July 13, 2005 Francis Deng Named Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the John W. Kluge Center

Francis Mading Deng, a leading expert on Sudan, African conflicts and refugees, has been named a distinguished visiting scholar in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress.

Equally renowned as a diplomat and scholar, Deng has held a number of senior posts in the Sudanese Foreign Service, including minister of state for foreign affairs, and has served as the Sudanese ambassador to the United States, Canada and Scandinavia. In 1992, United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali named Deng as his representative on internally displaced persons—those who have lost their homes because of civil wars—worldwide, and Deng continues to act in this capacity for the current Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Deng is professor of international law, politics and society and director of the Center for Displacement Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. He has held visiting academic appointments at Yale University and New York University and has been a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

He holds a law degree from Khartoum University and a master’s and a doctorate in law from Yale University, making him the first southern Sudanese to obtain a doctorate in any field.

An expert on the Horn of Africa, anthropology, conflict resolution and negotiation, human rights, refugee and immigration policy, as well as the United Nations, Deng was awarded the Rome for Peace and Humanitarian Action Prize in 2002 for his work on internal displacement.

Deng has written and edited many publications, including “A Strategic Vision for Africa,” co-author (2002); “African Reckoning: A Quest for Good Governance,” co-editor (1998); “Masses in Flight: The Global Crisis of Internal Displacement,” co-author (1998); “The Forsaken People: Case Studies of the Internally Displaced,” co-editor (1998); “Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa,” co-author (1996); and “War of Visions: Conflict of Identities in the Sudan” (1995).

Through a generous endowment from John W. Kluge, the Library of Congress established the Kluge Center in 2000 to bring together the world’s best thinkers to stimulate and energize scholarly discussion, distill wisdom from the Library’s rich resources and interact with policymakers in Washington.

The Kluge Center houses senior Kluge chairs, other senior-level chairs, senior distinguished scholars and nearly 25 postdoctoral fellows. For more information about any of the fellowships, grants and programs offered by the Kluge Center, contact the Office of Scholarly Programs, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. 20540-4860; telephone (202) 707-3302, fax (202) 707-3595, or visit the Web at www.loc.gov/kluge.