EUME Member awarded the 2012 Leibniz Prize

Friederike Pannewick (Philipps-Universität Marburg) has been awarded the Leibniz Prize for 2012 for her contribution to the interdisciplinary reorientation of Arabic Studies and Middle Eastern Studies in Germany.

Friederike Pannewick has been a member of the collegium of the research project “Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe” since 2001 and, together with Professor Samah Selim, heads the EUME research field “Travelling Tradition: Comparative Perspectives on Near Eastern Literatures”. Before that, she was a member of the EUME’s predecessor project, the “Working Group Modernity and Islam (AKMI)”, in whose framework she shaped the area “Cultural Mobility in Middle Eastern Literatures”.

In the framework of EUME or AKMI, Friederike Pannewick has directed workshops on themes like “Death Through Love” and “Martyrdom and Modernity”, as well as two summer schools: in Beirut in 2006 on the theme “Travelling Traditions” and in Alexandria in 2004 on the theme “Literature and Borders. Delimitations. Transgressions”.

Friederike Pannewick’s approach is to study Arabic Literature in the context of Comparative Literature and neighboring disciplines. Among her own emphases are the literary treatment of civil war experiences, imaginings of death, and models of rebellion and subversion.

Several publications have emerged from this context:

Conflicting Narratives: War, Violence and Memory in Iraqi Culture, ed. Friederike Pannewick, Stephan Milich, Leslie Tramontini, Literaturen im Kontext, Vol 35, Reichert Verlag, 2012

Martyrdom in Literature: Visions of Death and Meaningful Suffering in Europe and the Middle East from Antiquity to Modernity, ed. Friederike Pannewick, Literaturen im Kontext, Vol 17, Reichert Verlag, 2004

Crossing and Passages in Genre and Culture, ed. Christian Szyska und Friederike Pannewick, Literaturen im Kontext, Vol 15, Reichert Verlag, 2003