Agnes Callard

When she was a child, Agnes Callard and her family left Hungary for the United States with the help of a Jewish aid organization. She credits her decision to pursue her undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago, where she is now an associate professor of philosophy, to a letter she received from humanities lecturer Amy Kass critiquing her admissions essay. “She had this gift,” Callard told an interviewer, “of asking questions and then looking at you in such a way as to make it seem that the weight of the world lay on your answer.”