Internationally recognised research into German and modern European literature has won a University academic a prestigious Leverhulme Trust prize.
Dr Ben Hutchinson, Head of German at the School of European Culture and Languages and Director of the Kent Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, will receive £70,000 in research funding following the Trust’s decision to award him one of only 30 Philip Leverhulme Prizes for 2011.
The Prize will help fund future research and book projects and Dr Hutchinson said he was delighted to see the study of modern European literature acknowledged in this way.
‘I’m very pleased to receive this award which will strengthen the research culture of German and modern European literature here at Kent.
‘My main project with the prize money will be to write a book, provisionally entitled Constructions of Lateness in Modern European Literature, but I’m sure that this award will benefit the work of the whole school as well.’
Philip Leverhulme prizes are awarded to ‘outstanding scholars who have made a substantial and recognised contribution to their particular field of study, recognised at an international level, and where the expectation is that their greatest achievement is yet to come’.
The broad fields of research covered by this year’s awards were: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Economics, Engineering, Geography, Modern European Languages and Literature, Performing and Visual Arts.