University of Tübingen Historian David Nirenberg Awarded Leopold Lucas Prize
This year’s Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize of the Evangelical Theological Faculty is awarded to the historian David Nirenberg. The faculty of the University of Tübingen honors his research on the relationship between Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Middle Ages and today. The Dr. This year, the Leopold Lucas Prize for young scientists goes to the Catholic theologian Dr. Jan Niklas Collet.
The ceremonial award ceremony will take place on Tuesday, May 14, 2024, at 5:15 p.m. in the ballroom of the University of Tübingen (Neue Aula, Brüder-Scholl-Platz, 72074 Tübingen). Media and the interested public are cordially invited. The award winner David Nirenberg will give the speech on the topic: “ What theology and history can offer each other when thinking about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. “
David Nirenberg (born 1964) is Director and Leon Levy Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton , recipient of numerous science awards and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Medieval Academy of America .
In his work, Nirenberg deals with the coexistence and opposition of the three religions both in small-scale studies, especially on late medieval Spain and France, and in large overviews spanning epochs. In his publications he shows that both socially prescribed categories and individual experience contribute to how members of the three religious groups perceive each other.
He pays particular attention to how one’s own experience and widely held ideas influence and change one another. He carefully contextualizes violence between religious groups or individuals historically, explaining its causes and intentions without excusing the violence or simply withdrawing it from understanding as an outbreak of irrationality. He examines anti-Judaism in Western thought since ancient times and precisely places its various forms in their respective historical contexts. By rationally explaining phenomena of rejection and violence and classifying them in social, political and economic contexts, he also shows possibilities and paths for a peaceful coexistence of religions.
According to the jury, the historian thus fulfills the goals of the Dr. in an outstanding manner in his scientific work. Leopold Lucas Prize. The prize honors people whose scientific work promotes relationships between people and nations and makes a contribution to spreading the idea of tolerance.
The prize was founded in 1972 by Consul General Franz D. Lucas, Honorary Senator of the University of Tübingen – on the occasion of the 100th birthday of his father, the Jewish scholar Dr. Leopold Lucas. He worked as a rabbi in Glogau and most recently at the University for the Study of Judaism in Berlin and died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943. The prize, established in his memory, is awarded annually by the Evangelical Theological Faculty on behalf of the University of Tübingen. It is endowed with 50,000 euros.
Leopold Lucas Prize for young researchers
Dr. Jan Niklas Collet receives the Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize for young scientists for his dissertation in Catholic theology “Continuing to write the theology of liberation. Ignacio Ellacuría in conversation with decolonial and postcolonial feminism”.
Ellacuría, who was murdered in 1989, is a representative of the Latin American theology of liberation, which focuses on the close relationship between faith and justice and pursues an approach critical of domination. Collet brings Ellacuría into conversation with contemporary feminist and postcolonial discourses and subjects his work to a critical assessment. With subsequent further reflections on an updated reception of liberation theology in Europe, he does innovative theological basic work in his dissertation. The prize is endowed with 20,000 euros.