The Library of Congress announced on September 22 that Martha C. Nussbaum is the 2026 recipient of the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. 

Awarded every other year, the prize “recognizes and celebrates work of the highest quality and greatest impact that advances understanding of the human experience.” Nominations are accepted from knowledgeable individuals in colleges, universities, embassies, research institutions, and more, from around the globe.

Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago Law School, is globally recognized as one of the most influential philosophers and public intellectuals in the world, renown for her work in ancient classical thought, feminist philosophy, political philosophy, and philosophy and the arts. 

View the Library of Congress Video: Martha C. Nussbaum Receives 2026 Kluge Prize

A prolific author, Nussbaum has published 30 books to date, with another one in the works. She has also edited 27 books and written more than 500 articles. Nussbaum has written extensively on the philosophy of emotions, feminism, social justice, animal rights, ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, and her “capabilities approach,” which offers a framework for assessing human well-being, focused on what human beings are effectively able to do and be. In recent years her writings have explored the intersection of law and opera, her most recent book being The Republic of Love: Opera and Political Freedom, published in April 2026 by Oxford University Press.

“Martha is so incredibly deserving of the Kluge Prize for her incredible contributions to the humanities and to knowledge more generally,” said Adam Chilton, dean of the Law School and the Howard G. Krane Professor of Law. “Her wide-ranging work has made important contributions to philosophy, classics, the arts, law, and a wide range of other subjects. And she has been one of the most vocal defenders of the value of the humanities and liberal arts education.”

University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos said, “As one of our generation's leading philosophers, Martha’s work has enabled her students and readers to engage the world more thoughtfully as they go about their lives. I am delighted she has been awarded the Kluge Prize, a well-deserved honor to recognize her lifetime of achievements.” 

Saul Levmore, the William B. Graham Distinguished Service Professor of Law, a former dean of the Law School, and a longtime friend and colleague of Nussbaum, said, “It’s hard to imagine a person, much less an academic, who sets a better example for all of us, than Martha. She has accomplished so much, and it is nice to see that committee after committee recognizes her genius. She demonstrates that philosophy, especially when mixed with a little law—and of course the influence of our great Law School—casts light on many topics we struggle with every day. And she is hardly done.”

Nussbaum, who shares a joint appointment in the University of Chicago’s Philosophy Department, has received honorary degrees from more than 70 colleges and universities in the US, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, and is decorated with numerous other awards, including most recently, the 2022 Balzan Prize, a prestigious international award, “for her sustained contribution to a wide range of philosophical topics that together redefine our understanding of our ethical being.” Her many other awards and recognitions include receiving the Holberg Prize from the Government of Norway “for her groundbreaking contribution to research in philosophy, law and related fields,” in 2021; the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture in 2018; and the Kyoto Prize, Japan's highest private award for lifetime achievement in the arts and sciences, in 2016.

This fall, a nonprofit organization in Bangladesh, the Banglar Pathshala Foundation, is hosting a study circle devoted to exploring Nussbaum’s decades-long scholarship, as an intellectual tribute.

Deborah L. Nelson, dean of UChicago’s Division of the Arts & Humanities and the Helen B. and Frank L. Sulzberger Professor, said, “Martha’s work represents the very best of the arts and humanities. Her writing and thinking, steeped in multiple fluencies, explore the complexities of the global and historical human condition. She has built a remarkable foundation for current and future generations of scholars to approach enduring and difficult questions of ethics, aesthetics, and being. And she has always brought that capacious and restless inquiry to her teaching, providing life-changing moments of intellectual formation for both undergraduate and graduate students.”

Nussbaum joined the Law School faculty in 1995. She received her BA from New York University and her MA and PhD from Harvard.