The news today that Jaroslav Pelikan and Paul Ricoeur have both won the second John W. Kluge Prize in the Human Sciences (AP wire story in The Globe and Mail and other sources; cf. The Washington Post) was the first time I’d heard of the prize, which is deliberately aimed at those disciplines in the humanities and social sciences not covered by the Nobels. Unfortunately, many of the historians I think would be obvious candidates for such a prize are deceased; this is an idea that would have been welcome 30 years ago. (More on the obscure media tycoon who endowed the eponymous prize from The Museum of Broadcast Communications and Wikipedia.)