Evelin Lindner Scientist

Evelin Gerda Lindner (born May 13, 1954, in Hameln, Germany) is a transdisciplinary scholar in social sciences and humanities. She holds two doctorates, one in medicine, and the other in psychology. Her research focuses on human dignity, and she believes that the humiliation of honor and dignity may be among the strongest obstacles on the way to a decent world community. She is the Founding President of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HumanDHS), a global transdisciplinary fellowship of concerned academics and practitioners who wish to promote dignity and transcend humiliation.Her parents were displaced from Silesia in 1946, and she therefore grew up in West Germany. She has since confirmed that her family's traumatic experiences have formed the background of her work.In 1994, she obtained her first doctorate, in Medicine (dr. med.), from the University of Hamburg, Germany, and in 2001, her second doctorate, in Psychology (dr. psychol.), from the University of Oslo, Norway. She graduated in Psychology in 1978, and in Medicine in 1984, both from the University of Hamburg and Heidelberg University. She has also studied law and sinology at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, philosophy at the University of Hamburg, and has participated in the Norwegian Research Council's Ethics Programme under philosopher Dagfinn Føllesdal.Since 1977, Lindner often spends time in Norway, following her marriage to a Norwegian. From 1984 to 1991, she also lived and worked in Cairo, Egypt, where she was a clinical psychologist and psychological counselor at the American University in Cairo for 3 years, and had her own practice for 4 years. She also lived, studied, and did research in Asia (Japan 3 years, China, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand), in Africa (West Africa, Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi), in the Middle East, USA, and in Europe (mostly in France, Belgium and Switzerland). In 1993, she founded the NGO Better Global Understanding and organized an important peace festival in Hamburg, and in 1994, she was a candidate in the European Parliament election, 1994.She speaks English, French, German, Norwegian and Egyptian Arabic fluently and is familiar with a number of other languages, among others, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, and modern Hebrew.Since 1997, she is affiliated with the University of Oslo, where she wrote her doctoral dissertation from 1997 to 2001. Since 2001, she is also affiliated with Columbia University's Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4) in New York. Since 2003, she is, furthermore, affiliated with the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in Paris. Her first book Making Enemies: Humiliation and International Conflict has been honored as "Outstanding Academic Title" by the journal Choice for 2007 in the USA. She published her second book in 2009 on Emotion and Conflict. Also her third book on Gender, Humiliation, and Global Security that was published in 2010 with a Foreword by Desmond Tutu, is being highly recommended by Choice. She has also written numerous articles and book chapters, for example, for Bernt Hagtvet's anthology Genocide's Black Book (2008). She has received several awards, among them the "Prisoner’s Testament" Peace Award in 2009.Lindner advocates equality in dignity, locally and globally. She has chosen Norway as a main base because she believes that Norway is in a unique historical position. The ideal of equality in dignity (likeverd in Norwegian) is at the core of the human rights message. It is at the same time deeply rooted in Norwegian culture and an important part of Norwegian heritage, while it is new to cultures with more hierarchical traditions that stand for social inequality. Research points at the importance of equality for health and stability, both at the individual and the community level. Equality in dignity is important for a sustainable future locally and globally. Lindner believes that Norway has a responsibility to make the Norwegian cultural heritage more accessible globally. Norway enjoys very high reputation in the world, which means that the message of equality in dignity, when it comes from Norway, has a greater impact.