Distinction for Ten Young Scholars

Ten young scholars from China, Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States are to receive the “Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise” in appreciation of outstanding dissertations or other publications on the topic of “God and spirituality”. The awardees also include Dr. Hanna Reichel, who will be honoured for her dissertation on Karl Barth and the Heidelberg Catechism, which she completed at the Faculty of Theology of Heidelberg University. To mark the occasion, Heidelberg University’s Research Center for International and Interdisciplinary Theology” (FIIT) is organising a festive presentation ceremony on Friday, 8 May 2015, followed by a colloquium featuring the prize-winners. Among the other conference participants are FIIT scholars and members of the international awarding committee that evaluated the quality of the studies submitted.

The ceremony begins with speeches by Prof. Dr. Bernhard Eitel, President of Heidelberg University, Prof. Dr. Dr. Michael Welker, director of FIIT, and Prof. Dr. Ingrid Schoberth, dean of the Faculty of Theology, as well as the donor of the award, Dr. h.c. Manfred Lautenschläger. Subsequently, Prof. Welker and two Heidelberg theologians, Prof. Dr. Manfred Oeming and Prof. Dr. Peter Lampe, will introduce the award-winners and the publications they have been distinguished for. The president will then present the awards. The lecture in English at the heart of the ceremony is entitled “Religion and Civil Society in Australia in the Context of the Asia-Pacific” and will be delivered by Prof. Dr. James Haire of the Charles Sturt University in Canberra.

The awardees for 2015 – besides Hanna Reichel from Heidelberg University – are Xiaobai Chu (Fudan University, Shanghai), Matthew Croasmun (Yale University), Asle Eikrem (MF Norwegian School of Theology, Oslo), Joachim Krause (Universität Tübingen), Will Kynes (University of Cambridge), Atria A. Larson (Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.), Mark McInroy (Harvard Divinity School), Casey Alan Strine and Alex Torrance (both University of Oxford). In the course of the colloquium, the prize-winners will outline their plans for future research projects and discuss them with members of the awarding committee and scholars from the Research Center for International and Interdisciplinary Theology.

The Lautenschlaeger Award is presented annually to ten young scholars from all over the world working in different disciplines, including theology, philosophy, religious studies, ethics and adjacent subjects. It is endowed with prize monies of 3,000 euros for each recipient. The prize is awarded for doctoral dissertations or first book publications after the dissertation. In addition, the recipients in any given year receive the opportunity of organising a colloquium. This international and interdisciplinary event is funded to the tune of 15,000 euros. It should be organised and headed by at least two awardees from different countries and disciplines.