Evelin Lindner

Evelin G. Lindner
PhD (Dr.med.), PhD (Dr.psychol.)

Evelin Lindner in 2001
Born (1954-05-13) May 13, 1954
Hameln, Germany
Nationality Germany
Website
www.humiliationstudies.org

Evelin Gerda Lindner (born May 13, 1954, in Hameln, Germany) is a medical doctor, psychologist, and transdiciplinary scholar and author who works with developing a Theory of Humiliation, in which she describes humiliation of honor and dignity among the strongest obstacles on the way to a peaceful world.

She has received several awards, among them two nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize (2015, 2016).

She is also known for living as a global citizen for more than forty years, which allowed her to acquire a broad linguistic, historical and transcultural approach to notions such as humiliation and dignity.

She is the Founding President of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HumanDHS), a global transdisciplinary network and fellowship of concerned academics, practitioners, activists, artists, and many others who wish to heal and prevent cycles of humiliation.

Early life and education

Evelin Lindner was born in 1954, into a family that was deeply scarred by the two World Wars, particularly World War II. Her parents were displaced from Silesia in 1946 to Lower Saxony, which later became part of West Germany. The traumatic experiences of her family have formed the background of her work and have given direction to her pursuit of a global citizenship life.

From a very young age, she became interested in cultures and languages, familiarizing herself with many of the key languages of the world. Her aim was to learn from as many cultures as possible through assimilation and immersion, rather than merely by visiting or studying them.

She studied Psychology, followed by Medicine, and graduated in 1978 and 1984 respectively, both from the University of Hamburg in Germany. During this time, she studied and worked in New Zealand, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Israel, West Africa, USA, Germany, and Norway.

She has also studied Law and Sinology at the Goethe University Frankfurt, Philosophy at the University of Hamburg, and has participated in the Norwegian Research Council's Ethics Programme under philosopher Dagfinn Føllesdal.

In 1994, she obtained her first doctorate, in Medicine (Dr. med.), from University of Hamburg. Her thesis addressed the topic of quality of life in a comparative manner, examining the notion of a "good life" in Egypt and in Germany.

In 1997, she became affiliated with the University of Oslo, the Department of Psychology, where she obtained her second doctorate in 2001, in Psychology (Dr. psychol.). Later, she became also affiliated with the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights at the University of Oslo.

Since 2001, she has been affiliated with Columbia University's Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4) in New York, and since 2003, also with the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in Paris.

She speaks English, German, Norwegian and French fluently, and is familiar with a number of other languages, among others, Egyptian Arabic, modern Hebrew, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Work and global life

Her global life and work started in 1974, first as a student, then as a psychological counselor and psychotherapist, and later through giving seminars and talks all around the world. She has lived in many countries within Africa, Asia, Europe, and America, among others for longer periods in Norway (regularly since 1977), Germany (where she was raised, regularly since 1974), Egypt (1984-1991 and since), Switzerland (regularly since 2000), France (regularly since 2001), Belgium (1984–1991), the Balkans (2016), the Middle East (regularly since 1975), Somalia (1998), the Great Lakes in Africa (1999, 2015), Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma (1981, 2014), China (regularly since 1983), Japan (2004–2007), New Zealand (1983, 2011), Australia (2007, 2011), and the United States (regularly since 1982), Chile (2012), Bolivia (2012), Equador (2012) and Brasil (2012).

Back in Europe, in 1991, she was perplexed to find a considerable lack of a sense of global responsibility and founded the NGO “Better Global Understanding” in Hamburg, where she organized an important peace festival under the motto “Global Responsibility”, attended by more than 20 000 people. In 1994, she was a candidate for the 1994 European Parliament election.

In 2001, the idea to establish a center for the study of humiliation and dignity was suggested to Evelin Lindner by many who knew her work. Together with her longtime collaborator, the relational-cultural theorist Linda Hartling (PhD.), she subsequently developed Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, a global transdisciplinary network and fellowship with more than 1,000 members and 6,000 supporters, The HumanDHS website has been accessed by around 40,000 people from more than 180 countries per year.

HumanDHS has as its aim to stimulate systemic change and open space for dignity throughout the world. It organizes two annual conferences in different parts of the world, and has launched the World Dignity University Initiative in 2010 as an invitation to contribute to a virtual, free, inclusive and creative educational platform aimed at building “a global culture of cooperation”.

In 2012, Dignity Press, with its imprint World Dignity University Press, became operational as a nonprofit publisher, which has published close to thirty books since, by authors from all over the world who address human dignity and humiliation from a variety of perspectives.

Lindner designs her life and identity as a global life and identity, allowing her to spread the HumanDHS knowledge and message all around the world, thus nurturing a global “dignity family”. In her own unique way, she is a global citizen who has made the world her home, not only in theory, but also in practice – she lives with people and moves from home to home, teaching and researching for periods of weeks or months in different locations all over the globe.

She proposes the co-creation of a world of "unity in diversity" and dedicates her work and life to the cause of dignifying the world and transcending humiliation.

Since Lindner advocates equality in dignity, both locally and globally, she has chosen Norway as a main base because the ideal of equality in dignity (likeverd in Norwegian) is at the core of the Norwegian cultural heritage. Lindner believes that Norway has a great responsibility to make the Norwegian cultural heritage more accessible globally.

Books and awards

Evelin Lindner has received several awards, among them two nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 and 2016.

She was the recipient of the "2006 Swiss Association of Applied Psychology (SBAP) Award for Applied Psychology", for her unique research, as well as for her presence as an advocate for humanity in a global society.

In 2009, she received the The "Prisoner's Testament" Peace Award [1] in Risør, Norway.

Her first book titled Making Enemies: Humiliation and International Conflict in 2006, has been honored as an "Outstanding Academic Title" by the journal Choice for 2007 in the USA.

She published her second book in 2009, titled Emotion and Conflict: How Human Rights Can Dignify Emotion and Help Us Wage Good Conflict.

Her third book on Gender, Humiliation, and Global Security was published in 2010 with a Foreword by Desmond Tutu,[2] and was “highly recommended” by Choice.

Her fourth book published in 2012 is titled A Dignity Economy: Creating an Economy that Serves Human Dignity and Preserves Our Planet.

Finally, her upcoming book (2017) has the title Honor, Humiliation, and Terror.

She has also given seminars and talks all around the world, and written numerous articles and book chapters, among others, in Bernt Hagtvet's anthology Folkemordenes svarte bok (Genocide's Black Book) (2008, 2013).

Selected publications

See also

References

    External links

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