The Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities is an honorary lecture series established in 1972 by the National Endowment for the Humanities

National Endowment for the Humanities

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...

 (NEH). According to the NEH, the Lecture is "the highest honor the federal government

Federal government of the United States

The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

 confers for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities

Humanities

The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....

."

History of the Jefferson Lecture

The Jefferson Lecturer is selected each year by the National Council on the Humanities, the 26-member citizen advisory board of the NEH. The honoree delivers a lecture in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, generally in conjunction with the spring meeting of the Council, and receives an honorarium of $10,000. The stated purpose of the honor is to recognize "an individual who has made significant scholarly contributions in the humanities and who has the ability to communicate the knowledge and wisdom of the humanities in a broadly appealing way."

The first Jefferson Lecturer, in 1972, was Lionel Trilling

Lionel Trilling

Lionel Trilling was an American literary critic, author, and teacher. With wife Diana Trilling, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review. Although he did not establish a school of literary criticism, he is one of the leading U.S...

. He spoke on "Mind in the Modern World." Among other things, Trilling suggested that humanism

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

 had become the basis for social improvement, rather than science and the scientific method

Scientific method

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...

 as has been predicted by Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

, the Lectures' namesake. Ten years later, Gerald Holton

Gerald Holton

Gerald Holton is Mallinckrodt Research Professor of Physics and Research Professor of the History of Science, Emeritus, at Harvard University.Born 1922 in Berlin, he grew up in Vienna before emigrating in 1938...

, the first scientist invited to deliver the lecture, drew attention for responding to Trilling, proposing that Jefferson's vision of science as a force for social improvement was still viable, opining that there had been a "relocation of the center of gravity" of scientific inquiry toward solving society's important problems, and cautioning that science education had to be improved dramatically or only a small "technological elite" would be equipped to take part in self-government.

The selection of the 2000 Jefferson Lecturer led to a spate of controversy. The initial selection was President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

. William R. Ferris

William R. Ferris

William Reynolds Ferris is an American author and scholar and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities...

, chairman of the NEH, said that his intent was to establish a new tradition for every President to deliver a Jefferson Lecture during his or her presidency, and that this was consistent with the NEH's broader effort to increase public awareness of the humanities. However, some scholars and political opponents objected that the choice of Clinton represented an inappropriate and unprecedented politicization of the NEH. William J. Bennett, a conservative Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 and former chairman of the NEH under President Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

, charged that the proposal was an example of how Clinton had "corrupted all of those around him." In the wake of the controversy, President Clinton declined the honor; a White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 spokesperson said the President "didn't want the work of the National Endowment for the Humanities to be called into question."

Ultimately the 2000 honor went to historian James M. McPherson

James M. McPherson

James M. McPherson is an American Civil War historian, and is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University. He received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom, his most famous book...

, whose lecture turned out to be very popular. Subsequently, the NEH revised the criteria for the award to place more emphasis on speaking skills and public appeal.

The next Jefferson Lecture, by playwright Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller

Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...

, again led to attacks from conservatives such as Jay Nordlinger

Jay Nordlinger

Jay Nordlinger is an American journalist. He is a senior editor of National Review, the conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. He also writes a column for the magazine’s website, "National...

, who called it "a disgrace," and George Will

George Will

George Frederick Will is an American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winner best known for his conservative commentary on politics...

, who did not like the political content of Miller's lecture and argued that Miller was not legitimately a "scholar."

Recent Jefferson Lecturers have included journalist/author Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe

Thomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...

; Straussian conservative political philosopher Harvey Mansfield

Harvey Mansfield

Harvey Claflin Mansfield, Jr. is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1962. He has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships and has been a Fellow at the National Humanities Center; he also received the National Humanities Medal in 2004 and...

; and novelist John Updike

John Updike

John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....

, who, in a nod to the NEH's Picturing America arts initiative, devoted his 2008 lecture to the subject of American art

Visual arts of the United States

American art encompasses the history of painting and visual art in the United States. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, artists primarily painted landscapes and portraits in a realistic style. A parallel development taking shape in rural America was the American craft movement,...

. In his 2009 lecture, bioethicist and self-described "humanist

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

" Leon Kass

Leon Kass

Leon Richard Kass is an American physician, scientist, educator, and public intellectual, best known as proponent of liberal education via the "Great Books," as an opponent of human cloning and euthanasia, as a critic of certain areas of technological progress and embryo research, and for his...

 expressed his view that science has become separated from its humanistic origins, and the humanities have lost their connection to metaphysical and theological concerns.

Publications based on Jefferson Lectures

A number of the Jefferson Lectures have led to books, including Holton's The Advancement of Science, and Its Burdens, John Hope Franklin

John Hope Franklin

John Hope Franklin was a United States historian and past president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and...

's Racial Equality in America, Henry Louis Gates' The Trials of Phillis Wheatley and Jaroslav Pelikan

Jaroslav Pelikan

Jaroslav Jan Pelikan was a scholar in the history of Christianity, Christian theology and medieval intellectual history.-Early years:...

's The Vindication of Tradition. Bernard Lewis

Bernard Lewis

Bernard Lewis, FBA is a British-American historian, scholar in Oriental studies, and political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University...

' 1990 lecture on "Western Civilization: A View from the East" was revised and reprinted in The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...

under the title "The Roots of Muslim Rage"; according to one source, Lewis' lecture (and the subsequent article) first introduced the term "Islamic fundamentalism

Islamic fundamentalism

Islamic fundamentalism is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah. Definitions of the term vary. According to Christine L...

" to North America.

List of Jefferson Lecturers

The following table lists the Jefferson Lecturers and the titles of their lectures.

Year	Lecturer	Lecture Title
1972	Lionel Trilling Lionel Trilling Lionel Trilling was an American literary critic, author, and teacher. With wife Diana Trilling, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review. Although he did not establish a school of literary criticism, he is one of the leading U.S...	"Mind in the Modern World"
1973	Erik Erikson Erik Erikson Erik Erikson was a Danish-German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on social development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase identity crisis. His son, Kai T...	"Dimensions of a New Identity"
1974	Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...	"Poetry and Democracy"
1975	Paul A. Freund Paul A. Freund Paul A. Freund was an American jurist and law professor. He taught most of his life at Harvard Law School and is known for his writings on the United States Constitution and the Supreme Court of the United States....	"Liberty: The Great Disorder of Speech"
1976	John Hope Franklin John Hope Franklin John Hope Franklin was a United States historian and past president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and...	"Racial Equality in America"
1977	Saul Bellow Saul Bellow Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...	"The Writer and His Country Look Each Other Over"
1978	C. Vann Woodward C. Vann Woodward Comer Vann Woodward was a preeminent American historian focusing primarily on the American South and race relations. He was considered, along with Richard Hofstadter and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., to be one of the most influential historians of the postwar era, 1940s-1970s, both by scholars and by...	"The European Vision of America"
1979	Edward Shils Edward Shils Edward Shils was a Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and in Sociology at the University of Chicago and reputedly an influential sociologist. He was known for his research on the role of intellectuals and their relations to power and public policy...	"Render Unto Caesar: Government, Society, and Universities in their Reciprocal Rights and Duties"
1980	Barbara Tuchman Barbara Tuchman Barbara Wertheim Tuchman was an American historian and author. She became known for her best-selling book The Guns of August, a history of the prelude to and first month of World War I, which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1963....	"Mankind's Better Moments"
1981	Gerald Holton Gerald Holton Gerald Holton is Mallinckrodt Research Professor of Physics and Research Professor of the History of Science, Emeritus, at Harvard University.Born 1922 in Berlin, he grew up in Vienna before emigrating in 1938...	"Where is Science Taking Us?"
1982	Emily Vermeule Emily Vermeule Emily Dickinson Townsend Vermeule was an American classical scholar and archaeologist.-Biography:She was born on August 11, 1928 in New York City. She earned an undergraduate degree at Bryn Mawr College in 1950, and earned a master's degree from Radcliffe College in 1954, and a Ph.D. from Bryn...	"Greeks and Barbarians: The Classical Experience in the Larger World"
1983	Jaroslav Pelikan Jaroslav Pelikan Jaroslav Jan Pelikan was a scholar in the history of Christianity, Christian theology and medieval intellectual history.-Early years:...	"The Vindication of Tradition"
1984	Sidney Hook Sidney Hook Sidney Hook was an American pragmatic philosopher known for his contributions to public debates.A student of John Dewey, Hook continued to examine the philosophy of history, of education, politics, and of ethics. After embracing Marxism in his youth, Hook was known for his criticisms of...	"Education in Defense of a Free Society"
1985	Cleanth Brooks Cleanth Brooks Cleanth Brooks was an influential American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to New Criticism in the mid-twentieth century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher education...	"Literature and Technology"
1986	Leszek Kołakowski	"The Idolatry of Politics"
1987	Forrest McDonald Forrest McDonald Forrest McDonald , is an American historian who has written extensively on the early national period, on republicanism, and on the presidency. He is widely considered one of the foremost historians of the Constitution and of the early national period.- Life :McDonald was born in Orange, Texas. He...	"The Intellectual World of the Founding Fathers"
1988	Robert Nisbet Robert Nisbet Robert Alexander Nisbet was an American sociologist, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Vice-Chancellor at the University of California, Riverside and as the Albert Schweitzer Professor at Columbia University.-Life:Nisbet was born in Los Angeles in 1913 and raised in the small...	"The Present Age"
1989	Walker Percy Walker Percy Walker Percy was an American Southern author whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is best known for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans, Louisiana, the first of which, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1962...	"The Fateful Rift: The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind"
1990	Bernard Lewis Bernard Lewis Bernard Lewis, FBA is a British-American historian, scholar in Oriental studies, and political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University...	"Western Civilization: A View from the East"
1991	Gertrude Himmelfarb Gertrude Himmelfarb Gertrude Himmelfarb , also known as Bea Kristol, is an American historian. She has written extensively on intellectual history, with a focus on Britain and the Victorian era, as well as on contemporary society and culture....	"Of Heroes, Villains and Valets"
1992	Bernard Knox Bernard Knox Bernard MacGregor Walker Knox was an English classicist, author, and critic who became an American citizen. He was the first director of the Center for Hellenic Studies. In 1992 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Knox for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S...	"The Oldest Dead White European Males"
1993	Robert Conquest Robert Conquest George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...	"History, Humanity and Truth"
1994	Gwendolyn Brooks Gwendolyn Brooks Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was an American poet. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985.-Biography:...	"Family Pictures"
1995	Vincent Scully Vincent Scully Vincent Joseph Scully, Jr. is Sterling Professor Emeritus of the History of Art in Architecture at Yale University, and the author of several books on the subject...	"The Architecture of Community"
1996	Toni Morrison Toni Morrison Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved...	"The Future of Time"
1997	Stephen Toulmin Stephen Toulmin Stephen Edelston Toulmin was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought to develop practical arguments which can be used effectively in evaluating the ethics behind...	"A Dissenter's Story"
1998	Bernard Bailyn Bernard Bailyn Bernard Bailyn is an American historian, author, and professor specializing in U.S. Colonial and Revolutionary-era History. He has been a professor at Harvard University since 1953. Bailyn has won the Pulitzer Prize for History twice . In 1998 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected...	"To Begin the World Anew: Politics and the Creative Imagination"
1999	Caroline Walker Bynum	"Shape and History: Metamorphosis in the Western Tradition"
2000	James M. McPherson James M. McPherson James M. McPherson is an American Civil War historian, and is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University. He received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom, his most famous book...	"'For a Vast Future Also': Lincoln and the Millennium"
2001	Arthur Miller Arthur Miller Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...	"On Politics and the Art of Acting"
2002	Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr., is an American literary critic, educator, scholar, writer, editor, and public intellectual. He was the first African American to receive the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship. He has received numerous honorary degrees and awards for his teaching, research, and...	"Mr. Jefferson and the Trials of Phillis Wheatley"
2003	David McCullough David McCullough David Gaub McCullough is an American author, narrator, historian, and lecturer. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award....	"The Course of Human Events"
2004	Helen Vendler Helen Vendler Helen Hennessy Vendler is a leading American critic of poetry.-Life and career:Vendler has written books on Emily Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, John Keats, and Seamus Heaney. She has been a professor of English at Harvard University since 1984; between 1981 and 1984 she taught...	"The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar"
2005	Donald Kagan Donald Kagan Donald Kagan is an American historian at Yale University specializing in ancient Greece, notable for his four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War. 1987-1988 Acting Director of Athletics, Yale University. He was Dean of Yale College from 1989–1992. He formerly taught in the Department of...	"In Defense of History"
2006	Tom Wolfe Tom Wolfe Thomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...	"The Human Beast"
2007	Harvey Mansfield Harvey Mansfield Harvey Claflin Mansfield, Jr. is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1962. He has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships and has been a Fellow at the National Humanities Center; he also received the National Humanities Medal in 2004 and...	"How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science"
2008	John Updike John Updike John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....	"The Clarity of Things: What Is American about American Art"
2009	Leon Kass Leon Kass Leon Richard Kass is an American physician, scientist, educator, and public intellectual, best known as proponent of liberal education via the "Great Books," as an opponent of human cloning and euthanasia, as a critic of certain areas of technological progress and embryo research, and for his...	"'Looking for an Honest Man': Reflections of an Unlicensed Humanist."
2010	Jonathan Spence Jonathan Spence Jonathan D. Spence is a British-born historian and public intellectual specializing in Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 1993 to 2008. His most famous book is The Search for Modern China, which has become one of the standard texts on the last several...	"When Minds Met: China and the West in the Seventeenth Century"
2011	Drew Gilpin Faust Drew Gilpin Faust Catherine Drew Gilpin Faust is an American historian, college administrator, and the president of Harvard University. Faust is the first woman to serve as Harvard's president and the university's 28th president overall. Faust is the fifth woman to serve as president of an Ivy League university, and...	"Telling War Stories: Reflections of a Civil War Historian"