Ulrike E. Auga

Rev. Prof. Ulrike E. Auga, PhD, née Ernst (November 24, 1964 in East Berlin) is a German Protestant theologian, and a cultural and religious studies scholar, and a gender theorist and epistemologist.

Introductory Summary

She holds a PhD in Cultural Studies (summa cum laude) from Humboldt University of Berlin which she earned in 2005. In 2022, she achieved an “Habilitation,” or “Venia legendi”— an advanced and superior teaching credential equivalent to a second PhD—in Religious Studies, Intercultural Theology and Ecumenics for her book. An Epistemology of Religion and Gender: Biopolitics – Performativity –Agency.[1]

She is Professor of Religious Studies, and Intercultural Theology and Ecumenism at Hamburg University. She is both a Fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry (CTI) and a Princeton and Associated Researcher in an International Research Training Group (IRTG) entitled “Transformative Religion: Religion as Situated Knowledge in Processes of Social Knowledge Production” as well as a member of the Center of Transdisciplinary Gender Studies at Humboldt University of Berlin.

Dr. Auga is also an ordained minister in the Protestant Church of Berlin (EKBO). Her pastoral and academic work has been shaped by her activist participation in the 1989 Peaceful Revolution in East-Germany. Furthermore, her life in Johannesburg (South Africa), Bamako (Mali) and Jerusalem, and her research on Mongolia, South Korea and Japan have been influential in the development of her own academic, theological and philosophical concepts.

Grant, Awards, and Nominations

The PhD and the Habilitation have given her the ability to win several awards and become a visiting professor at several global universities, selected highlights include:

· 2013 - Visiting professor, International Bonhoeffer Society (ibg) Award, Bonhoeffer Endowed Chair for Religious and Gender Studies, Union Theological Seminary in New York at Columbia University.
· 2017 - Kaethe Leichter Award – Visiting professor, Institute for African Studies, Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies, at the University of Vienna, Austria.
· 2018 –Guest professor, United Nations University Postgraduate Gender Equality Studies and Training Programme (UNU-GEST), United Nations University, University of Iceland, Reykjavik.
· 2020 - Mary Douglas Award – Visiting professor, Institute of Social Sciences of Religions,University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

She has won numerous other awards, grants, and nominations including:

2019 Magnus Hirschfeld Award 2019 (nomination), Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)Berlin

2016-17 Humboldt-Princeton Strategic Partnership Grant (with Prof. Dr. Regina Kunzel), Humbold tUniversity of Berlin, Princeton University

2017 Interdisciplinary University Professorship for Gender Studies (2nd list place), Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Science, Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies, University of Vienna

2015-16 Research Fellowship, he John Templeton Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Centre of Theological Inquiry (CTI), Princeton University

2014-15 Käthe Leichter Award in Gender Studies (2nd list place), University of Vienna

2013-14 Radboud Excellence Fellowship (3rd list place), Institute for Gender Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen

2013 Leonore Siegele Wenschkewitz Award, Association for the Promotion of Feminist Researchand Teaching e. V., Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau (EKHN), Protestant Academy Frankfurt .Auga, Ulrike, “’Let the Rainbow Children Come’. Biomacht als Herausforderung kritischerpolitischer Theologie und Religionswissenschaft”, in: Schäfer-Bossert, Stefanie; Hartlieb, Elisabeth(eds.), Feministische Theologie. Political Theology. Entwicklungen und Perspektiven, Sulzbach /Taunus: Ulrike Helmer Verlag 2012, 167-183.

2003 Excellence scholarship, Berlin Program for the Enhancement of Equality for Women in Research and Teaching

1999-2002 PhD scholarship, Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES)

1994-96 Women Leadership Training Programme Award, Lutheran World Federation, Geneva,Cape Town