2022 Marie Heim-Vögtlin Prize - award ceremony
The SNSF honours literary scholar Anna Elsner for her work on the changing role of dying. The award ceremony took place on 19 December 2022 at the University of St. Gallen.
Anna Elsner's area of expertise is the medical humanities. From this interdisciplinary perspective, she investigated how French writings from the 1970s onwards address social and medical changes at the end of life. She focused in particular on the development and significance of palliative medicine.
For this work, she received the 2022 Marie Heim-Vögtlin Prize from the SNSF. The award, worth 25,000 Swiss francs, honours exceptional achievements and career development by young female researchers in Switzerland.
Complimentary colleagues
The award ceremony took place at the University of St. Gallen on 19 December. In the presence of a large audience, various researchers paid tribute to Anna Elsner's work: Rector Bernhard Ehrenzeller, Matthias Egger, pesident of the SNSF Research Council, and Ben Jann from the SNSF Specialised Committee Careers. The speech in honour of the laureate was given by Thomas Klinkert from the University of Zurich. He highlighted the complexity that distinguishes Anna Elsner's approach to literary texts and argued that "she proves that literature can still have an important epistemological function even in our highly specialised present."
Anna Elsner has been Assistant Professor of French Literature and Culture at the University of St. Gallen since 2020.