The Holberg Prize | |
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Awarded for | Outstanding scholarly work in the fields of the arts and humanities, social sciences, law and theology. |
Country | Norway |
Presented by | Government of Norway |
First awarded | 2004 |
Website | holbergprize |
TheHolberg Prize is an international prize awarded annually by the government of Norway to outstanding scholars for work in the arts, humanities, social sciences, law and theology, either within one of these fields or through interdisciplinary work. The prize is named after the Danish-Norwegian writer and academic Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754). The Holberg Prize comes with a monetary award of 6 million Norwegian kroner (NOK) (approximately $750 000 or €660 000), which are intended to be used to further the research of the recipient. The winner of the Holberg Prize is announced in March, and the award ceremony takes place every June in Bergen, Norway.
According to a reputation survey conducted in 2018, the Holberg Prize is the most prestigious interdisciplinary award in the social sciences (jointly with the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research). [1]
The prize was established by the Parliament of Norway in honor of Ludvig Holberg in 2003 and complements its sister prize in mathematics, the Abel Prize. Ludvig Holberg, who excelled in all the disciplines covered by the award, played an important part in bringing the Enlightenment to the Nordic countries and is also well known as a playwright and author. The objective of the prize was to increase awareness of the value of academic scholarship in the arts, humanities, social sciences, law and theology. [2] It has been described as the "Nobel Prize" for the arts and humanities, social sciences, law and theology.
The Holberg Prize is awarded annually to scholars who have made "outstanding contributions to research in the arts and humanities, social sciences, law or theology." [3] Scholars holding positions at universities and other research institutions, including academies, are eligible to nominate candidates to the Holberg Prize and the Nils Klim Prize. Self-nominations are not permitted. The Holberg Board awards the prize at the recommendation of the Holberg Committee. The Holberg Committee meets twice. At the first meeting, in early fall, they choose a shortlist from the nominations. The Committee then gather assessments on the short-list candidates from internationally recognized scholars before giving their final recommendation to the Board. [4]
The Holberg Prize is funded through a direct allocation from the Norwegian government's budget. It is administered by the University of Bergen on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Research. The University of Bergen appoints the executive board of the Holberg Prize. The Holberg Board consists of the board chair and five board members. The board members must work in different institutions, and at least one board member must work outside the university and university college sector. Board members are appointed for a period of four years and may be reappointed once. The current Holberg Board is composed of: Kjersti Fløttum (Chair, University of Bergen), Knut Olav Åmås (Fritt Ord), Lise Rye (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), Hans Petter Graver (University of Oslo), Siv Ellen Kraft (University of Tromsø) and Torkild Hovde Lyngstad (University of Oslo).
The Holberg Board awards the prize at the recommendation of the Holberg Committee who consists of five outstanding researchers in the arts and humanities, social sciences, law and theology. The current Holberg Prize Academic Committee is composed of: Graeme Turner (Committee chairman, The University of Queensland), Mary Beard (University of Cambridge), David Nirenberg (University of Chicago), Heike Krieger (Free University of Berlin), Maurice Crul (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and Cui Zhiyuan (Tsinghua University.)
Previous members of the Holberg Committee are among others: Mary Jacobus (University of Cambridge), Helga Nowotny (ETH Zurich), Kwame Anthony Appiah (New York University), Toril Moi (Duke University), Stein Kuhnle (The Norwegian Academy og Science and Letters), Johan P. Olsen (University of Bergen), and Pratap Bhanu Mehta (Center for policy research).
Year | Image | Laureate(s) | Country | Language(s) | Citation | Field(s) |
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2004 | Julia Kristeva (b. 1941) | Bulgaria France | Bulgarian, French, and English | "for innovative explorations of questions on the intersection of language, culture and literature which inspired research across the humanities and the social sciences throughout the world and have also had a significant impact on feminist theory" [5] | philosophy of language, semiotics, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, feminism | |
2005 | Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929) | Germany | German and English | "for developing path-breaking theories of discourse and communicative action and thereby providing new perspectives on law and democracy" [6] | epistemology, social theory political theory, philosophy of law, Rationalization, pragmatics, pragmatism | |
2006 | Shmuel Eisenstadt (1923–2010) | Poland Israel | Polish, English, and Hebrew | "for developing comparative knowledge of exceptional quality and originality concerning social change and modernization, and concerning relations between culture, belief systems and political institutions" [7] | social anthropology, social history, political science | |
2007 | Ronald Dworkin (1931–2013) | United States | English | "for developing an original and highly influential legal theory grounding law in morality, characterized by a unique ability to tie together abstract philosophical ideas and arguments with concrete everyday concerns in law, morals, and politics" [8] | social justice, legal theory, political philosophy | |
2008 | Fredric Jameson (1934-2024) | United States | English | "for outstanding contributions to the understanding of the relation between social formations and cultural forms in a project he himself describes as the 'poetics of social forms'" [9] | postmodernism, hermeneutics, cultural studies, dialectical method, history | |
2009 | Ian Hacking (1936-2023) | Canada | English | "for his combination of rigorous philosophical and historical analysis which has profoundly altered our understanding of the ways in which key concepts emerge through scientific practices and in specific social and institutional contexts" [10] | philosophy of science, philosophy of statistics | |
2010 | Natalie Zemon Davis (1928-2023) | United States Canada | English and French | for "connecting early modern Europe with new areas of comparative history, exploring cultural, geographical and religious interchange" [11] | social history, cultural history, social anthropology, ethnography, literary theory | |
2011 | Jürgen Kocka (b. 1941) | Germany | German and English | "for effecting a paradigm shift in German historiography by opening it up to related social sciences and establishing the importance of cross-national comparative approaches" | social history, hermeneutics, historiography | |
2012 | Manuel Castells Oliván (b. 1942) | Spain | Spanish, French, and English | for shaping "our understanding of the political dynamics of urban and global economies in the network society" [12] | communication studies, organization studies, network society, urban sociology, sociology of culture, political economy | |
2013 | Bruno Latour (1947–2022) | France | French and English | for having "undertaken an ambitious analysis and reinterpretation of modernity, and [having] challenged fundamental concepts such as the distinction between modern and pre-modern, nature and society, human and non-human" [13] | postmodernism, social constructionism, actor–network theory, metaphysics, social anthropology | |
2014 | Michael Cook (b. 1940) | United Kingdom | English | for having "reshaped fields that span Ottoman studies, the genesis of early Islamic polity, the history of the Wahhabiyya movement, and Islamic law, ethics, and theology" [14] | oriental studies, history of religion | |
2015 | Marina Warner (b. 1946) | United Kingdom | English | for her "analysis of stories and myths and how they reflect their time and place." [15] | mythography, feminism, oral tradition | |
2016 | Stephen Greenblatt (b. 1943) | United States | English | for being "one of the most important Shakespeare scholars of his generation" [16] | new historicism, Renaissance studies, cultural studies | |
2017 | Onora O'Neill (b. 1941) | United Kingdom | English | for "her influential role in ethical and political philosophy" [17] | political philosophy, ethics | |
2018 | Cass Sunstein (b. 1954) | United States | English | for having "reshaped our understanding of the relationship between the modern regulatory state and constitutional law." [18] | legal theory, constitutional law, environmental law, administrative law, behavioral economics, social theory | |
2019 | Paul Gilroy (b. 1956) | United Kingdom | English | "for his contributions to critical race studies, post-colonialism and related fields" [19] | cultural politics, cultural history, social anthropology | |
2020 | Griselda Pollock (b. 1949) | South Africa Canada | English | "for her groundbreaking contributions to feminist art history and cultural studies." [20] | feminist theory, feminism, art history, gender studies | |
2021 | Martha Nussbaum (b. 1947) | United States | English | "for her groundbreaking contribution to research in philosophy, law and related fields." [21] | liberal theory, political philosophy, feminism, ethics, social liberalism | |
2022 | Sheila Jasanoff (b. 1944) | United States | English | "for her groundbreaking research in science and technology studies" [22] | science and technology studies, political sociology, public reason, capacity building | |
2023 | Joan Martinez Alier (b. 1939) | Spain | Catalan, Spanish, and English | "for his research in ecological economics, political ecology and environmental justice." [23] | ecological economics, political ecology, environmentalism of the poor | |
2024 | Achille Mbembe (b. 1957) | Cameroon | French, and English | "for his pioneering research in African history, postcolonial studies, humanities, and social science over four decades." [24] | African history, politics, postcolonial studies, social science | |
During The Holberg Week in June, The Holberg Prize hosts a series of lectures, discussions and other events in honor of the Holberg Laureate and the Nils Klim Laureate. The events feature the laureates, as well as other high-profile international scholars. The program feature, among other things, the Holberg Symposium, the Nils Klim Seminar and the Holberg Lecture. All events during the Holberg week, with the exception of the award ceremony and government banquet, are open to all and have free entrance. Several of the events are also livestreamed, and available to an international audience.
The Holberg Debate is an annual event organised by the Holberg Prize. The debate is inspired by Ludvig Holberg's Enlightenment ideas and aims to explore pressing issues of our time. The Holberg Debate was organised for the first time in 2016 and has since been held annually, on the first Saturday in December. The aim is both to see important voices debate pressing issues of our time and to highlight the relevance of the academic fields covered by the Holberg Prize: the humanities, social sciences, law and theology. Thus, the Holberg Debate seeks to engage both the university community and the public at large, and seeks to invite well known thinkers with a diverse background, including academics, journalists, authors, film makers and activists.
Former participants in the Holberg Debate are Slavoj Žižek, Timothy Garton Ash, Jostein Gripsrud, Jonathan Heawood, John Pilger and Julian Assange.
As part of its research dissemination targeting younger people, the Holberg Prize also awards two other prizes:
The Holberg Symposium is held annually in honor of the winner of The Holberg Prize. The event hosts prominent speakers who partake in a symposium dedicated to The Holberg Prize laureate.
The Nobel Prizes are five separate prizes awarded to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind, as established by the 1895 will of Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist Alfred Nobel, in the year before he died. Prizes were first awarded in 1901 by the Nobel Foundation. Nobel's will indicated that the awards should be granted in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. A sixth prize for Economic Sciences, endowed by Sweden's central bank, Sveriges Riksbank, and first presented in 1969, is also frequently included, as it is also administered by the Nobel Foundation. The Nobel Prizes are widely regarded as the most prestigious awards available in their respective fields.
The University of Bergen is a public research university in Bergen, Norway. As of 2021, the university had over 4,000 employees and 19,000 students. It was established by an act of parliament in 1946 consolidating several scientific institutions that dated as far back as 1825. It is Norway's second-oldest university, and is considered to be one of the nation’s four so-called "established universities." It has faculties and programmes in all the academic fields typical of a classical university, as well as such degree programmes as medicine and law that, traditionally, only the “established universities” are authorized by law to offer. It is also one of Norway's leading universities in many of the natural sciences, including marine research and climate research. It has consistently been ranked in the top 200 or top one percent of universities in the world, and as one of the best 10 or best 50 universities worldwide in some fields, such as earth and marine sciences. It is part of the Coimbra Group and of the U5 group of Norway's oldest and highest-ranked universities.
The University of Oslo is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the oldest university in Norway and consistently considered the country's leading university, one of the highest ranked universities in the Nordic countries and one of world's hundred highest ranked universities. Originally named the Royal Frederick University, the university was established in 1811 as the de facto Norwegian continuation of Denmark-Norway's common university, the University of Copenhagen, with which it shares many traditions. It was named for King Frederick VI of Denmark and Norway, and received its current name in 1939. The university was commonly nicknamed "The Royal Frederick's" before the name change, and informally also referred to simply as Universitetet.
The Abel Prize is awarded annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding mathematicians. It is named after the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1829) and directly modeled after the Nobel Prizes; as such, it is widely considered the Nobel Prize of Math. It comes with a monetary award of 7.5 million Norwegian kroner.
Onora Sylvia O'Neill, Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve is a British philosopher and a crossbench member of the House of Lords.
Natalie Zemon Davis, was an American-Canadian historian of the early modern period. She was the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at Princeton University. Her work originally focused on France, but it later broadened to include other parts of Europe, North America, and the Caribbean. For example, her book, Trickster Travels (2006), views Italy, Spain, Morocco and other parts of North Africa and West Africa through the lens of Leo Africanus's pioneering geography. Davis' books have all been translated into other languages: twenty-two for The Return of Martin Guerre. She was the second female president of the American Historical Association.
Paul Gilroy is an English sociologist and cultural studies scholar who is the founding Director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Race and Racism at University College London (UCL). Gilroy is the 2019 winner of the €660,000 Holberg Prize, for "his outstanding contributions to a number of academic fields, including cultural studies, critical race studies, sociology, history, anthropology and African-American studies".
Gunnar Skirbekk is a Norwegian philosopher. He is professor emeritus at the Department of Philosophy and the Center for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters.
Kiril Tsochev Bratanov was a prominent Bulgarian biologist and pioneer in the area of immunology of reproduction.
Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt was an Israeli sociologist and writer. In 1959 he was appointed to a teaching post in the sociology department of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. From 1990 until his death in September 2010 he was professor emeritus. He held countless guest professorships, at the University of Chicago, Harvard University, the University of Zurich, the University of Vienna, the University of Bern, Stanford and the University of Heidelberg, among others. Eisenstadt received a number of prizes, including the Balzan prize and the Max-Planck research prize. He was also the 2006 winner of the Holberg International Memorial Prize. He was a member of many academies, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Advisory Editors Council of the Social Evolution & History Journal. His daughter Irit Meir was a noted scholar of Israeli sign language.
Helga Nowotny is Professor emeritus of Social Studies of Science, ETH Zurich. She has held numerous leadership roles on Academic boards and public policy councils, and she has authored many publications in the social studies of science and technology.
The Infosys Prize is an annual award granted to scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists of Indian origin by the Infosys Science Foundation and ranks among the highest monetary awards for research in India. The prize for each category includes a gold medallion, a citation certificate, and prize money of US$100,000. The prize purse is tax free for winners living in India. The winners are selected by the jury of their respective categories, headed by the jury chairs.
Joan Martinez Alier is a Catalan economist, Emeritus Professor of Economics and Economic History and researcher at ICTA at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He has made important contributions in ecological economics and political ecology, which he synthesised in his work on environmentalism of the poor.
Dag Trygve Truslew Haug is a Norwegian linguist and associate professor of Latin at the University of Oslo.
Claes Holger de Vreese is a Danish Professor of Political Communication at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) at the department of Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). In addition, he is Affiliated Professor of Political Science and Journalism at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). De Vreese is the founding Director of the Center for Politics and Communication. He is member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the chair of its Social Science Council. Between 2005 and 2013, he was the Director of ASCoR and the Director of the Netherlands School of Communication Research (NeSCoR).
Sara Binzer Hobolt, FBA is a Danish political scientist, who specialises in European politics and electoral behaviour. She holds the Sutherland Chair in European Institutions at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Rebecca Adler-Nissen is a Danish political scientist specializing in international politics, particularly in European integration and the European Union, as well as the relationship between EU and its member states. She is a professor in the department of political science at the University of Copenhagen.
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