Award Rolf Kentner Dissertation Prize: Award for Thesis on Housing Crisis in the USA

17 April 2025

Heidelberg Center for American Studies honors doctoral thesis in the field of human geography

Her outstanding doctoral dissertation on the housing crisis in the United States has earned Heidelberg urban geographer Dr Judith Keller the Rolf Kentner Dissertation Prize. The award, which comes with 1,000 euros in prize money, is made annually by the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA) of Heidelberg University. Her dissertation arose at the HCA in the context of the Research Training Group “Authority and Trust”, which is funded by the German Research Foundation. The award ceremony for the dissertation prize, featuring a keynote lecture in English by the prize-winner, is taking place on 24 April 2025 in the premises of the Heidelberg Center for American Studies.

Porträt Judith Keller

In her dissertation, assessed “summa cum laude”, Judith Keller concerns herself with different forms of housing insecurity in the United States. It focuses on the personal experiences of individuals who have themselves felt the impact of the housing crisis and related uncertainties. With the aid of conceptual and empirical analyses she was able to highlight the fact that, in particular, vulnerable population groups – despite a booming real estate market – are faced with high costs and, at the same time, inadequate housing situations; in some cases, this leads to evictions and homelessness. Dr Keller cites these examples to explain how access to a safe home and the associated relationships of trust affect very different areas of life. The prize-winner will also talk about these human dimensions of the American housing crisis in her keynote, entitled “Home-(un)making: The Entangled Geographies of Trust and Home in the US Real Estate Economy”.

Judith Keller studied Geography and English Studies at Heidelberg University and at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio (USA). Stays abroad took her to Harvard University and, as a visiting scholar, to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She received her doctorate in 2023 at Heidelberg University and has since served as a research associate at the Institute of Geography and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies. Dr Keller works on topics from social and cultural geography in urban spaces, primarily in the United States, Germany and the Netherlands. She is currently engaged in researching issues around social justice and climate justice, for instance in connection with the impacts of the climate emergency on housing and attachment to place.

With the Rolf Kentner Dissertation Prize, the HCA has been honoring outstanding work in the field of American Studies since 2010. The award is named after Rolf Kentner (1947-2020). The promoter of German-American relations and American Studies in Heidelberg had close ties with the HCA – and with Heidelberg University as an Honorary Senator. The award ceremony at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies, Hauptstraße 120, starts at 6.15 p.m.

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