The American Institute for Contemporary German Studies has awarded the DAAD Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in German and European Studies to UCLA’s Yasemin Yildiz for her exceptional work in the field of the humanities.
The central aim of this prize is to foster a new generation of American scholarship on Germany and encourage innovative contributions to the interdisciplinary scope of German studies.
Yildiz is an associate professor of German and comparative literature at UCLA. She grew up in Bremen and began her academic life at the Universität Hamburg, where she studied German literature and history, earning an M.A. with a thesis on Holocaust testimonies. She went on to complete her Ph.D. at Cornell University.
Frequently engaging with pressing contemporary issues, Yildiz has also published essays on Islam, gender, migration and minority discourses. Her research has received support from organizations such as the American Association of University Women, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the British Council. Together with her co-author Michael Rothberg, she is currently completing a book on Turkish-German writers’, artists’ and activists’ innovative memory work related to the Holocaust and national socialism.
The DAAD prize is presented at the institute’s annual Global Leadership Award Dinner. For more information about Yildiz and the award, look here.
