ZU senior professor Eva Illouz receives prestigious Aby Warburg Prize
The Aby Warburg Prize is awarded every four years and is endowed with 25,000 euros. ZU senior professor Eva Illouz received it this year.
Prof. Dr. Eva Illouz was recently awarded the Aby Warburg Prize of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg for her sociological research on the connection between politics and emotions. The prize is endowed with 25,000 euros and is awarded every four years to outstanding intellectuals, such as Claude Levi-Strauss (1996).
Prof. Eva Illouz lives and works in France and Israel and holds a senior professorship for Theory of Emotions & Modernity at Zeppelin University (ZU) in Friedrichshafen. A statement from the City of Hamburg on the award ceremony reads: Illouz shows how collective emotions and modern consumer culture shape social and political life. Illouz thus follows in the tradition of the prize's namesake, Aby Warburg, for whom the role of emotions in visual cultures was a central research topic. In addition to her academic work, Illouz has repeatedly taken a clear stance in favor of Israel's right to exist and against the rise of anti-Semitism worldwide.
"She insists that the ideas of mindfulness, respect and recognition must apply without restriction and that solidarity only fully unfolds when it is shown not only to one's own group, but also to others," said Dr. Carsten Brosda, Hamburg Senator for Culture and Media, at the award ceremony in Hamburg. "It also defends the achievements of modernity that are currently threatening to slip between our fingers."