The Life of Learning : The Charles Homer Haskins Lectures of the American Council of Learned Societies

This volume consists of ten lectures sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies from 1983 to 1993 by distinguished American scholars from a variety of disciplines in which each reflects on his or her "life of learning". It is a unique, personal intellectual history of some of America's most celebrated scholars.

Each year, since 1983, the American Council of Learned Societies has invited one of America''s leading scholars to deliver the Haskins Lecture, in honour of Charles Homer Haskins, a distinguished scholar and teacher who was instrumental in the founding of the ACLS. In this volume, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the ACLS, Douglas Greenberg and Stanley Katz bring together the lectures presented by ten of America''s most distinguished scholars. Each lecture is a personal and intellectual glimpse into the "life of learning" of such leading scholars as Maynard Mack, Annemarie Schimmel, and John Hope Franklin. The lectures focus on self-reflection of lives dedicated to learning, rather than on scholarship in the usual sense of the term. Ranging from being forced to learn Latin to painful memories of war and racism, the lecturers all recount stories from their eventful lives. Each offers thoughts on the body of work he or she has produced and the forces, personal and intellectual, that have shaped it. The scholars bring something of their disciplines to the lecture, sharing not only personal anecdotes but their love of learning. Contributors: Maynard Mack, Lawrence Stone, Milton V. Anastos, Carl E. Schorske, John Hope Franklin, Judith N. Shklar, Paul Oskar Kristeller, Milton Babbitt, D. W. Meinig, Annemarie Schimmel