Berlin Prize Fellowship Lets Scholar Continue Work on Landmark Biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

March 3, 2010 — Charles Marsh, a professor of religious studies and director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia, is one of 14 distinguished American scholars, artists and writers enjoying a semester-long residency in Berlin this spring as winners of the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin.

During his semester at the academy as the Ellen Maria Gorrissen Fellow, Marsh will continue to work on a new biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the first major trade biography in several decades of the German theologian and dissident. It will be published by Knopf (New York) and by Ullstein Verlag (Berlin).

The prizes were formally announced in late January.

Marsh will deliver the Ellen Maria Gorrissen Lecture on March 11. The lecture is titled, "From the Phraseological to the Real: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and America, 1930-1931."

The American Academy in Berlin was established in 1994 to foster greater understanding and dialogue between the people of the United States and Germany through its presence in Berlin, a city with which the U.S. has unique cultural, social, political and historical links. The academy offers residential fellowships to American scholars, writers, policymakers and artists, and encourages participation in the vibrant life of Berlin and Germany. The academy also brings leading Americans to Berlin for briefer visits to facilitate a robust exchange of views.