2018-03-13
Dr. Stefan Binder vom CeMIS erhält den Gerardus van der Leeuw Preis 2018
CeMIS anthropologist Dr. Stefan Binder receives the Gerardus van der Leeuw Prize 2018 for dissertation
Religious anthropologist Dr. Stefan Binder has received the 2018 Gerardus van der Leeuw Award from the Nederlands Genootschap voor Godsdienstwetenschap (NGG, Netherlands Society for Religious Studies) for the most “original and innovative” doctoral thesis. Dr Binder completed his dissertation, “Total Atheism: Making mental revolutions in South India”, at Utrecht University.According to the NGG statement published on their website: “In addition, the dissertation was also considered to contribute the most to religious studies as an academic discipline, balancing carefully between ethnographic data and theoretical debates. Binder’s study shows that theories in religious studies are thoroughly impregnated by Western concepts, and he proposes non-Eurocentric critical epistemology of secularity, faith and unbelief. He moreover presents his work in a very clear, coherent and consistent way.”
In its ethnological analysis of an organized atheist movement in Telugu-speaking South India, the dissertation investigates intellectual debates, biographical narratives, oral practices, family ideologies and wedding practices, and programmes to overcome so-called "superstition" and the caste "system".