Awardees since 1995
Serhij Zadan
Serhiy Zadan is a poet, writer and singer of the rock band "Zhadan and the Dogs" lives in Kharkiv.
Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore is a Harvard history professor and essayist.
Roger Berkowitz
Law and political scientist, Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College (NY)
Jerome Kohn
Professor of Philosophy, Former Director of the Hannah Arendt Center at the New School for Social Research in New York and executor of Hannah Arendt’s estate
Ann Pettifor
British-South African economist and teaches at the Political Economy Research Centre of City University, London
Étienne Balibar
Until 2002 he taught political philosophy and moral philosophy at the University of Paris-Nanterre. Since the 1990ies he taught at several Universities in the US. Despite being retired, Balibar is currently a guest professor at Columbia University in New York
Christian Teichmann
Christian Teichmann teaches Eastern European History at the Institute for History of the Humboldt University Berlin.
In 2015 there was no prize awarded. „World in Pieces. Human Rights, Religion and political thinking today“ was the title of the conference that was hosted on the occasion of the 20 year jubilee of the “Hannah-Arendt-Prize for Political Thinking” on the 4th of December 2015 in the Bremen.
Juri Andruchowytsch
Juri Andruchowytsch, Ukrainian poet, essayist, novelist, translator and theater-maker, and Nadeshda Tolokonnikowa and Marija Aljochina, performance artists from Russia.
Timothy Snyder
Timothy Snyder, historian at Yale University
Yfaat Weiss
historian at Hebrew University in Jerusalem
Navid Kermani
German-Iranian journalist, author and orientalist, lives in Cologne
François Jullien
French philosopher und sinologist, teaches in Paris
Kurt Flasch
historian of philosophy, specialized on Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, author of numerous books
Victor Zaslavsky
Victor Zaslavsky (†), engineer und sociologist, taught political sociology in Rome
Tony Judt
Tony Judt (†), British historian and author, lived in New York
Julia Kristeva
literature theorist, psychoanalyst, writer and philosopher, lives in Paris
Vaira Vike-Freiberga
psychologist and Latvian President from 1999 –2007
Ernst Wolfgang Böckenförde
Ernst Wolfgang Böckenförde (†), philosopher of law; lived in the Breisgau area
Michael Ignatieff
Michael Ignatieff, publicist, author, professor for Human Rights Policy; lives in Boston
Gianni Vattimo
Italian philosopher and politician; lives in Turin
Ernst Vollrath
Ernst Vollrath (†), professor for political philosophy; lived in Cologne and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, publicist and politician; lives in Frankfurt on the Main
Jelena Bonner
Jelena Bonner (†), studied Literature and Medicine; lived in the US
Massimo Cacciari
Italian philosopher and politician; lives in Milan
Antje Vollmer
publicist and politician; lives in Berlin and Claude Lefort (†), publicist and professor for political philosophy, lived in Paris
Freimut Duve
Freimut Duve, publicist, editor and politician ; lives in Hamburg and Joachim Gauck, vicar und pastor, former German president; lives in Berlin
François Furet
François Furet (†), French historian; lived in Paris
Agnes Heller
Agnes Heller, Hungarian philosopher; lives in the US and Hungary