Dr Kirill Dmitriev (School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews, UK) has been elected the recipient of a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation after having been nominated for this award by Professor Verena Klemm (Orientalisches Institut, Universität Leipzig, Germany). The award has been granted in recognition of the award winner’s accomplishments in research and teaching.In addition, award winners are invited to carry out research projects of their own choice in collaboration with colleagues in Germany. Kirill will conduct collaborative research with Professor Verena Klemm and other colleagues in the Faculty of Arts, History and Oriental Studies of Leipzig University and in the research project Bibliotheca Arabica – Towards a New History of Arabic Literature based at the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig, Germany. In particular, he will focus on innovative aspects in literary and cultural studies in the field of Arabic philology as well as Digital Humanities in the context of his research on the Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, an outstanding work of world literature with an extraordinary history of transcultural dissemination.

For more information on the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and its programmes for researchers, please refer to: https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/web/programmes-by-target-group.html.