Feb. 17, 2026
🌿 Highlight of Integrative Well-Being Prize Winner: Albrecht Classen 🌿
The Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of Arizona is delighted to announce that Dr. Albrecht Classen, University Distinguished Professor of German Studies, has been awarded the Spring 2025 Integrative Well-Being Prize.
A globally recognized scholar of medieval German and European literature, religion, and philosophy (800–1600), Dr. Classen has published 138 books, 870 scholarly articles, and more than 3,000 book reviews. His latest volume, Miracles and Wonders in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (2025), continues his lifelong engagement with the spiritual imagination of the pre-modern world. His international honors include the Bundesverdienstkreuz am Band (2004) and the rank of Grand Knight Commander of the Most Noble Order of the Three Lions (2017). He also serves as editor of Mediaevistik, Humanities, and the Current Research Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities.
🏆 Awarded Project:
Study of Medieval Art, Music, and Religion as a Segue for Spiritual Healing Today
Study of Medieval Art, Music, and Religion as a Segue for Spiritual Healing Today
Dr. Classen’s project explores how medieval art, music, literature, architecture, and devotional practices cultivated holistic well-being long before the rise of modern biomedical paradigms. While pre-modern societies lacked contemporary medical technologies, they developed deeply integrated approaches to healing that aligned body, mind, and spirit—through monastic life, mysticism, anchoritism, and private devotion (Devotio moderna). In collaboration with Medical Humanities at the University of Arizona, Dr. Classen will develop a series of interdisciplinary workshops over multiple semesters. These workshops will invite participants to engage directly with medieval texts, artworks, manuscripts, and medical treatises—not to become specialists in medieval studies, but to encounter an alternative epistemology of well-being that offers thoughtful and transformative perspectives for our own time.
This award celebrates innovative scholarship that bridges the humanities and lived experience. Dr. Classen’s work exemplifies how historical inquiry can illuminate contemporary conversations about healing, spirituality, and integrative medicine.
Congratulations, Dr. Classen!