Academy Elects Wyschogrod

Edith Wyschogrod Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

BY PHILIP MONTGOMERY
Rice News Staff
April 30, 1999

Edith Wyschogrod, the J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Philosophy and Religious Thought, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the academy announced April 30.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded during the American Revolution, is an honorary society that recognizes achievement in the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities and conducts a varied program of projects and studies responsive to the needs and problems of society.

“Election to the academy is one of the highest forms of recognition that can be given to a scholar,” said Judith Brown, dean of the School of Humanities. “I am delighted that Edith Wyschogrod was chosen for this great honor. Her work explores the most difficult and complex issues facing us in the 20th century. She is unflinching in her intellectual courage and in the rigor of her analysis. She has graced the School of Humanities with her wisdom and humanity and we are very proud of her accomplishments and of the recognition she has received.”

James Kinsey, the D.R. Bullard-Welch Foundation Professor of Science in the Department of Chemistry, who is also a member of the academy’s national board, called Wyschogrod on the morning of April 30 to tell her about the election. Wyschogrod was home reading papers when Kinsey’s call came.

“I thought ‘My Lord, I must have missed a meeting and someone was calling.’ In a word I was surprised,” Wyschogrod said.

Kinsey was pleased to make the announcement.

“In my view, this is a big event for Rice,” the chemistry professor said. “It is the first time we have had a faculty member in the humanities recognized in this way.”

Other Rice members of the academy in addition to Kinsey include David Auston, provost; Michael Carroll, the Burton J. and Ann M. McMurtry Professor in Engineering; Robert Curl, professor of chemistry; and Richard Smalley, the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry.

Wyschogrod, who at the time of this interview had barely digested the news, said her new honor “encourages me to proceed in directions in which I have been working to deepen and further my work in the philosophy of religion.”

Wyschogrod’s work centers on ethics and religion. She contends that the world’s religions have addressed the problems of the wretched of the earth, but our moral theories, while interesting to philosophers, have not had much affect in altering human conduct. She proposes that scholars should look at the lives of saintly individuals–not only historical figures, but those who lead saintly lives today–who have devoted their lives to others by dissolving their self interest.

“I’m arguing for altruistic ethics based on the examination of saintly lives rather than on theories of altruism,” Wyschogrod said.

She went on to say that the environment at Rice and particularly in the humanities proved beneficial to her work.

“I would say that even though the faculty is small, it is excellent and a highly sophisticated group of people in the humanities,” the new academy fellow said. “In my department (religious studies), people working in non-western traditions have enriched my thinking. Even though we are small, we have considerable range, our people are visible to the profession. “

Wyschogrod’s books and numerous articles are meditations on death and the ways in which its altered magnitude and character in the 20th century have changed philosophical and religious perspectives on the human condition. She is the author of numerous books including her most recent work “The Ethics of Remembering: History, Heterology, and the Nameless Others” (Chicago, 1998). She has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, most recently a Guggenheim Fellowship. She was also elected President of the American Academy of Religion in 1992-93.

For more information about the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences see http://www.amacad.org/ and visit the link titled “New Members Elected.”