SCAS News - 15 September, 2017

Diploma Ceremony in Honour of the New Pro Futura Scientia XII Fellows

Yesterday, a ceremony in honour of the four new Fellows of the Pro Futura Scientia Programme
was held at the Collegium. Patrick Jern, Department of Psychology, Åbo Akademi University;
Sofia Lodén, Department of Romance Studies and Classics, Stockholm University; Ola Wikander,
Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University; and Nicholas Zair, Faculty of Classics,
University of Cambridge, were introduced to the invited audience by SCAS Principal Björn Wittrock,
before being presented with diplomas and flowers by Professor Geoffrey Harpham, Duke University.

Following the formal reception of their Fellowships, each one of the new Pro Futura Fellows gave a
brief presentation of his/her research. The research proposals in focus this year range from An
Empirical Test of the Erotic Plasticity Theory and Its Implications for Sexual Function (Jern); and
The Europeanization of Culture in the Middle Ages: Moving Borders and Landscapes in Arthurian
Romance (Lodén) to The Words of the Storm Gods: Reconstructing the Common Mytho-Poetic
Language of Northwest Semitic (Wikander) and Learning to Spell in the Roman Empire (Zair).
A musical performance by a string quartet from the Uppsala University Royal Academic Orchestra,
followed by a lecture on Scholarship and Freedom by Geoffrey Harpham rounded up the ceremony.
Harpham is a Visiting Scholar and Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University,
as well as Former Director at the National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park.

Introduction by Björn Wittrock and the diploma ceremony >>
Research presentations by the Pro Futura Scientia XII Fellows >>
The lecture by Geoffrey Harpham >>

The announcement of the selection of the new Fellows was made earlier this year, as the twelfth
admittance round of the programme was concluded in mid-June. The four scholars were selected
among 27 candidates, nominated by thirteen universities in five countries.

The Pro Futura Scientia programme was initiated by SCAS and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond in 1999.
For more pictures, please see here

Read more:
Pro Futura Scientia History and Mission
Nominations and Selections
Pro Futura Scientia Fellows (1999-present)
Four Promising Researchers to Join the Pro Futura Scientia Programme (SCAS News - 19 June, 2017)