Nicolas Blaue and Prof. Dr. Axel Bohmann receive 2025 Erasmus Prize from University College Freiburg
Freiburg, 10/07/2025
The University College Freiburg (UCF) of the University of Freiburg has awarded the 2025 ‘Erasmus Prize for the Liberal Arts and Sciences’ to the philosopher Nicolas Blaue and the English scholar Prof. Dr. Axel Bohmann.
The UCF awards the prize for scholarly theses that treat their topic in exemplary manner, also with regard to interdisciplinary aspects, thus building bridges between different subjects. The prize is awarded annually in two categories, for a bachelor’s or master’s thesis and for a doctoral dissertation or postdoctoral thesis. The prize is endowed with 1,500 and 3,500 euros, respectively, which are donated by Sparkasse Freiburg-Nördlicher Breisgau. The University College Freiburg (UCF) is a cross-faculty platform for the promotion of interdisciplinary teaching at the University of Freiburg and offers its own bachelor’s degree programme in Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Nicolas Blaue: Mathematization of the Early Modern Scientific Method
Nicolas Blaue received the prize for his master’s thesis, ‘Mathematisierung der Natur und Mathesis universalis: Zur Begründung der frühneuzeitlichen Wissenschaftsmethode bei Descartes und Galilei’ (Mathematization of nature and mathesis universalis: On the justification of the early modern scientific method in Descartes and Galileo). The thesis investigates the mathematization of nature since the seventeenth century, focusing particularly on René Descartes’s idea of a mathesis universalis – a universalistic system of knowledge designed to make the world ascertainable through mathematics. It shows through historical and philosophical means how this paradigm found expression in concrete scientific technologies like optics and ballistics in Descartes und Galileo and how it later influenced anthropology and especially the development of race science. It concludes by arguing that the radical mathematization of humans contributes to the dissolution of ethnic boundaries in modern sciences and reflects critically on this notion using current examples like integrated information theory.
Nicolas Blaue currently works as a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security, and Law in Freiburg in the Department of Public Law.
Prof. Dr. Axel Bohmann: Communicative Repertoires of West African Migrants in Germany
Prof. Dr. Axel Bohmann received the prize for his habilitation thesis, ‘Communicative Repertoires of West African Migrants in Germany: A Reflexive Approach to World Englishes’. The thesis is situated in the field of world Englishes and develops this approach further in dialogue with linguistic anthropology and ELF research. On the basis of an extensive corpus of language-biographical interviews with West African migrants in Freiburg, it analyses their multilingual practices and language ideologies. The study sheds light on both limitations of and possibilities for creative action in language use, particularly in the field of tension between English as a resource and German as a language that is often experienced as inaccessible in the German migration context.
Prof. Dr. Bohmann has served since the 2024/2025 winter semester as professor for ‘English in context’ at the Department of English I of the University of Cologne.