Ashis Nandy to get Hans Kilian award 2019

Indian psychologist, psychoanalyst and co-founder of the postcolonial theory Ashis Nandy has been chosen for the prestigious ‘Hans Kilian award 2019’ instituted by the Köhler Foundation.

The award, which carries an amount of 80,000 Euros, recognises the research and advancement of metacultural humanisation and is given every two years.

Nandy was director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, from 1992 to 1997 and continues to be its senior honorary fellow. “The international scope of his work can be seen in his fellowships at various universities in the USA, Great Britain, and Germany, his call to the first UNESCO Chair at the Centre for European Studies at the University of Trier in 1994, the Japanese Fukuoka Prize for Services to Asian Culture in 2007, and his inclusion in the Foreign Affairs magazine as one of the world’s 100 most important public intellectuals in 2008,” the Foundation stated on its website.

Köhler Foundation has been sponsoring scientific research and publication projects in human sciences since 1987. It strives for opening new perspectives of a peaceful coexistence in the complex framework of the globalised world.

The award has been named after Prof. Hans Kilian (1921-2008), who held the Chair of Social Psychology and Applied Psychoanalysis at the University of Kassel, Germany.

“By awarding the Hans-Kilian-Prize 2019 to Ashis Nandy, the Köhler Foundation’s award committee honours an academic lifetime achievement which bridges diverse fields of social and cultural scientific research creatively and interdisciplinarily,” the award citation read.

“Particular attention is paid to Ashis Nandy’s efforts to adapt genuinely western traditions of thought, such as psychoanalysis, to a non-Western context in such a way that fruitful analyses of a non-western society and its colonial as well as postcolonial experiences become possible,” it further stated.

Additionally, the citation maintained, “the Köhler Foundation acknowledges the work of Ashis Nandy as a public and sometimes contentious intellectual who is heard all over the world and who is able to stimulate sustainable political debates with his scientific work and criticism – in the spirit of Hans Kilian, after whom the prize is named.”

The award ceremony will be held on May 9 at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany.