Fromm Prize 2018

Awarding of the Erich Fromm Prize 2018 to Hartmut Rosa

Wednesday, 21.2.2018, at 6 p.m. in the Hospitalhof Stuttgart

Prof. Dr. Hartmut Rosa was awarded the Erich Fromm Prize in Stuttgart on February 21, 2018. He developed the scientific and humanistic approach of Critical Theory more than almost any other winner of the Erich Fromm Prize. With his sociological work, he made Fromm’s thinking fruitful for the present in his own way. Here, a sociologist dares not only to speak in the tradition of critical theory about alienation and pathogenic developments in an accelerated modern age, but also to ask what constitutes a good society and a successful life and what “ways out of a sick society” (Erich Fromm) exist today.

Hartmut Rosa was born in 1965 in Lörrach and has been Professor of General and Theoretical Sociology at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena since 2005. He completed his habilitation there in 2004 with studies on social acceleration. In 2016, he published his 800-page work “Resonance: A Sociology of World Relations”, in which he also refers to Erich Fromm. Since October 2013, Hartmut Rosa has also been Director of the Max Weber College for Cultural and Social Science Studies at the University of Erfurt.

The public award ceremony for the 10,000 euro prize took place on Wednesday, February 21, 2018, at 6 p.m. at the Hospitalhof in Stuttgart (Büchsenstr. 33).

The laudatory speech for the award winner was held by Prof. em. Dr. Dietmar Mieth, Professor of Theological Ethics/Social Ethics at the University of Tübingen, now Head of the Meister Eckart Research Unit at the Max Weber College for Cultural and Social Science Studies at the University of Erfurt.

The Erich Fromm Lecture associated with the award ceremony was given by Hartmut Rosa on the topic: “The source of all fear and the umbilical cord to life: Erich Fromm’s philosophy from a resonance theory perspective”.

Hartmut Rosa illustrated what “resonance” means with the song cycle “Winterreise” by Franz Schubert, among others. The renowned baritone Hans Christoph Begemann, accompanied by Thomas Seyboldt, sang songs from Schubert’s “Winterreise” at the award ceremony. Christoph Begemann teaches at the Hochschule für Musik in Mainz, Thomas Seyboldt at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart.