Mansfield Earns Top Honor

Harvey C. Mansfield ’53 has received the most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for intellectual achievement in the humanities.

Mansfield, the controversial and conservative Kenan professor of government who last year published a much debated book on manliness, will deliver the 2007 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Mansfield receives a $10,000 honorarium for the appearance.

The lecture “How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science” will be “from the point of view of the humanities instead of the social sciences,” Mansfield said. “I will offer an alternative to the social sciences approach, which I think is boring and useless.”

The NEH is a federal agency that provides grants to support research and education in the humanities.

Previous recipients of the award include author Toni Morrison, playwright Arthur Miller, and most recently, author Tom Wolfe.

“With a distinguished career of thoughtful—and thought-provoking—discourse on political theory and higher education, Harvey Mansfield has captivated his readers and students with the strength of his convictions and the depth of his courage,” said NEH chairman Bruce Cole in a written statement on NEH’s Web site.

Mansfield said one of his major objectives is to highlight the importance of literature in understanding politics.

“Literature is concerned with stories of individuals whereas social sciences try to speak in abstract. It’s easy to speak that way to an abstract country, but we live in one with a proper name. I would like to restore the understanding of the proper name to the understanding of politics,” Mansfield said.

The lecture will take place on May 8 in Washington, D.C.