"Humboldt-Forschungspreis" to Sustain IAS Member's Investigation of Reproductive Rights

At a ceremony held in Berlin last week, Penelope Deutscher, Member (2023–24) in the School of Social Science, was officially presented with a Research Award ("Humboldt-Forschungspreis") by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Since 1972, the Foundation has granted such awards to researchers "whose fundamental discoveries, new theories, or findings have had a lasting effect on their discipline ... and who are expected, moreover, to continue producing outstanding research in the future."

The award offers its recipients the opportunity to undertake collaborative research with university hosts in Germany. Deutscher’s project, titled "Revocability: A Post-Roe Grammar of Power," was developed at the Institute and will be hosted by the Goethe Universität, Frankfurt and the Freie Universität, Berlin. 

An excerpt from her project, exploring how and why abortion has served as a device for setting aside a broad range of rights, was recently published in Critical Times.

With her acceptance of the award, Deutscher joins a long list of IAS affiliated recipients of research prizes and fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Two Professors in the School of Historical Studies, Sabine Schmidtke and Angelos Chaniotis, received the Forschungspreis in 2019 and 2014 respectively. Rubina Raja, Member (2019) in the School of Historical Studies, was a recipient of the award in 2023. Aaron Michael Butts, Member (2019–20) and Visitor (2020–21) in the School, was awarded a Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers in 2020. 

Find out more from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.