April 14, 2015 David Hollenbach Named to Maguire Chair at John W. Kluge Center

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has named David Hollenbach, a theologian, author and scholar of human rights, theories of justice and ethics, to the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American History at the Library of Congress’ John W. Kluge Center.

Hollenbach, a Jesuit, is currently the University Chair in Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College. His tenure at the Kluge Center will begin in August 2015, and he will spend five months in residence.

At the Library, Hollenbach will research his current book project, tentatively titled “Humanity in Crisis: Religious and Ethical Responses to War and Disaster.” The book will explore the role of faith-based communities in responding to humanitarian crises. The book will also address ethical issues that arise for humanitarian agents working in crisis situations, and how ethical values can help shape humanitarian policy. Hollenbach will draw on documents in the Library’s manuscript division, area studies reading rooms, and general humanities and social sciences collections in his research.

At Boston College, Hollenbach is a professor of Christian social ethics and also the director of its Center for Human Rights and International Justice. His research interests are in human rights, theories of justice, religious and ethical responses to humanitarian crises and the displacement of refugees, and religion in political life. His books include “Driven from Home: Protecting the Rights of Forced Migrants (2010)”; “Refugee Rights: Ethics, Advocacy, and Africa” (2008); “The Global Face of Public Faith: Politics, Human Rights, and Christian Ethics” (2003); and “The Common Good and Christian Ethics” (2002).

In recent years Hollenbach has conducted workshops for parliamentarians and for church leadership in South Sudan on the relevance of human rights for the development of their newly independent country. He often serves as a visiting professor of social ethics at Hekima College of The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya. He has taught at the Jesuit Philosophy Institute in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and at the East Asian Pastoral Institute in Manila, Philippines. He works with the Jesuit Refugee Service concerning their work on advocacy on behalf of the human rights of displaced persons.

The Cary and Ann Maguire Chair is a distinguished senior research position in residence at the Library appointed by the Librarian of Congress. Using research facilities and services at the Library of Congress, the scholar is expected to explore the history of America with special attention to the ethical dimensions of domestic economic, political and social policies, and present a lecture on the research at the end of the tenure. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/kluge/fellowships/maguire.html.

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 more information about the Kluge Center visit www.loc.gov/kluge/.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds more than 160 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its award-winning website at www.loc.gov.