The Library of Congress announced on Sept. 22 that Prof. Martha C. Nussbaum is the 2026 recipient of the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity.
Awarded every other year, the Kluge Prize “recognizes and celebrates work of the highest quality and greatest impact that advances understanding of the human experience.” Nominations are accepted from scholars and leaders around the globe.
Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, is globally recognized as one of the most influential philosophers and public intellectuals in the world, renown for her work in ancient classical thought, feminist philosophy, political philosophy, and philosophy and the arts.
A prolific author, Nussbaum has published 30 books, edited 27 books and written more than 500 articles. She has written extensively on the philosophy of emotions, feminism, social justice, animal rights, ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, and her “capabilities approach,” which offers a framework for assessing human well-being, focused on what human beings are effectively able to do and be. In recent years her writings have explored the intersection of law and opera, including The Republic of Love: Opera and Political Freedom, published in April 2026 by Oxford University Press.
President Paul Alivisatos said of Nussbaum: “As one of our generation’s leading philosophers, Martha’s work has enabled her students and readers to engage the world more thoughtfully as they go about their lives. I am delighted she has been awarded the Kluge Prize, a well-deserved honor to recognize her lifetime of achievements.”
“Martha is so incredibly deserving of the Kluge Prize for her incredible contributions to the humanities and to knowledge more generally,” said Prof. Adam Chilton, dean of the Law School. “Her wide-ranging work has made important contributions to philosophy, classics, the arts, law and a wide range of other subjects. And she has been one of the most vocal defenders of the value of the humanities and liberal arts education.”
A member of the UChicago faculty since 1995, Nussbaum is appointed in the Department of Philosophy and the Law School and is an associate in the Classics Department, the Divinity School and the Political Science Department, and a member of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies.
She has received honorary degrees from more than 70 colleges and universities in the U.S. Canada, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe. She has earned numerous other awards, including the 2022 Balzan Prize, “for her sustained contribution to a wide range of philosophical topics that together redefine our understanding of our ethical being;” the Holberg Prize in 2021 “for her groundbreaking contribution to research in philosophy, law and related fields;” the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture in 2018; and the Kyoto Prize, Japan's highest private award for lifetime achievement in the arts and sciences, in 2016.
This fall, a nonprofit organization in Bangladesh, the Banglar Pathshala Foundation, is hosting a study circle devoted to exploring Nussbaum’s decades-long scholarship as an intellectual tribute.
Prof. Deborah L. Nelson, dean of the Division of the Arts & Humanities, said of Nussbaum: “Martha’s work represents the very best of the arts and humanities. Her writing and thinking, steeped in multiple fluencies, explore the complexities of the global and historical human condition. She has built a remarkable foundation for current and future generations of scholars to approach enduring and difficult questions of ethics, aesthetics, and being. And she has always brought that capacious and restless inquiry to her teaching, providing life-changing moments of intellectual formation for both undergraduate and graduate students.”
—Adapted from a story first published on the University of Chicago Law School website.
