>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington DC.
[ Background Sounds ]
>> Dr. Jane McAuliffe: Welcome
to the concluding session
of Scholarfest.
But before we launch that panel,
we're going to have an opportunity
to hear a few words from the first
two directors of the Kluge Center.
I'll begin by introducing
Prosser Gifford.
In fact, I feel a real,
it's a real privilege
to introduce the founding director
of the Kluge Center,
Dr. Prosser Gifford.
Pross was, in fact, my own first
connection with the Kluge Center.
Years ago, when I was at Georgetown
University, he sought me out
and asked some advice
about recruiting scholars
in the field of Islamic studies.
And mounting programs that
were pertinent to that field.
And I recall several interesting
meetings here at the Library
of Congress under his leadership.
He is, of course, himself
an accomplished scholar
and a skilled administrator.
And pross was important to the
initial vision of the center.
Both he and Dr. Billington
came to the Library of Congress
from the Woodrow Wilson Center.
And Pross helped to give the center
shape and to make the ambition
of connecting real scholarship
with the pressing issues
of the day a vital reality.
He believed in recruiting
stop senior scholars as well
as creating opportunities for
emerging younger scholars.
When he retired in 2005,
he left the Kluge Center
on a strong and secure footing.
Please welcome Dr. Prosser Gifford.
[ Applause ]
>> Dr. Prosser Gifford:
Good afternoon.
I've been told I have
seven and a half minutes.
And, as a sailor, I
have a stop watch.
We should begin at the beginning.
The Kluge Center would
never have happened
without Jim Billington's
friendship with John Kluge.
And without John Kluge's desire that
every person have an opportunity
to achieve her or his best.
The structure of the center
would not have been what it is
without our experience at
the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Arranging offices off a central
corridor so that fellows had
to encounter others in different
disciplines, deriving often
from different life trajectories,
encouraged conversations
across disciplines and perspectives.
And discouraged the departmental
clannishness of many universities.
In one aspect I failed because,
it was not for want of trying.
I wanted to get a lunch
room for the Kluge Center
as had been true at
the Wilson Center.
Because lunch conversations were
often enlivening and stimulating.
There's a big kitchen in this
basement, but we couldn't figure
out a way to connect it
appropriately with the Kluge Center.
What's more important, of
course, was the structure,
intellectual structure
of the center.
How were we going to organize it?
Broad areas of interest?
Specific chairs?
Or appointment of eminent
individuals irrespective
of structure?
As it happened, we really improvised
as opportunities came along.
In 2001, we created the first named
chair the Henry A. Kissinger chair
in Foreign Policy and
International Relations,
with its own selection committee,
which I understand still meets.
In the next year John Noonan
came, and we started the chair
of American Law and Governance.
And then in 2003, chairs of
the North and of the South.
And about that time we felt the
need for a formal body to convene
who could help us take advantage
of ideas and suggest scholars.
And that became the
Scholars' Council,
which has been meeting
regularly since 2003.
Two aspects of the initial
foundation which I was involved
in were the creation of the process
for selecting Kluge prize winners.
And the second was
identifying additional resources
for junior fellows.
When Jim Billington decided that
the library should give a prize
for a lifetime achievement in
humanities, I went to Stockholm
to talk to the Nobel's people
about how they did their things.
Now, you may know, I'm sure some of
you do, that each Nobel is awarded
by a different Swedish institution.
And they all do it differently.
The one that in some
ways seemed most germane
to us was curiously the
literature one because they have
to deal with multiple languages.
And the committee often, members
of the committee often can't read
Indonesian or whatever it was.
So they had to rely on
assessments in secondhand.
But they had a very good
system for doing that.
And eventually we set up a system
under Peg Christoff for collecting
and systematizing the
recommendations we got,
which mounted into the thousands.
For me the most valuable parts
of the Kluge prize were two.
First of all, reading
the work of the nominees,
the lead nominees was amazing.
And even more amazing meeting them.
And visiting the Kolakofskys
in Oxford.
And then visiting Paul Ricoeur in
Paris, who unfortunately was too ill
to come personally but
sent his text to be read.
The second aspect,
the junior fellows,
we really owe an enormous
debt to Sir Gareth Roberts.
He was an Oxford, he was head of
the Wolfson College in Oxford.
But he was also head
of the British Council,
which is sort of the equivalent
of NSF and NIH put together.
And he came to visit Jim
Billington, and Jim sent him
over to the Kluge Center.
This was about in, this
was in 2000 or early 2001.
And he became enamored of the idea
that young British scholars, Ph.D.'s
and post docs should have
an opportunity to work
at the Library of Congress.
And he pushed that idea in England.
Wrote a very powerful report,
which was published in 2006.
But before that, both
the Humanities Council
and the Social Science Council
had funded the first set
of ten British fellows.
And it's really that
first funding from outside
that enabled the young scholars,
young fellows program to succeed.
For me, getting the younger
fellows were terribly important.
Because you could get some sense of
the direction of future scholarship
and of the kinds of trends
which they found exciting.
And for some of them, a couple
are even here at these sessions,
the individual, getting to know
the individuals was extraordinary.
I can't, in seven minutes which are
almost up, go into a lot of details.
But I do remember the first
black psychiatrist from Rwanda,
who went back after the genocide.
And some of his stories
were extraordinary.
Now, while we were working
on filling the intellectual
interesticies [phonetic]
of the center, I was also
trying to connect the center
with the other aspects
of the library,
which had real relevance
and potential help.
CRS. The manuscript division.
Geography and map.
The area studies divisions.
And the poetry office.
And in addition, and this was an
important part at the beginning.
I sought to bring the center's
younger fellows together
with the other junior scholars at
other institutions in Washington.
Such as the National Guard.
The Smithsonian.
Dumbarton Oaks.
And we had in this room several
meetings of the junior fellows.
Some of which actually
produced working relationships
across institutions.
Jason asked me as a final
question, what's the value
of this institution in this place?
And I'm pressing eight
minutes, but I will finish.
I think the value of this
institution is two-fold.
First of all, Washington is a
really valuable city for research.
Most Americans do not know that.
The archives, the libraries,
I mean this library.
But you've got the
Library of Medicine.
You've got the Folger Library.
You've got specialized
libraries all over town.
You've got enormous
archival resources.
It is one of the great cities
of the world for research.
Second, it's a one-industry town.
And it's very valuable to have
in this one-industry town people
whose perspectives are not consumed
by two years from now or two
years ago, but who can focus
on ancient truths and
markedly different cultures.
And that's why I think this
institution is so valuable here.
[ Applause ]
[ Background Sounds ]
>> Dr. Jane McAuliffe: I'm delighted
to introduce the second director
of the Kluge Center,
Dr. Carolyn Brown.
Carolyn was already a veteran of the
Library of Congress before taking
over this position in 2006.
She is a scholar of
Chinese literature
who is currently completing
a long delayed book.
Where? In the Kluge Center.
Carolyn played a crucial role
in expanding the intellectual
reach of the center.
She established new fellowship
programs, such as the Larson
and the Lomax fellowships.
As well as a chair in
astrobiology through a collaboration
between the Library of Congress
and the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration.
She created a strong
network of support
for the Kluge Center
throughout the library.
She also recruited a
very talented staff.
And passed on a thriving
organization
that I was truly honored to inherit
last fall as the third director.
Dr. Carolyn Brown.
[ Applause ]
>> Dr. Carolyn Brown: Well,
I don't have a stopwatch,
but I did time it, so we'll see.
Prosser Gifford created a wonderful
legacy in the Kluge Center.
And it was my great
opportunity to be able
to build on it and to extend it.
What I always loved about
working at the Library
of Congress is its
high moral calling
to make knowledge freely
available it all.
And it always seemed to me,
even before I became director
of the center, that the center
is an outstanding exemplum.
I really want to say the outstanding
exemplum, but I don't want
to offend colleagues, outstanding
exemplum of that calling.
Because it demonstrates through
its programs and the products
of its research the value
that emerges from the deep use
of the collections, the kind of
use that only scholars can execute.
Years ago, when I came
to the library,
Dr. Billington characterized the
library's work in public outreach
as bringing Greece to Rome.
And the Kluge Center
exemplifies that vision
of bringing the finest
knowledge and wisdom
into the center of political power.
Enabling dialogue between
the thinkers and the doers.
The challenge for thinkers, I
think, is particularly great
in the digital age because of the
overwhelming volume of knowledge
that comes at us with
an accelerating speed.
The society needs scholars who are
deeply informed by the evidence,
can draw on and interpret the best
of what has been thought
and understood.
But who being informed, but not
limited by the past, can contribute
to new knowledge and ultimately
to decisions made in the interest
of human understanding
and the public good.
I think the Kluge Center
really answers some
of these needs in three ways.
First, it is a vibrant
symbol of humanistic research
and knowledge at the highest level.
And the Kluge Prize most visibly,
I think, exemplifies that.
Second, the center is a
resource for the Congress.
The center has helped Dr. Billington
arrange informal discussions
between senior scholars and
individual members of Congress.
I have had the privilege of
sitting in on some of these,
and they have been deeply,
wonderfully informative.
The center also has
connected the Kluge scholars
with the congressional research
service, which has been a way
of serving the Congress indirectly.
And, third, this Kluge
Center, I always understood it
as a living demonstration of
why we need this great library
and other great libraries
in the digital age.
Isn't everything online, we hear?
No, it's not.
In fact, very little is online and
important and freely available.
Scholars already know
the value of the library
and the learning that it supports.
The general public understands
this through the products
of the scholarship, the
publication of our center's scholars
and the programs available
on the Internet.
And this has been a wonderful
achievement of recent years
to have all of those
programs now available.
Each make the implicit argument
of the value of humanistic study.
On my watch, the center
presented enormous number
of wonderful conferences
and programs.
And I certainly don't have the
time to talk about all of these.
But some kind of emerged
around a theme, and I just want
to mention three of those.
Jane alluded to one of them from
the very earliest days of the center
under Pross, and I was
able to continue it.
Islamic studies was
an important interest.
The center recognized that
Americans knew very little
of the Muslim world.
And, therefore, it was important
to invite extraordinary scholars
from the region to be in the center
as senior scholars and to partner
with the African and Middle
Eastern Division on programs.
This interest nestled
within the larger interest
in international cultural
studies and foreign affairs.
Another theme, understanding
the impact
of the digital transformation
on human life.
Not just the technology,
but on human life.
Beginning as early as,
I believe it was 2004,
the Kluge Center convened the
best thinkers and practitioners
to describe -- important to describe
because hardly knew
what was happening --
to describe and reflect on
the revolutionary changes.
We convened open meetings
for the public.
Organized private meetings
for library leaders.
Invited scholars and digital
studies into residence.
And now, as some of you have
heard today, we offer a fellowship
that probes the human dimensions
of this transformative phenomena.
Jane also mentioned the
astrobiology program.
You think astrobiology, are we
a scientific research center?
Well, no. Our chair explores
the humanistic implications
of the search for life beyond Earth.
The third Baruch S. Blumberg scholar
in astrobiology will be arriving
some time later this year.
In my time at the center,
the center was blessed
with wonderful partnerships.
And I can, again, only
mention a few of them.
Pross initiated, as he spoke to
that, the wonderful partnership
with the Arts and Humanities
Research Council of Great Britain.
And the young scholars
began arriving
as the baton was passed to me.
That program now brings
about 40 scholars a year,
which has been really extraordinary.
Other fellowships with
wonderful partners followed,
I'll just mention them.
The Black Mountain Institute in
Nevada, University of Nevada.
American Council of Learned
Societies has been generous
in sending us scholars.
Bavarian American Academy
and others.
So the fellowship opportunities
have really expanded greatly
over the last several years.
I would be remiss if I didn't
mention the wonderful decolonization
seminars developed by the
National History Center
that has built a field of
history within the 20th century,
within 20th century world history.
This summer will be the tenth year
that the Kluge Center
has hosted this.
It's amazing that ten
years is, goes fast.
In life and especially
in a bureaucracy,
no one can accomplish
anything alone.
The library and Dr. Billington
has inspired us and prodded us.
The scholars Council has guided us.
The staff designed and
implemented the programs.
The contractors, wonderful people.
Contractor sounds like a cold
idea, but really wonderful people
who helped expand the
staff capacities.
And the scholars and fellows
brought us meaningful work
and really great joy.
And those fellows and
scholars in the audience,
think about the really the joy
that you have brought to us,
both library staff as
well as, in general,
as well as staff in the center.
It was my great pleasure to serve
the center as the director and now
to be in the center
as a research scholar.
As a director, I spoke
repeatedly about the center
as an amazing place
to conduct research.
As a researcher, I can truly
say it's even more extraordinary
than I was saying all those years.
I now truly understand what
our beloved Kluge Prize winner,
Jaroslav Pelikan, meant
when he said that,
as a scholar in the Kluge Center,
he felt like a mouse
in a cheese factory.
The endowments provided by John
Kluge and the other generous donors,
and I note that Mr.
Maguire was here.
I don't think he's here
right now for the program.
But the other generous donors
for the Kissinger program.
The Maguire Chair.
Papamarkou and David
Larson endowments.
Together these gifts ensure that the
Kluge Center will have the financial
means to sustain its
future indefinitely.
We have of this time need to ensure
that that vision is also
endowed for the future.
I don't know if people
endow with visions,
but I think we need to do that.
And why? The enormous issues facing
the current world are organically
interrelated and dynamically
unfolding.
There are no simple solutions.
There are not even simple points
of entry into the problems
that need to be addressed.
The challenges call for thinkers
who can reframe the issues
when old paradigms fail.
See through the confusing
rush of events
to identify the essential questions.
Stay open to deep knowledge
and cultivate sound judgment.
And offer fresh creative approaches,
both to the public, but especially
to those charged with
the heavy responsibility
of leading this democracy in
a dangerous and fraught time.
For the foreseeable
future and even the future
that we cannot even imagine, we need
the Kluge Center, not only to grow,
but to grow and flourish.
This imperative will remain to
always bring Greece to Rome.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
[ Background Sounds ]
>> Dr. Jane McAuliffe: Now I
would like to introduce the person
who has made all of this possible.
Without the vision of
Dr. James Billington,
there would be no Kluge Center.
We would not be sitting
here celebrating 15 years
of residential scholarship
at the Library of Congress.
He had the idea.
He found the person who could
help him realize that idea.
He has steadily guided the Kluge
Center really day in and day
out for all of the
years of its existence.
I now would like to ask the
13th Librarian of Congress,
Dr. James Billington,
to come to the stage.
[ Applause ]
>> James Billington:
Thank you very much.
My function today is to mainly thank
the three people who have guided,
created, exemplified the values
of scholarship, fundamental
scholarship.
Giving tentative answers to
important questions rather
than just filling out trivial
details of secondary questions.
For exemplifying a certain
idea rather than practicing
and contributing to the kind of
fundamental as nearly objective is
as possible for mortal being to be.
The use of the enormous
resources of this institution.
Human, an incredibly
knowledgeable staff.
Amazing collections, many
of them still waiting
to be discovered, multimedial
in scope.
International.
Polylinguistic.
It's a big challenge.
And so we have to not try
to say what the answers are,
but help inform what
the questions are.
Pross Gifford has done
this twice in Washington.
It's a noble thing.
It's been punctuated by his own
extraordinary and [inaudible] to,
extraordinary gifts for
judging the outer frontiers
and [inaudible] possibilities,
real scholarship.
It was particularly important,
I mean Pross Gifford had
been principal advisor to two
of the most important college
presidents in the tumultuous 60's.
He'd been dean of faculty at
Amherst in a very creative period.
And he brought to us, first of all,
an example of practicing scholarship
that was extraordinary and ranging.
And, second of all, an enormously
sensitive inquiry and knowledge
of what the periphery of
possibilities would be.
And, not least of all,
he brought and has just,
you may have heard him here, one
of the greatest most enduring
and authentic laughs in the
history of modern Washington.
So we, I heard George Schultz,
our former Secretary of State,
speak on his 90th birthday.
And somebody asked him
how did he get along
so well with Mackenzie King?
He was getting an honorary degree
at a small Canadian university.
And he said, well, you
know, it wasn't easy,
if you keep in mind the three H's.
And I thought is this a 4-H club?
What is he talking about?
But he said, no, Franklin
Roosevelt's answer to the question,
he said, because of the three H's.
He said humanity, humility,
and humor.
And Pross Gifford and Carolyn
have had those qualities.
Which is very rich and rewarding
as well as an endless curiosity
and appreciation of other people's
potential and their scholarly work.
Which has animated this whole place
and made it such an important one.
Thanks to all of you for being here
in the various capacities
and relationship.
And I want to thank also
our present director who,
this is a wonderful case of each
building on their predecessor.
And each really deserving
far more public credit
than any of them have got.
Again, I return to
Pross, the founder,
because he's done this twice.
He did this at the Wilson
Center when, as my deputy.
And he did it here.
And, again, all these people are
people who do the little things,
for and with people, which
makes it a human achievement.
Including the social
sciences and the best in that.
Which like the humanities don't
have their full recognition
at the international level that
John Kluge's enormous benefaction.
His agreement with the
whole package right
from the beginning made it possible.
So let me just conclude by saying
a word about Jane McAuliffe.
Because here, as an example of
the same wonderful qualities
that have been sustained throughout
the three that have directed
and really created this institution.
And that is that she's has this
remarkable background having Dean
of Arts and Faculties for
ten years at Georgetown.
President of Bryn Mawr.
And always innovating
and doing new things.
Whether it's the Christian-Muslim
dialogue at Georgetown.
Or transforming Bryn Mawr,
in whose hospital I was
in fact born many years ago.
The, and to a much more dynamic,
much more international place
and being herself then a
product of the Kluge Center,
as a fellow under Carolyn's
wonderful and supportive leadership.
I'm following a theme that
Pross first introduced.
But being, having produced
a book which,
when it comes out very shortly, will
be continuing, cement her reputation
as one of the most sympathetic
and serious students of the other,
the third of the great
prophetic monotheisms
that have helped shape
so much of civilization.
So I want to thank her
for organizing this.
For being willing to
take over this job.
None of these jobs pay what they
deserve, but they pay a lot in terms
of satisfaction that
you're doing something good.
And that is, really
is my function here
to just tell you how great it has
been to work with these people.
What a privilege it's been.
And what an honor it is to
have all of you coming back
and showing your appreciation
as well as your productivity
and your diverse experiences in
this really wonderful undertaking.
So thank you, and let me turn
it over to our president.
Thank you so much.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.