times, January 21, 2002.Excerpt: he novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne took a crack at the troubling ”Frankenstein” theme of man’s presumption to gain godly power in an 1843 short story, ”The… More
The Pathos of the Kass Report
– Peter Berkowitz, Policy Review, October/November 2002.Excerpt: An anticipation of the first report of the President’s Council on Bioethics, critics on the left and not a few right-wing libertarians had been sharpening their swords and… More
The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis
– Free Press, 2003.Summary: As ardent debates over creationism fill the front pages of newspapers, Genesis has never been more timely. And as Leon R. Kass shows in The Beginning of Wisdom, it’s also… More
The Career of Leon Kass by Harvey Flaumenhaft
– Harvey Flaumenhaft, Journal of Contemporary Health Law & Policy 20:1 (2003).Excerpt: What has gone into making the remarkable career of Leon Kass? In sketching an answer to that question, it will be helpful for me to take account of what he himself has publicly had… More
Being Human: Readings from the President’s Council on Bioethics
– The President's Council on Bioethics, Washington, DC, December 2003.Summary: Increasingly, advances in biomedical science and technology raise profound challenges to familiar human practices and ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. It is no wonder, then,… More
In Qualified Praise of the Leon Kass Council on Bioethics
– Carl Mitchum, Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 10 (6) (Fall 2006).Abstract: This paper argues the distinctiveness of the President’s Council on Bioethics, as chaired by Leon Kass. The argument proceeds by seeking to place the Council in proper… More
How Brave a New World?
– 2007 Convocation Address, St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland. Reprinted in Society 45 (1): 5-8 (February 2008).Excerpt: Surveying the world you graduates are about to enter, I am reminded of the ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” My own time has been interesting… More
Leon Kass Interview
– Humanities (May/June 2008).Excerpt: Chicago-born Leon Kass, the 2009 Jefferson Lecturer, sat with Humanities magazine to describe how as a young medical doctor he joined the civil rights movement, then changed course… More
A Truer Humanism
– Azure 5769, no. 34 (Autumn 2008).Abstract: Science gives us many gifts, but it cannot keep us from losing our souls in the bargain.
Great Expectations: Studying with Leon Kass by Yuval Levin
– Yuval Levin, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2009.Excerpt: “Are you impressed with Rebecca at the well? Would you bring her home to meet your parents?” The question hung in the air, and with it the familiar sense of excitement and… More
Looking for an Honest Man: Reflections of an Unlicensed Humanist
– 38th Annual Jefferson Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities, 21 May 2009.Excerpt: It is true that I have long been devoted to liberal education, and along with my wife, Amy Kass, and a few other colleagues at the University of Chicago, I helped found a… More
Tough Love for the Humanities
– Serena Golden, Inside Higher Ed, May 22, 2009.Excerpt: Kass argued that it is the job of the humanities to address “questions of ultimate concern: the character and source of the cosmic whole and the place and work of the human being… More
Introduction of Leon R. Kass
– Introduction to the 2009 Jefferson Lecture, National Endowment for the Humanities, 22 May 2009.Excerpt: It’s a great honor for me to introduce Leon Kass. There is no one in contemporary American life who better embodies the fundamental mission of the humanities. This may seem a… More
What So Proudly We Hail, The American Soul In Story, Speech, And Song
– Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2012.Summary: This wonderfully rich anthology uses the soul-shaping power of story, speech, and song to help Americans realize more deeply—and appreciate more fully—who they are as citizens… More
Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver: Honoring the Work of Leon R. Kass
– Yuval Levin, Thomas W. Merrill, and Adam Schulman, eds. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, May 25, 2010.Summary: Leon R. Kass has been helping Americans better understand the human condition for over four decades—as a teacher, writer, scholar, public champion of the humanities, and defender… More
A Review of Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver
– Ryan T. Anderson, First Things, February 2011.Excerpt: Leon Kass is a national treasure. I first came across his work nearly a decade ago as he led the President’s Council on Bioethics to produce some of the finest reflections on… More
2011 Bradley Symposium: True Americanism: What It Is and Why It Matters
– The 2011 Bradley Symposium: True Americanism: What It Is and Why It Matters, Hudson Institute, 11 May 2011.What does it mean to be an American? To what larger community and ideals are we attached and devoted? The editors of What So Proudly We Hail are joined by leading thinkers to consider these… More
Seminar on National Identity: “The Man without a Country” by Edward Everett Hale
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.It is probably no accident that Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was a life-long American patriot. He was the nephew of Edward Everett, renowned orator and statesman. And his father, Nathan… More
Seminar on Freedom and Individuality: “To Build a Fire” by Jack London
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Jack London, like the unnamed man described in the story “To Build a Fire,” lived on the edge. Born in 1876, he died a short forty years later. As a young man, he was a full-fledged… More
Seminar on Equality: “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) was born and raised in Indianapolis and later left college to enlist in the U.S. Army during World War II. He spent time as a German prisoner of war and won a… More
Seminar on Enterprise and Commerce: “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” by Mark Twain
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Mark Twain (born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910) is well known as a humorist and satirist. But like many satirists, he had serious things in view. Writing in the latter part of the… More
Seminar on Freedom and Religion: “The May-Pole of Merry Mount” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), novelist and short story writer, was born in Salem, Massachusetts into an old, established New England family. His great-great-grandfather, John Hathorne,… More
Seminar on Self-Command: “The Project for Moral Perfection” by Benjamin Franklin
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.As the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was by custom and tradition destined to be a nobody. Yet thanks to his own resourcefulness,… More
Seminar on Law-Abidingness: “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Susan Glaspell (1876–1948) was an award-winning playwright and novelist, a writer of short stories, and, for a short while, a journalist. This story, “A Jury of Her Peers” (1917),… More
Seminar on Courage and Self-Sacrifice: “Chamberlain” by Michael Shaara and Speech to the Third Army by George S. Patton
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Courage is a virtue difficult to cultivate, especially among self-interested citizens oriented toward the pursuit of their own happiness. At the extreme, why shouldn’t I prefer the… More
Seminar on Compassion: “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville”
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Herman Melville (1819-1891), today hailed as one of America’s greatest writers, had in his own time a very mixed career. Some of his early sea-stories and sea-adventures were esteemed by… More
Seminar on Making One Out of Many: “The Namesake,” by Willa Cather
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Willa Sibert Cather (1873-1947), one of America’s most beloved authors, is best known for her novels depicting the lives of people who settled the American heartland and the Southwest: O!… More
The Meaning of the Gosnell Trial
– Sohrab Ahmari, Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2013.Excerpt: “As pain is to the body so repugnance is to the soul,” Dr. Kass says as we sit down for an interview in his book-lined office at the American Enterprise Institute,… More
Online Course on The Meaning of America
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.What kind of citizens are likely to emerge in a nation founded on individual rights, equality, enterprise and commerce, and freedom of religion? What virtues are required for a robust… More
Online course on The American Calendar
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Why do we have national public holidays? What does each—and what do all—contribute to our common life as Americans? The American Calendar explores the purpose and meaning of our civic… More
Essays
Practicing Ethics: Where’s the Action?
– The Hastings Center Report 20 (1):5-12, January/February 1990.Human Being and Citizen: Plato’s Apology of Socrates and the Humanities
– In Philippe Desan, ed., Engaging the Humanities at the University of Chicago (Chicago, IL: The College of the University of Chicago, 1995), 39-42.Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying
– University of Notre Dame Press, February 2000.Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Courting and Marrying is an anthology of source readings offered as a response to the contemporary cultural silence surrounding love that leads to marriage. It… More
Seeking to Balance Values of Science and Humanity
– Pam Belluck, New York Times, August 11, 2001.Excerpt: As one might expect, Dr. Leon Richard Kass, the University of Chicago professor who will head President Bush’s council on bioethics, has written on subjects like cloning,… More
The Crimson Birthmark
– William Safire, New York Times, January 21, 2002.Excerpt: he novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne took a crack at the troubling ”Frankenstein” theme of man’s presumption to gain godly power in an 1843 short story, ”The… More
The Pathos of the Kass Report
– Peter Berkowitz, Policy Review, October/November 2002.Excerpt: An anticipation of the first report of the President’s Council on Bioethics, critics on the left and not a few right-wing libertarians had been sharpening their swords and… More
The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis
– Free Press, 2003.Summary: As ardent debates over creationism fill the front pages of newspapers, Genesis has never been more timely. And as Leon R. Kass shows in The Beginning of Wisdom, it’s also… More
The Career of Leon Kass by Harvey Flaumenhaft
– Harvey Flaumenhaft, Journal of Contemporary Health Law & Policy 20:1 (2003).Excerpt: What has gone into making the remarkable career of Leon Kass? In sketching an answer to that question, it will be helpful for me to take account of what he himself has publicly had… More
Being Human: Readings from the President’s Council on Bioethics
– The President's Council on Bioethics, Washington, DC, December 2003.Summary: Increasingly, advances in biomedical science and technology raise profound challenges to familiar human practices and ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. It is no wonder, then,… More
In Qualified Praise of the Leon Kass Council on Bioethics
– Carl Mitchum, Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 10 (6) (Fall 2006).Abstract: This paper argues the distinctiveness of the President’s Council on Bioethics, as chaired by Leon Kass. The argument proceeds by seeking to place the Council in proper… More
How Brave a New World?
– 2007 Convocation Address, St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland. Reprinted in Society 45 (1): 5-8 (February 2008).Excerpt: Surveying the world you graduates are about to enter, I am reminded of the ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” My own time has been interesting… More
Leon Kass Interview
– Humanities (May/June 2008).Excerpt: Chicago-born Leon Kass, the 2009 Jefferson Lecturer, sat with Humanities magazine to describe how as a young medical doctor he joined the civil rights movement, then changed course… More
A Truer Humanism
– Azure 5769, no. 34 (Autumn 2008).Abstract: Science gives us many gifts, but it cannot keep us from losing our souls in the bargain.
Great Expectations: Studying with Leon Kass by Yuval Levin
– Yuval Levin, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2009.Excerpt: “Are you impressed with Rebecca at the well? Would you bring her home to meet your parents?” The question hung in the air, and with it the familiar sense of excitement and… More
Looking for an Honest Man: Reflections of an Unlicensed Humanist
– 38th Annual Jefferson Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities, 21 May 2009.Excerpt: It is true that I have long been devoted to liberal education, and along with my wife, Amy Kass, and a few other colleagues at the University of Chicago, I helped found a… More
Tough Love for the Humanities
– Serena Golden, Inside Higher Ed, May 22, 2009.Excerpt: Kass argued that it is the job of the humanities to address “questions of ultimate concern: the character and source of the cosmic whole and the place and work of the human being… More
Introduction of Leon R. Kass
– Introduction to the 2009 Jefferson Lecture, National Endowment for the Humanities, 22 May 2009.Excerpt: It’s a great honor for me to introduce Leon Kass. There is no one in contemporary American life who better embodies the fundamental mission of the humanities. This may seem a… More
What So Proudly We Hail, The American Soul In Story, Speech, And Song
– Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2012.Summary: This wonderfully rich anthology uses the soul-shaping power of story, speech, and song to help Americans realize more deeply—and appreciate more fully—who they are as citizens… More
Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver: Honoring the Work of Leon R. Kass
– Yuval Levin, Thomas W. Merrill, and Adam Schulman, eds. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, May 25, 2010.Summary: Leon R. Kass has been helping Americans better understand the human condition for over four decades—as a teacher, writer, scholar, public champion of the humanities, and defender… More
A Review of Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver
– Ryan T. Anderson, First Things, February 2011.Excerpt: Leon Kass is a national treasure. I first came across his work nearly a decade ago as he led the President’s Council on Bioethics to produce some of the finest reflections on… More
2011 Bradley Symposium: True Americanism: What It Is and Why It Matters
– The 2011 Bradley Symposium: True Americanism: What It Is and Why It Matters, Hudson Institute, 11 May 2011.What does it mean to be an American? To what larger community and ideals are we attached and devoted? The editors of What So Proudly We Hail are joined by leading thinkers to consider these… More
Seminar on National Identity: “The Man without a Country” by Edward Everett Hale
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.It is probably no accident that Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was a life-long American patriot. He was the nephew of Edward Everett, renowned orator and statesman. And his father, Nathan… More
Seminar on Freedom and Individuality: “To Build a Fire” by Jack London
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Jack London, like the unnamed man described in the story “To Build a Fire,” lived on the edge. Born in 1876, he died a short forty years later. As a young man, he was a full-fledged… More
Seminar on Equality: “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) was born and raised in Indianapolis and later left college to enlist in the U.S. Army during World War II. He spent time as a German prisoner of war and won a… More
Seminar on Enterprise and Commerce: “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” by Mark Twain
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Mark Twain (born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910) is well known as a humorist and satirist. But like many satirists, he had serious things in view. Writing in the latter part of the… More
Seminar on Freedom and Religion: “The May-Pole of Merry Mount” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), novelist and short story writer, was born in Salem, Massachusetts into an old, established New England family. His great-great-grandfather, John Hathorne,… More
Seminar on Self-Command: “The Project for Moral Perfection” by Benjamin Franklin
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.As the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was by custom and tradition destined to be a nobody. Yet thanks to his own resourcefulness,… More
Seminar on Law-Abidingness: “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Susan Glaspell (1876–1948) was an award-winning playwright and novelist, a writer of short stories, and, for a short while, a journalist. This story, “A Jury of Her Peers” (1917),… More
Seminar on Courage and Self-Sacrifice: “Chamberlain” by Michael Shaara and Speech to the Third Army by George S. Patton
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Courage is a virtue difficult to cultivate, especially among self-interested citizens oriented toward the pursuit of their own happiness. At the extreme, why shouldn’t I prefer the… More
Seminar on Compassion: “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville”
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Herman Melville (1819-1891), today hailed as one of America’s greatest writers, had in his own time a very mixed career. Some of his early sea-stories and sea-adventures were esteemed by… More
Seminar on Making One Out of Many: “The Namesake,” by Willa Cather
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Willa Sibert Cather (1873-1947), one of America’s most beloved authors, is best known for her novels depicting the lives of people who settled the American heartland and the Southwest: O!… More
The Meaning of the Gosnell Trial
– Sohrab Ahmari, Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2013.Excerpt: “As pain is to the body so repugnance is to the soul,” Dr. Kass says as we sit down for an interview in his book-lined office at the American Enterprise Institute,… More
Online Course on The Meaning of America
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.What kind of citizens are likely to emerge in a nation founded on individual rights, equality, enterprise and commerce, and freedom of religion? What virtues are required for a robust… More
Online course on The American Calendar
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Why do we have national public holidays? What does each—and what do all—contribute to our common life as Americans? The American Calendar explores the purpose and meaning of our civic… More
Commentary
Practicing Ethics: Where’s the Action?
– The Hastings Center Report 20 (1):5-12, January/February 1990.Human Being and Citizen: Plato’s Apology of Socrates and the Humanities
– In Philippe Desan, ed., Engaging the Humanities at the University of Chicago (Chicago, IL: The College of the University of Chicago, 1995), 39-42.Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying
– University of Notre Dame Press, February 2000.Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Courting and Marrying is an anthology of source readings offered as a response to the contemporary cultural silence surrounding love that leads to marriage. It… More
Seeking to Balance Values of Science and Humanity
– Pam Belluck, New York Times, August 11, 2001.Excerpt: As one might expect, Dr. Leon Richard Kass, the University of Chicago professor who will head President Bush’s council on bioethics, has written on subjects like cloning,… More
The Crimson Birthmark
– William Safire, New York Times, January 21, 2002.Excerpt: he novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne took a crack at the troubling ”Frankenstein” theme of man’s presumption to gain godly power in an 1843 short story, ”The… More
The Pathos of the Kass Report
– Peter Berkowitz, Policy Review, October/November 2002.Excerpt: An anticipation of the first report of the President’s Council on Bioethics, critics on the left and not a few right-wing libertarians had been sharpening their swords and… More
The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis
– Free Press, 2003.Summary: As ardent debates over creationism fill the front pages of newspapers, Genesis has never been more timely. And as Leon R. Kass shows in The Beginning of Wisdom, it’s also… More
The Career of Leon Kass by Harvey Flaumenhaft
– Harvey Flaumenhaft, Journal of Contemporary Health Law & Policy 20:1 (2003).Excerpt: What has gone into making the remarkable career of Leon Kass? In sketching an answer to that question, it will be helpful for me to take account of what he himself has publicly had… More
Being Human: Readings from the President’s Council on Bioethics
– The President's Council on Bioethics, Washington, DC, December 2003.Summary: Increasingly, advances in biomedical science and technology raise profound challenges to familiar human practices and ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. It is no wonder, then,… More
In Qualified Praise of the Leon Kass Council on Bioethics
– Carl Mitchum, Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 10 (6) (Fall 2006).Abstract: This paper argues the distinctiveness of the President’s Council on Bioethics, as chaired by Leon Kass. The argument proceeds by seeking to place the Council in proper… More
How Brave a New World?
– 2007 Convocation Address, St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland. Reprinted in Society 45 (1): 5-8 (February 2008).Excerpt: Surveying the world you graduates are about to enter, I am reminded of the ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” My own time has been interesting… More
Leon Kass Interview
– Humanities (May/June 2008).Excerpt: Chicago-born Leon Kass, the 2009 Jefferson Lecturer, sat with Humanities magazine to describe how as a young medical doctor he joined the civil rights movement, then changed course… More
A Truer Humanism
– Azure 5769, no. 34 (Autumn 2008).Abstract: Science gives us many gifts, but it cannot keep us from losing our souls in the bargain.
Great Expectations: Studying with Leon Kass by Yuval Levin
– Yuval Levin, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2009.Excerpt: “Are you impressed with Rebecca at the well? Would you bring her home to meet your parents?” The question hung in the air, and with it the familiar sense of excitement and… More
Looking for an Honest Man: Reflections of an Unlicensed Humanist
– 38th Annual Jefferson Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities, 21 May 2009.Excerpt: It is true that I have long been devoted to liberal education, and along with my wife, Amy Kass, and a few other colleagues at the University of Chicago, I helped found a… More
Tough Love for the Humanities
– Serena Golden, Inside Higher Ed, May 22, 2009.Excerpt: Kass argued that it is the job of the humanities to address “questions of ultimate concern: the character and source of the cosmic whole and the place and work of the human being… More
Introduction of Leon R. Kass
– Introduction to the 2009 Jefferson Lecture, National Endowment for the Humanities, 22 May 2009.Excerpt: It’s a great honor for me to introduce Leon Kass. There is no one in contemporary American life who better embodies the fundamental mission of the humanities. This may seem a… More
What So Proudly We Hail, The American Soul In Story, Speech, And Song
– Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2012.Summary: This wonderfully rich anthology uses the soul-shaping power of story, speech, and song to help Americans realize more deeply—and appreciate more fully—who they are as citizens… More
Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver: Honoring the Work of Leon R. Kass
– Yuval Levin, Thomas W. Merrill, and Adam Schulman, eds. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, May 25, 2010.Summary: Leon R. Kass has been helping Americans better understand the human condition for over four decades—as a teacher, writer, scholar, public champion of the humanities, and defender… More
A Review of Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver
– Ryan T. Anderson, First Things, February 2011.Excerpt: Leon Kass is a national treasure. I first came across his work nearly a decade ago as he led the President’s Council on Bioethics to produce some of the finest reflections on… More
2011 Bradley Symposium: True Americanism: What It Is and Why It Matters
– The 2011 Bradley Symposium: True Americanism: What It Is and Why It Matters, Hudson Institute, 11 May 2011.What does it mean to be an American? To what larger community and ideals are we attached and devoted? The editors of What So Proudly We Hail are joined by leading thinkers to consider these… More
Seminar on National Identity: “The Man without a Country” by Edward Everett Hale
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.It is probably no accident that Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was a life-long American patriot. He was the nephew of Edward Everett, renowned orator and statesman. And his father, Nathan… More
Seminar on Freedom and Individuality: “To Build a Fire” by Jack London
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Jack London, like the unnamed man described in the story “To Build a Fire,” lived on the edge. Born in 1876, he died a short forty years later. As a young man, he was a full-fledged… More
Seminar on Equality: “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) was born and raised in Indianapolis and later left college to enlist in the U.S. Army during World War II. He spent time as a German prisoner of war and won a… More
Seminar on Enterprise and Commerce: “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” by Mark Twain
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Mark Twain (born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910) is well known as a humorist and satirist. But like many satirists, he had serious things in view. Writing in the latter part of the… More
Seminar on Freedom and Religion: “The May-Pole of Merry Mount” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), novelist and short story writer, was born in Salem, Massachusetts into an old, established New England family. His great-great-grandfather, John Hathorne,… More
Seminar on Self-Command: “The Project for Moral Perfection” by Benjamin Franklin
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.As the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was by custom and tradition destined to be a nobody. Yet thanks to his own resourcefulness,… More
Seminar on Law-Abidingness: “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Susan Glaspell (1876–1948) was an award-winning playwright and novelist, a writer of short stories, and, for a short while, a journalist. This story, “A Jury of Her Peers” (1917),… More
Seminar on Courage and Self-Sacrifice: “Chamberlain” by Michael Shaara and Speech to the Third Army by George S. Patton
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Courage is a virtue difficult to cultivate, especially among self-interested citizens oriented toward the pursuit of their own happiness. At the extreme, why shouldn’t I prefer the… More
Seminar on Compassion: “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville”
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Herman Melville (1819-1891), today hailed as one of America’s greatest writers, had in his own time a very mixed career. Some of his early sea-stories and sea-adventures were esteemed by… More
Seminar on Making One Out of Many: “The Namesake,” by Willa Cather
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Willa Sibert Cather (1873-1947), one of America’s most beloved authors, is best known for her novels depicting the lives of people who settled the American heartland and the Southwest: O!… More
The Meaning of the Gosnell Trial
– Sohrab Ahmari, Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2013.Excerpt: “As pain is to the body so repugnance is to the soul,” Dr. Kass says as we sit down for an interview in his book-lined office at the American Enterprise Institute,… More
Online Course on The Meaning of America
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.What kind of citizens are likely to emerge in a nation founded on individual rights, equality, enterprise and commerce, and freedom of religion? What virtues are required for a robust… More
Online course on The American Calendar
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Why do we have national public holidays? What does each—and what do all—contribute to our common life as Americans? The American Calendar explores the purpose and meaning of our civic… More
Multimedia
Practicing Ethics: Where’s the Action?
– The Hastings Center Report 20 (1):5-12, January/February 1990.Human Being and Citizen: Plato’s Apology of Socrates and the Humanities
– In Philippe Desan, ed., Engaging the Humanities at the University of Chicago (Chicago, IL: The College of the University of Chicago, 1995), 39-42.Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying
– University of Notre Dame Press, February 2000.Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Courting and Marrying is an anthology of source readings offered as a response to the contemporary cultural silence surrounding love that leads to marriage. It… More
Seeking to Balance Values of Science and Humanity
– Pam Belluck, New York Times, August 11, 2001.Excerpt: As one might expect, Dr. Leon Richard Kass, the University of Chicago professor who will head President Bush’s council on bioethics, has written on subjects like cloning,… More
The Crimson Birthmark
– William Safire, New York Times, January 21, 2002.Excerpt: he novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne took a crack at the troubling ”Frankenstein” theme of man’s presumption to gain godly power in an 1843 short story, ”The… More
The Pathos of the Kass Report
– Peter Berkowitz, Policy Review, October/November 2002.Excerpt: An anticipation of the first report of the President’s Council on Bioethics, critics on the left and not a few right-wing libertarians had been sharpening their swords and… More
The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis
– Free Press, 2003.Summary: As ardent debates over creationism fill the front pages of newspapers, Genesis has never been more timely. And as Leon R. Kass shows in The Beginning of Wisdom, it’s also… More
The Career of Leon Kass by Harvey Flaumenhaft
– Harvey Flaumenhaft, Journal of Contemporary Health Law & Policy 20:1 (2003).Excerpt: What has gone into making the remarkable career of Leon Kass? In sketching an answer to that question, it will be helpful for me to take account of what he himself has publicly had… More
Being Human: Readings from the President’s Council on Bioethics
– The President's Council on Bioethics, Washington, DC, December 2003.Summary: Increasingly, advances in biomedical science and technology raise profound challenges to familiar human practices and ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. It is no wonder, then,… More
In Qualified Praise of the Leon Kass Council on Bioethics
– Carl Mitchum, Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 10 (6) (Fall 2006).Abstract: This paper argues the distinctiveness of the President’s Council on Bioethics, as chaired by Leon Kass. The argument proceeds by seeking to place the Council in proper… More
How Brave a New World?
– 2007 Convocation Address, St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland. Reprinted in Society 45 (1): 5-8 (February 2008).Excerpt: Surveying the world you graduates are about to enter, I am reminded of the ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” My own time has been interesting… More
Leon Kass Interview
– Humanities (May/June 2008).Excerpt: Chicago-born Leon Kass, the 2009 Jefferson Lecturer, sat with Humanities magazine to describe how as a young medical doctor he joined the civil rights movement, then changed course… More
A Truer Humanism
– Azure 5769, no. 34 (Autumn 2008).Abstract: Science gives us many gifts, but it cannot keep us from losing our souls in the bargain.
Great Expectations: Studying with Leon Kass by Yuval Levin
– Yuval Levin, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2009.Excerpt: “Are you impressed with Rebecca at the well? Would you bring her home to meet your parents?” The question hung in the air, and with it the familiar sense of excitement and… More
Looking for an Honest Man: Reflections of an Unlicensed Humanist
– 38th Annual Jefferson Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities, 21 May 2009.Excerpt: It is true that I have long been devoted to liberal education, and along with my wife, Amy Kass, and a few other colleagues at the University of Chicago, I helped found a… More
Tough Love for the Humanities
– Serena Golden, Inside Higher Ed, May 22, 2009.Excerpt: Kass argued that it is the job of the humanities to address “questions of ultimate concern: the character and source of the cosmic whole and the place and work of the human being… More
Introduction of Leon R. Kass
– Introduction to the 2009 Jefferson Lecture, National Endowment for the Humanities, 22 May 2009.Excerpt: It’s a great honor for me to introduce Leon Kass. There is no one in contemporary American life who better embodies the fundamental mission of the humanities. This may seem a… More
What So Proudly We Hail, The American Soul In Story, Speech, And Song
– Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2012.Summary: This wonderfully rich anthology uses the soul-shaping power of story, speech, and song to help Americans realize more deeply—and appreciate more fully—who they are as citizens… More
Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver: Honoring the Work of Leon R. Kass
– Yuval Levin, Thomas W. Merrill, and Adam Schulman, eds. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, May 25, 2010.Summary: Leon R. Kass has been helping Americans better understand the human condition for over four decades—as a teacher, writer, scholar, public champion of the humanities, and defender… More
A Review of Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver
– Ryan T. Anderson, First Things, February 2011.Excerpt: Leon Kass is a national treasure. I first came across his work nearly a decade ago as he led the President’s Council on Bioethics to produce some of the finest reflections on… More
2011 Bradley Symposium: True Americanism: What It Is and Why It Matters
– The 2011 Bradley Symposium: True Americanism: What It Is and Why It Matters, Hudson Institute, 11 May 2011.What does it mean to be an American? To what larger community and ideals are we attached and devoted? The editors of What So Proudly We Hail are joined by leading thinkers to consider these… More
Seminar on National Identity: “The Man without a Country” by Edward Everett Hale
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.It is probably no accident that Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was a life-long American patriot. He was the nephew of Edward Everett, renowned orator and statesman. And his father, Nathan… More
Seminar on Freedom and Individuality: “To Build a Fire” by Jack London
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Jack London, like the unnamed man described in the story “To Build a Fire,” lived on the edge. Born in 1876, he died a short forty years later. As a young man, he was a full-fledged… More
Seminar on Equality: “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) was born and raised in Indianapolis and later left college to enlist in the U.S. Army during World War II. He spent time as a German prisoner of war and won a… More
Seminar on Enterprise and Commerce: “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” by Mark Twain
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Mark Twain (born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910) is well known as a humorist and satirist. But like many satirists, he had serious things in view. Writing in the latter part of the… More
Seminar on Freedom and Religion: “The May-Pole of Merry Mount” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), novelist and short story writer, was born in Salem, Massachusetts into an old, established New England family. His great-great-grandfather, John Hathorne,… More
Seminar on Self-Command: “The Project for Moral Perfection” by Benjamin Franklin
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.As the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was by custom and tradition destined to be a nobody. Yet thanks to his own resourcefulness,… More
Seminar on Law-Abidingness: “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Susan Glaspell (1876–1948) was an award-winning playwright and novelist, a writer of short stories, and, for a short while, a journalist. This story, “A Jury of Her Peers” (1917),… More
Seminar on Courage and Self-Sacrifice: “Chamberlain” by Michael Shaara and Speech to the Third Army by George S. Patton
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Courage is a virtue difficult to cultivate, especially among self-interested citizens oriented toward the pursuit of their own happiness. At the extreme, why shouldn’t I prefer the… More
Seminar on Compassion: “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville”
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Herman Melville (1819-1891), today hailed as one of America’s greatest writers, had in his own time a very mixed career. Some of his early sea-stories and sea-adventures were esteemed by… More
Seminar on Making One Out of Many: “The Namesake,” by Willa Cather
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Willa Sibert Cather (1873-1947), one of America’s most beloved authors, is best known for her novels depicting the lives of people who settled the American heartland and the Southwest: O!… More
The Meaning of the Gosnell Trial
– Sohrab Ahmari, Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2013.Excerpt: “As pain is to the body so repugnance is to the soul,” Dr. Kass says as we sit down for an interview in his book-lined office at the American Enterprise Institute,… More
Online Course on The Meaning of America
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.What kind of citizens are likely to emerge in a nation founded on individual rights, equality, enterprise and commerce, and freedom of religion? What virtues are required for a robust… More
Online course on The American Calendar
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Why do we have national public holidays? What does each—and what do all—contribute to our common life as Americans? The American Calendar explores the purpose and meaning of our civic… More
Teaching
Practicing Ethics: Where’s the Action?
– The Hastings Center Report 20 (1):5-12, January/February 1990.Human Being and Citizen: Plato’s Apology of Socrates and the Humanities
– In Philippe Desan, ed., Engaging the Humanities at the University of Chicago (Chicago, IL: The College of the University of Chicago, 1995), 39-42.Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying
– University of Notre Dame Press, February 2000.Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Courting and Marrying is an anthology of source readings offered as a response to the contemporary cultural silence surrounding love that leads to marriage. It… More
Seeking to Balance Values of Science and Humanity
– Pam Belluck, New York Times, August 11, 2001.Excerpt: As one might expect, Dr. Leon Richard Kass, the University of Chicago professor who will head President Bush’s council on bioethics, has written on subjects like cloning,… More
The Crimson Birthmark
– William Safire, New York Times, January 21, 2002.Excerpt: he novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne took a crack at the troubling ”Frankenstein” theme of man’s presumption to gain godly power in an 1843 short story, ”The… More
The Pathos of the Kass Report
– Peter Berkowitz, Policy Review, October/November 2002.Excerpt: An anticipation of the first report of the President’s Council on Bioethics, critics on the left and not a few right-wing libertarians had been sharpening their swords and… More
The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis
– Free Press, 2003.Summary: As ardent debates over creationism fill the front pages of newspapers, Genesis has never been more timely. And as Leon R. Kass shows in The Beginning of Wisdom, it’s also… More
The Career of Leon Kass by Harvey Flaumenhaft
– Harvey Flaumenhaft, Journal of Contemporary Health Law & Policy 20:1 (2003).Excerpt: What has gone into making the remarkable career of Leon Kass? In sketching an answer to that question, it will be helpful for me to take account of what he himself has publicly had… More
Being Human: Readings from the President’s Council on Bioethics
– The President's Council on Bioethics, Washington, DC, December 2003.Summary: Increasingly, advances in biomedical science and technology raise profound challenges to familiar human practices and ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. It is no wonder, then,… More
In Qualified Praise of the Leon Kass Council on Bioethics
– Carl Mitchum, Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 10 (6) (Fall 2006).Abstract: This paper argues the distinctiveness of the President’s Council on Bioethics, as chaired by Leon Kass. The argument proceeds by seeking to place the Council in proper… More
How Brave a New World?
– 2007 Convocation Address, St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland. Reprinted in Society 45 (1): 5-8 (February 2008).Excerpt: Surveying the world you graduates are about to enter, I am reminded of the ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” My own time has been interesting… More
Leon Kass Interview
– Humanities (May/June 2008).Excerpt: Chicago-born Leon Kass, the 2009 Jefferson Lecturer, sat with Humanities magazine to describe how as a young medical doctor he joined the civil rights movement, then changed course… More
A Truer Humanism
– Azure 5769, no. 34 (Autumn 2008).Abstract: Science gives us many gifts, but it cannot keep us from losing our souls in the bargain.
Great Expectations: Studying with Leon Kass by Yuval Levin
– Yuval Levin, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2009.Excerpt: “Are you impressed with Rebecca at the well? Would you bring her home to meet your parents?” The question hung in the air, and with it the familiar sense of excitement and… More
Looking for an Honest Man: Reflections of an Unlicensed Humanist
– 38th Annual Jefferson Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities, 21 May 2009.Excerpt: It is true that I have long been devoted to liberal education, and along with my wife, Amy Kass, and a few other colleagues at the University of Chicago, I helped found a… More
Tough Love for the Humanities
– Serena Golden, Inside Higher Ed, May 22, 2009.Excerpt: Kass argued that it is the job of the humanities to address “questions of ultimate concern: the character and source of the cosmic whole and the place and work of the human being… More
Introduction of Leon R. Kass
– Introduction to the 2009 Jefferson Lecture, National Endowment for the Humanities, 22 May 2009.Excerpt: It’s a great honor for me to introduce Leon Kass. There is no one in contemporary American life who better embodies the fundamental mission of the humanities. This may seem a… More
What So Proudly We Hail, The American Soul In Story, Speech, And Song
– Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2012.Summary: This wonderfully rich anthology uses the soul-shaping power of story, speech, and song to help Americans realize more deeply—and appreciate more fully—who they are as citizens… More
Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver: Honoring the Work of Leon R. Kass
– Yuval Levin, Thomas W. Merrill, and Adam Schulman, eds. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, May 25, 2010.Summary: Leon R. Kass has been helping Americans better understand the human condition for over four decades—as a teacher, writer, scholar, public champion of the humanities, and defender… More
A Review of Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver
– Ryan T. Anderson, First Things, February 2011.Excerpt: Leon Kass is a national treasure. I first came across his work nearly a decade ago as he led the President’s Council on Bioethics to produce some of the finest reflections on… More
2011 Bradley Symposium: True Americanism: What It Is and Why It Matters
– The 2011 Bradley Symposium: True Americanism: What It Is and Why It Matters, Hudson Institute, 11 May 2011.What does it mean to be an American? To what larger community and ideals are we attached and devoted? The editors of What So Proudly We Hail are joined by leading thinkers to consider these… More
Seminar on National Identity: “The Man without a Country” by Edward Everett Hale
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.It is probably no accident that Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was a life-long American patriot. He was the nephew of Edward Everett, renowned orator and statesman. And his father, Nathan… More
Seminar on Freedom and Individuality: “To Build a Fire” by Jack London
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Jack London, like the unnamed man described in the story “To Build a Fire,” lived on the edge. Born in 1876, he died a short forty years later. As a young man, he was a full-fledged… More
Seminar on Equality: “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) was born and raised in Indianapolis and later left college to enlist in the U.S. Army during World War II. He spent time as a German prisoner of war and won a… More
Seminar on Enterprise and Commerce: “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” by Mark Twain
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Mark Twain (born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910) is well known as a humorist and satirist. But like many satirists, he had serious things in view. Writing in the latter part of the… More
Seminar on Freedom and Religion: “The May-Pole of Merry Mount” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), novelist and short story writer, was born in Salem, Massachusetts into an old, established New England family. His great-great-grandfather, John Hathorne,… More
Seminar on Self-Command: “The Project for Moral Perfection” by Benjamin Franklin
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.As the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was by custom and tradition destined to be a nobody. Yet thanks to his own resourcefulness,… More
Seminar on Law-Abidingness: “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Susan Glaspell (1876–1948) was an award-winning playwright and novelist, a writer of short stories, and, for a short while, a journalist. This story, “A Jury of Her Peers” (1917),… More
Seminar on Courage and Self-Sacrifice: “Chamberlain” by Michael Shaara and Speech to the Third Army by George S. Patton
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Courage is a virtue difficult to cultivate, especially among self-interested citizens oriented toward the pursuit of their own happiness. At the extreme, why shouldn’t I prefer the… More
Seminar on Compassion: “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville”
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Herman Melville (1819-1891), today hailed as one of America’s greatest writers, had in his own time a very mixed career. Some of his early sea-stories and sea-adventures were esteemed by… More
Seminar on Making One Out of Many: “The Namesake,” by Willa Cather
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Willa Sibert Cather (1873-1947), one of America’s most beloved authors, is best known for her novels depicting the lives of people who settled the American heartland and the Southwest: O!… More
The Meaning of the Gosnell Trial
– Sohrab Ahmari, Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2013.Excerpt: “As pain is to the body so repugnance is to the soul,” Dr. Kass says as we sit down for an interview in his book-lined office at the American Enterprise Institute,… More
Online Course on The Meaning of America
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.What kind of citizens are likely to emerge in a nation founded on individual rights, equality, enterprise and commerce, and freedom of religion? What virtues are required for a robust… More
Online course on The American Calendar
– WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.Why do we have national public holidays? What does each—and what do all—contribute to our common life as Americans? The American Calendar explores the purpose and meaning of our civic… More