Scholar Kwame Anthony Appiah Receives $500,000 Prize From Library of Congress

Kwame Anthony Appiah, an author and researcher, has won a $500,000 lifetime achievement award from the Library of Congress.

Kwame Akroma-Ampim Kusi. Anthony Appiah FRSL is a British-American philosopher and author who has worked on political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Appiah is a Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, where he joined the faculty in 2014.

Appiah, 70, has received the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, which is awarded every two years to “individuals whose outstanding scholarship in the humanities and social sciences has shaped public affairs and civil society.”

Appiah is noted for writings like “Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers,” “The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen,” and co-editing “Africana: The Encyclopedia of African and African-American Experience.”

“Dr. Appiah’s philosophical work is elegant, groundbreaking and highly respected,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said in a statement Thursday. “His writing about race and identity transcends predictable categories and encourages dialogue across traditional divisions.”

Appiah is the Silver Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and past president of PEN America.

Previous Kluge prize recipients include Danielle Allen and Drew Gilpin Faust.

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