After keeping it a secret for a few weeks, we’re pleased to announce the winner of the 2012 Russell Kirk Paideia Prize, presented at our conference annually to an educator who has dedicated his or her life to the cultivation of wisdom and virtue. This year’s winner is:
Mr. Wendell Berry
The 2012 Russell Kirk Paideia Prize-giving banquet will take place on Friday, July 20th at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Lousiville, Kentucky.
Come celebrate the life and work of Mr. Berry and his dedication to the cultivation of mind, body, and soul. In his writings and teaching – at the University level as well as at Highlands Latin School in Kentucky – Mr. Berry’s work is richly influenced by the classical idea of harmony. His insistance that education done right is education done in community is a belief that we share, and take seriously.
To reserve a spot at this event please click here.
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WENDELL BERRY was born in Henry County, Kentucky, in 1934. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kentucky in 1956 and continued on to complete a master’s degree in 1957. In 1958, he received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University.
Berry has taught at Stanford University, Georgetown College, New York University, the University of Cincinnati, and Bucknell University. He taught at his alma mater, the University of Kentucky from 1964-77, and again from 1987-93.
The author of more than 40 works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, Wendell Berry has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (1962), the Vachel Lindsay Prize from Poetry (1962), a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (1965), a National Institute of Arts and Letters award for writing (1971), the Emily Clark Balch Prize from The Virginia Quarterly Review (1974), the American Academy of Arts and Letters Jean Stein Award (1987), a Lannan Foundation Award for Non-Fiction (1989), Membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers (1991), the Ingersoll Foundation’s T. S. Eliot Award (1994), the John Hay Award (1997), the Lyndhurst Prize (1997), and the Aitken-Taylor Award for Poetry from The Sewanee Review (1998). His books include the novel Hannah Coulter (2004), the essay collections Citizenship Papers (2005) and The Way of Ignorance (2006), and Given: Poems (2005), all available from Counterpoint. Berry’s latest works include The Mad Farmer Poems (2008) and Whitefoot (2009), which features illustrations by Davis Te Selle.
He lives and works with his wife, Tanya Berry, on their farm in Port Royal, Kentucky.
To learn more about Mr. Berry, click here and here.
*Bio from Counterpoint Publishers
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