For more than forty years Leon R. Kass has been a prolific and distinguished writer, an outstanding teacher of the humanities, and a wise interpreter of the moral implications of modern science. In Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver, fifteen of his colleagues, students, and friends celebrate his life's work with a collection of essays on themes and issues that have been of central concern to his scholarship.

Leon R. Kass has been helping Americans better understand the human condition for over four decades_as a teacher, writer, scholar, public champion of the humanities, and defender of human dignity. From bioethics to civic education, from interpreting the Bible to weighing the moral implications of modern science, Kass has offered wisdom, guidance, and instruction. In this volume, fifteen of Kass's admirers, including students, colleagues, and friends, honor his work by reflecting on the broad range of subjects to which he has devoted his life's work. Some of the essays offer interpretations of great works of literature and philosophy from Homer, Sophocles, and Plato to Rousseau, Franklin, Jane Austen, Hawthorne, and Henry James. Others examine the significance of Leon Kass's work as a bioethicist and Chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics and as an interpreter of the Book of Genesis. The essays collected in Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver offer a sense of the breadth of Kass's interests and insights and of the influence he has had on generations of scholars. The reader is further acquainted with the career of Leon R. Kass by a biographical introduction and a comprehensive listing of his published writings and the courses he has taught.

Chapter 1 Introduction: The Career of Leon Kass
Chapter 2
Chapter 1: The Homecoming of Penelope
Chapter 3
Chapter 2: The World through Ben's Bifocals
Chapter 4
Chapter 3: Medicalizing Childhood
Chapter 5
Chapter 4: Washington Square
Chapter 6
Chapter 5: The Silence of the Spartan
Chapter 7
Chapter 6: Torah Transformed
Chapter 8
Chapter 7: Leon Kass and the Poets
Chapter 9
Chapter 8: Toward a Richer Public Bioethics
Chapter 10
Chapter 9: Philosophic Anthropology in Rousseau and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Chapter 11
Chapter 10: Self-knowledge and Moral Seriousness in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
Chapter 12
Chapter 11: From Hearth-Fires to Hell-Fires
Chapter 13
Chapter 12: Fraternity in Antigone
Chapter 14
Chapter 13: Children of Skeptics
Chapter 15
Chapter 14: The God-Seeking Animal
Chapter 16
Chapter 15: The Traditional Animal
Chapter 17 Courses Taught by Leon R. Kass
Chapter 18 Published Writings of Leon R. Kass