President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso awards first All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values to Italian Professor of Cultural History Luisa Passerini

In honour of her exceptional scholarly work on European cultural values and European identity, Luisa Passerini will be the first scholar to be awarded the All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values by the President of the European Commission; a prize initiated by ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities.

Upon invitation of ALLEA, José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, will award the prize at an award ceremony on the premises of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts in Brussels on the afternoon of 9 April 2014.

Luisa Passerini´s research not only provides a multifaceted depiction of the ways in which identities in Europe are built and evolve. “It also comprises and elaborates on the values that Europe is in need of today”, says Professor Günter Stock, ALLEA President and chairman of the prize jury. “Her comprehensive work on a great variety of topics related to the European identity and values significantly contributes to explaining cultural diversity in Europe and its eventful history of cultural encounters.”

The laureate is Professor Emeritus of Cultural History at the University of Turin and currently heads the research project Bodies Across Borders: Oral and Visual Memory in Europe and Beyond, funded by the European Research Council, which aims to understand new forms of European identity. Luisa Passerini´s further research fields include the history of subjectivity, including forms of European identity, gender and generations or diasporic subjectivities.

The All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, awarded for the first time in 2014  is co-sponsored by Stiftung Mercator and endowed with 25,000 EUR. ALLEA has established the prize to pay tribute to the boundless intellectual and cultural diversity and richness of Europe, and to highlight how outstanding scholarly work, particularly in the fields of the humanities and social sciences, contributes to the understanding of Europe as a cultural and intellectual entity.

The event is open to the public and press. Please click here to download the press invitation. Prior registration is required. For interviews with the laureate or with the ALLEA President, please contact the ALLEA secretariat in advance. Photos will be made available upon request shortly after the event. Click here to learn more about ALLEA, the prize, the laureate and for further information.