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June 1, 2004

Mark A. Noll Appointed to Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in American History and Ethics at Library of Congress John W. Kluge Center

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has announced the appointment of Mark A. Noll of Wheaton College to the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in American History and Ethics at the John W. Kluge Center, beginning in September.

Noll is the third recipient of this honor; the first was Judge John T. Noonan (U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit), followed by Jean Bethke Elshtain of the University of Chicago.

Prosser Gifford, head of the Office of Scholarly Programs, which oversees the Kluge Center, commented that "we are pleased to have in the Maguire Chair a historian who has written about and added so much to the rich history of the roots of American Protestantism." As holder of the Maguire chair, Noll hopes to pursue research in the significance of the Bible in American public life.

Noll, currently the McManis Chair of Christian Thought at Wheaton College and the co-founder and adviser for the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, has been called the premier evangelical church historian in the United States. His scholarly interests include American theology, politics and society, from the Great Awakening to the Civil War; the intellectual history of Protestantism; the cultural history of the Bible; hymn singing; and Evangelicalism in the North Atlantic region of the United States.

He received his doctorate from Vanderbilt University and has been a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School, the University of Chicago Divinity School, Westminster Theological Seminary and Regent College of Vancouver, B.C.

Noll is a prolific author, who has written extensively on Christianity and Evangelicalism. Among his many books are: "The Work We Have to Do : A History of Protestants in America" (2002); "A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada" (1992); "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" 1994); "America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln" (2002); "Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholarship, and the Bible in America" (1986); and "Adding Cross to Crown: the Political Significance of Christ's Passion" (1996).

He has also written numerous articles and edited works such as "God and Mammon: Protestants, Money, and the Market, 1790-1860" (2002); "Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals" (2003); "Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Hymnody in the History of North American Protestantism" (2004); and many others.

The holder of the Maguire Chair conducts research on the ethical issues associated with American history. Research may include the conduct of politics and government at all levels of American life as well as the role of religion, business, urban affairs, law, science and medicine in the ethical dimensions of leadership.

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, energize and distill wisdom from the Library's rich resources and to interact with policymakers in Washington. The Kluge Center houses five senior Kluge Chairs (American Law and Governance, Countries and Cultures of the North, Countries and Cultures of the South, Technology and Society and Modern Culture). Other senior-level chairs are the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in American History and Ethics, the Henry Alfred Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations and the Harissios Papamarkou Chair in Education and Technology. The center also accommodates some 25 postdoctoral fellows.

For more information about the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in American History and Ethics or any of the other fellowships, grants and programs offered by the John W. Kluge Center, contact the Office of Scholarly Programs, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Avenue S.E., Washington, DC 20540-4860; telephone (202) 707-3302, fax (202) 707-3595, or visit the Web at www.loc.gov/kluge.

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PR 04-115
06/01/04
ISSN 0731-3527

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