Historians John Hope Franklin and Yu Ying-shih are the winners of the 2006 John W. Kluge Prize for the study of humanity, which is awarded by the Library of Congress for lifetime achievement in disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prizes.
Washington, DC (PRWeb) November 17, 2006 -- John Hope Franklin, 91, and Yu Ying-shih, 76, have been named the recipients of the third John W. Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the study of humanity. The Kluge Prize, endowed by Library of Congress benefactor John W. Kluge, rewards lifetime achievement in the wide range of disciplines not covered by the Nobel prizes, including history, philosophy, politics, anthropology, sociology, religion, criticism in the arts and humanities, and linguistics. Each awardee will receive half of the $1 million prize.
Franklin and Yu have each played a pioneering role in bringing previously neglected, major aspects of American and Chinese history into the mainstream of the scholarship and public consciousness of their respective native lands. Both have done demanding work using a wide variety of primary documents and historical approaches. Each has had an enduring impact on both scholarship and his society, and has opened a path for others to find new materials and methodologies for understanding both their and our cultures.
Yu's work examines major topics over two millennia of Chinese civilization; Franklin's work covers three centuries of the history of the United States. Both men are surprisingly modest but have been widely recognized by their professional peers for their work and service and have been embraced by a grateful public.
John Hope Franklin is an Emeritus Professor of History at Duke University. His first book, "The Free Negro in North Carolina," appeared in 1943, but it remains the standard work on the subject. In 1947 he published his landmark survey of black history, "From Slavery to Freedom," which has gone through numerous editions and introduced hundreds of thousands of students and countless readers outside academia to the African-American past. Franklin's most significant recent publication is his autobiography titled, "Mirror to America," which chronicles American race relations during the 20th century, in addition to Franklin's own life.
One scholar reviewing nominations for the Kluge Prize wrote of Franklin: "He is arguably the most important African-American historian, and the most important historian of the African-American experience, in the history of the academy."
Yu Ying-shih has written more than 30 books, spanning more than 2,000 years of history, and has been described as "the greatest Chinese intellectual historian of our generation." He is an Emeritus Professor of East Asian Studies and History at Princeton University, and has also taught at Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and the University of Michigan. In his early 40s, Yu was elected to be a lifetime member in Academia Sinica, the most distinguished academic institution in Taiwan, and has also recently been elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Remarking on Yu Ying-shih, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said: "Dr. Yu's scholarship has been remarkably deep and widespread. His impact on the study of Chinese history, thought and culture has reached across many disciplines, time periods and issues, examining in a profound way major questions and deeper truths about human nature."
SEPCIAL NOTE
An online repository is available to the media to download in-depth background materials, high-resolution images, video, audio and other resources, as well as to request interviews with Prize recipients. This information can be accessed at: www.loc.gov/loc/kluge/prize/pressroom.
# # #
Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/U3VtbS1GYWx1LVBpZ2ctSGFsZi1NYWduLVplcm8=
|
