Ingeborg Fialová, a German literature scholar from the UP Faculty of Arts, has been named a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). Twenty-nine new academics and scientists in various disciplines from seven countries were invited to Vienna to take part in the academy’s ceremonial meeting, where Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen also made an appearance.
According to Michael Alram, Vice-President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the key criterion in the selection of new members is their excellence in science. “And all of you fully comply with this criterion,” he said to the selected scientists and academics, adding that their contribution to the Academy consists of their scientific erudition as well as their ideas and activities.
“Being chosen a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences is a huge honour for me and a totally unexpected surprise,” said Ingeborg Fialová. She was proposed by Prof Konstanze Fliedl from the University of Vienna, who appreciated her remarkable output and the academic reputation of her works. She highlighted her activities in the Research Centre for German Moravian Literature and the Austrian Centre.
“I have been allowed to join the best possible academic society. Members of the Academy include my esteemed colleagues in German studies, the publications of whom I always recommend as required reading to my students, such as the aforementioned Konstanze Fliedl, Werner Welzig, Peter Wiesinger, Manfred Kern, Karl Wagner, Jacques Le Rider – and probably the most famous of them all, Claudio Magris,” said Prof Fialová, adding that she has extended the somewhat modest Czech representation. “Czech humanities are represented in the Austrian Academy by a relatively small number of academicians: two historians from Charles University, Ivan Hlaváček and Milan Hlavačka, the archaeologist Jaroslav Tejral – and now me.”
The Austrian Academy of Sciences was founded in 1847 and has over 770 members today. It comprises Austrian academics and scholars as well as their colleagues from abroad. “During the ceremonial welcoming of new academy members, they repeatedly said they trust in our efficient support of the Academy’s goals and close collaboration. Therefore, I assume that the corresponding membership is not some kind of a nominal honour, but an invitation to participate in some of the academy’s activities – such as collaborating in several German studies projects and to chair the committees that approve the assignment of stipends or distribution of funding. So I dare believe that my membership could be beneficial to Palacký University,” says the Olomouc scholar.