New Delhi: Former director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and internationally renowned Indian psychologist professor Ashis Nandy has been chosen as the recipient of the Hans-Kilian Award for 2019.
Ashis Nandy’s work focused on two diametrically opposed and oscillating domains of existence – human potential and human destructiveness.
The award adds to the already impressive list of accolades received by professor Nandy, including the Fukuoka Prize in 2007.
He was also included in the Foreign Affairs magazine as one of the world’s 100 most important public intellectuals in 2008.
Nandy was the director of CSDS from 1992 to 1997 and remains a senior honorary member till this day.
From the press release of the Köhler Foundation:
By awarding the Hans-Kilian-Prize 2019 to Ashis Nandy, the internationally renowned psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist and co-founder of postcolonial studies, the Köhler Foundation’s award committee honours an academic lifetime achievement which bridges diverse fields of social and cultural scientific research creatively and interdisciplinarily.
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. In addition, 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 Hans-Kilian Award is given to researchers whose outstanding scientific achievements provide deeper insight into the historical and cultural existence of humankind and the constantly evolving human psyche.
The award was established by the Köhler Foundation and bears the name of the late social psychologist and psychoanalyst Hans Kilian. The award aims to foster the growth of interdisciplinary social psychology and psychoanalysis.