‘This year, together with the governments of France, Spain, the USA and the United Kingdom as well as the DAAD, we were once again able to honour young academics for excellent theses and exceptional engagement,’ said Prof. Dr Birgit Ulrike Münch, Vice Rector for International Affairs at the University of Bonn. ‘As a university, it is a special pleasure and honour for us to be able to award these important prizes. And this year, our students were able to enjoy a very special highlight at the award ceremony with the opening speech by Homi Bhabha.’
Professor Homi K. Bhabha, who as guest of honour at this year's International Days, was involved in several events, spoke about the value of international academic exchange and the special role of the humanities. Following his keynote address, the individual state prizes and the DAAD Prize were awarded.
This year, Luis Manuel Ontiveros-Meza received the Ambassador's Award of the United States of America for research projects with a connection to the USA for his Master's thesis ‘Voices from the Mountains: Complicating Coal Country Narratives through Local Journalism in Appalachia’. The Ambassador's Award comes with prize money, which is to be used for a research stay in the USA.
Delphine Marie Wellié was awarded the Queen's Prize for her bachelor's thesis ‘Queer and in Love: The Radical Potential of Queer Historical Romances - Disruptions of Cis- and Heteronormativity. Past and Present in A Lady for a Duke and The Doctor's Discretion’. The Queen's Prize, founded by the late Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Elizabeth II on the occasion of her visit to the University of Bonn in 1965, is awarded for outstanding achievements in English studies.
The Prix de la République française was awarded to Katharina Roth for her master's thesis ‘L'engagement au féminin: la littérature francophone féministe au Cameroun. Les Impatientes et Cœur du Sahel de Djaïli Amadou Amal’. The prize is linked to a stay in France for study or research purposes, for documentation or research work at a library or at a corresponding university or research institution. To mark the 40th anniversary of the Prix de la République française, this year the French government generously doubled the funding period for a corresponding stay.
The Premio Rey de España, the prize of the King of Spain, which has been awarded since 1992 for outstanding work in Ibero-Romance philology, was awarded to two winners this year. Michelle Müller was honoured for her bachelor's thesis ‘The žeísmo and the šeísmo in Buenos Aires - A phonetic analysis of the yeísmo variants in the Argentinian youth language’. Annalena Ebermann received the award for her bachelor's thesis ‘An ecofeminist view of female resistance in La mujer habitada (1988) by Gioconda Belli’.
Hussein Morobeid was awarded the German Academic Exchange Service’s DAAD Prize, which honours special academic achievements and, above all, remarkable social engagement and dedication to university life at the University of Bonn. The prize, worth €1,000, was awarded to him for outstanding achievements in his medical studies and his exemplary engagement for Muslim students and the integration of young people with a migration background.
In addition to the state prizes and the DAAD Prize, there was another highlight at this year's ceremony: Professor Paul Geyer received the Ordre des Palmes Académiques. The French government has been honouring people for outstanding services to education with this award since 1808. ‘Through his long-standing and successful cooperation with various French institutions and partners, such as the Sorbonne Université, Paul Geyer has sustainably promoted Franco-German scientific contacts. We are all very proud that he is able to receive this prestigious award from the French government, which is the highest honour in the field of education and higher education.’
Further information on the International Days and the state prizes can be found here: https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/university/university-life/events/international-days/international-days-2024?set_language=en
Contact person for the media:
Vice Rectorate for International Affairs
Professor Birgit Ulrike Münch
Prorektorat.internationales@uni-bonn.de
