February 3, 2011 John Witte Jr. Named Distinguished Visiting Scholar at John W. Kluge Center

Press Contact: Donna Urschel (202) 707-1639
Public Contact: Robert Saladini (202) 707-2692

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has appointed John Witte Jr., a professor at Emory University, as distinguished visiting scholar at the Library’s John W. Kluge Center. At the Library, Witte will pursue research on the history of law, religion and marriage in the Western tradition. Witte is Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law, Alonzo L. McDonald Family Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion Center at Emory. A specialist in legal history, marriage law and religious liberty, he has published 23 books, including “Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment” (2000, 3d. ed. 2011); “Law and Protestantism: The Legal Teachings of the Lutheran Reformation” (2000); “Sex, Marriage and Family Life in John Calvin’s Geneva” (2005, 2011); “Modern Christian Teachings on Law, Politics and Human Nature” (2006); “The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism: (2007); “The Sins of the Fathers: The Law and Theology of Illegitimacy Reconsidered” (2009); and “Christianity and Human Rights” (2010). Witte’s writings have appeared in 10 languages, and he has lectured in North America, Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, Israel and South Africa. He has been selected 10 times by the Emory law students as the Most Outstanding Professor and has won dozens of other awards and prizes for his teaching and research. 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 one another to distill wisdom from the Library’s rich resources and to interact with policymakers in Washington. For further information on the Kluge Center, visit www.loc.gov/kluge/.

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PR 11-028
2011-02-04
ISSN 0731-3527