Amy Apfel Kass (born 1940) is an American academic and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.[1] Kass spent most of her career as a professor of classic texts in the College of the University of Chicago.[2] Her scholarly interests include courtship and marriage, civic engagement, citizenship and citizen formation, and philanthropy. Her books include Giving Well, Doing Good: Readings for Thoughtful Philanthropists, Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying, and What So Proudly We Hail: America’s Soul in Story, Speech, and Song.
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Kass received her B.A. from the University of Chicago, and her M.A. from Brandeis University. In 1973, Kass earned her Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University.[3]
Kass’s teaching career began at Georgetown University in 1969, where she taught at the Institute for Adult Education. She then taught at the Johns Hopkins University and St. John’s College in the 1970s. Her professional career at the University of Chicago started in 1978 when she was appointed Senior Lecturer in the Humanities Department.[4]
Along with her husband Leon Kass, Kass cofounded in 1977 the "Human Being and Citizen" common core course at Chicago, today the most popular humanities core course at Chicago, devoted to the question of what is an excellent human being and what an excellent citizen.[5] She is also founding director of the "Tocqueville Seminars on Civic Leadership" at the University of Chicago.[6]
Kass served on the National Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as on the Council of Scholars of the American Academy of Liberal Education, and as a consultant on American history and civic education at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.[7] In 2005 and 2006, Kass organized a lecture series at the Hudson Institute called “Dialogues on Civic Philanthopy”.[8]
Amy Kass has authored numerous articles and is the editor of five books, including the reader Giving Well, Doing Good: Readings for Thoughtful Philanthropists.[9] Kass is also well-known for the compilations of courtship stories she co-edited with her husband, Leon Kass, called Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying.[10]
In 2011, Amy Kass co-edited the book, What So Proudly We Hail: America’s Soul in Story, Speech, and Song with Leon Kass, and Diana Schaub. The book is a compilation of short readings on areas of American identity, character, and civic life.[11]
In addition to these longer works, Kass has also written articles on the themes of patriotism and civic duty for both the National Review, and the Weekly Standard.
Kass received the Llewelyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the University of Chicago in 1980.[12] She was also the recipient of the Florence Bamberger Award from The Johns Hopkins University.[13]
Throughout her academic career Kass has also received several grants for her work in civic engagement, including two from the Lilly Endowment to run a project on civic leadership.[14]
Books
Selected Articles