Richard Sennett Wins International Prize for Scholarship in Historical Humanities

By James Devitt

Professor Richard Sennett has been named the winner of the 2008 Gerda Henkel Prize, which recognizes outstanding scholarly achievement in the historical humanities. The prize includes a cash award of 100,000 euros ($160,000) and is given every two years by the Gerda Henkel Foundation in Düsseldorf, Germany.
    Sennett holds the rank of University Professor at NYU and is also a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics. The prize will be awarded to him at a ceremony on Nov. 10 in Düsseldorf.
    “Richard Sennett is one of today’s leading thinkers,” the selection jury said in announcing the award in July. “In his widely read books, he effortlessly transcends the boundaries of the humanities, in particular the disciplines of sociology and history, psychology and philosophy. While his immense knowledge and his theoretical consciousness show he is a true academic, his life experience, his spirit, and his style prove him to be an artist.”
    A renowned social critic, Sennett is the author of The Culture of the New Capitalism (2006), Respect in a World of Inequality (2003), The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism (1998), Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization (1994), The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities (1990), Authority (1980), and The Fall of Public Man (1977).
    His most recent book, The Craftsman, which explores artisans across different historical periods, was published earlier this year.
    “Sennett’s aim is to make us rethink the notion that society benefits most from a workforce trained to respond to the metamorphosis of a global economy,” the New Yorker observed in its account of the book last spring.
     Sennett is the founding director of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, which was established in 1976, and is a member of numerous international associations and scientific academies, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of Literature, and the Royal Society of the Arts. In 1998, he was awarded the European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social Sciences, followed by the “Das politische Buch” (The Political Book) prize endowed by the Bonn-based Friedrich Ebert Foundation in 1999. In 2006, he was the winner of the Hegel Prize awarded by the city of Stuttgart.