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Program The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress

About the Kluge Center

Christine LaGarde and Dr. Hayden at the 2018 Kissinger Lecture

American self-government was created by a small group of people who were thinkers as well as doers, engaged in both the world of ideas and public affairs. The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress was created to help foster that traditional American interaction, providing space to better understand and address the challenges facing democracies in the 21st century by bridging the gap between scholarship and the policymaking community.

The Kluge Center invites into residence top thinkers from around the world to distill wisdom from the rich resources of the Library and to foster mutually enriching relationships with lawmakers and other policy leaders.

Occupying dedicated study and meeting spaces within the magnificent Thomas Jefferson Building, across the street from the U.S. Capitol, the Center is ideally located for its work; it allows scholars easy access to the largest collection of knowledge in the world and makes academic insights available to policymakers.

Steeped in the Jeffersonian legacy that "there is…no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer," and reflective of the Library's universal collections, the Kluge Center and its partners encourage discovery across a wide range of fields by annually appointing a number of distinguished chairs and providing opportunities for visiting scholars and post-graduate fellows.

Watch reflections on being a Kluge Center Scholar External.