This year’s prestigious Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Prize of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) goes to Professor Søren Fauth from Denmark. The prize is worth €10,000 and comes with a research stay in Germany. The Grimm Young Talents Award, which has been awarded to early career scholars of German studies since 2011, goes to Dr Ervin Malakaj from Canada. In addition to a research stay in Germany, Dr Malakaj receives a prize of €3,000.

‘We warmly congratulate Professor Søren Fauth and Ervin Malakaj on winning this year’s Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Prizes,’ said DAAD President Prof Dr Joybrato Mukherjee. ‘Their outstanding achievements in German studies deserve great attention. Through their research and commitment to international partnerships in German studies, they enrich our higher education sector. We are proud to be able to confer these awards and wish them great success in their careers in academia.’

‘Both of this year’s prizewinners are exemplary ambassadors for the German language,’ said Katja Keul, Minister of State for International Cultural and Education Policy at the Federal Foreign Office. ‘Their achievements in German studies lay the foundations for exchange and mutual understanding. In this, their work provides important impulses towards international networking and contributes to promoting cultural understanding. Through their outstanding achievements in teaching and research across national borders, they have also promoted the expansion of international cooperation at their home higher education institutions. At the Federal Foreign Office we want to encourage and acknowledge outstanding engagement of this kind,’ the Minister said. 

Søren R. Fauth teaches and conducts research at Aarhus University in Denmark and is an internationally recognised scholar on realism, Raabe and Schopenhauer. His academic work comprises some 200 publications, including four monographs and several anthologies. He achieved international recognition through his habilitation ‘Der metaphysische Realist’ [The Metaphysical Realist] on Wilhelm Raabe’s reception of Schopenhauer. Fauth teaches at Aarhus University where he trains the next generation of German studies scholars. He is also in demand as a visiting speaker at universities around the world, from Yale to Reykjavik and Shanghai. He is also an ambassador for German studies and has made many contributions to radio, TV and newspapers on the importance of German language, literature and culture and German-Danish cultural relations. Fauth also translates German literature and has won many awards as a poet.

Ervin Malakaj teaches and conducts research at the University of British Colombia in Canada. He specialises in the media and cultural history of Germany from the 18th to the 21st Century. His research focuses on literary cultures, film history, narrative theory, queer theory, critical pedagogy and the humanities. Malakaj co-founded the international academic collective ‘Diversity, Decolonization, and the German Curriculum’. In his capacity as Director of Undergraduate Studies in German, he promotes the interests of German studies students across Canada.

Background

The DAAD awards the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Prizes to recognise international academics and researchers who, in addition to their academic performance, are particularly committed to international cooperation in the fields of German Studies and German as a foreign language. The award jury is the Advisory Council on German Studies at the DAAD, which advises the DAAD on all aspects of funding German Studies and German at higher education institutions. The prizes are financed by funds from the Federal Foreign Office.

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Awards ceremony and press service

The prizes will be awarded at 6pm on 21 September in Berlin as part of the 30 Years of German Language, Literature and Culture: Institutional Partnerships jubilee conference. 
Journalists are warmly invited to the awards ceremony. The prizewinners will be available for interviews ahead of the ceremony. Please email presse at daad.de by 20 September to register.