GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (February 20, 2012) – European scholar Dr. Giovanni Patriarca is the winner of Acton Institute’s annual Novak Award. Dr. Patriarca teaches at the Italian cultural institutions and projects in Nuremberg, Germany. He holds a Master in School Management from the University of Macerata (Italy), a Diploma in Islamic Studies at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI), and a Ph.D. in philosophy at the Pontifical University Regina Apostolorum in Rome. He has worked intensively on pre-classical economic thought, and his doctoral thesis was on the social and monetary theories of the 14th century philosopher and mathematician, Nicolas Oresme.
Dr. Patriarca was a visiting scholar at Humboldt University in Berlin and undertook research and studies in a number of different academic institutions in France, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the United States. He has written research papers in several languages on subjects ranging from the history of political and economic doctrines, Islamic studies, to the philosophy of science.
Named after distinguished American theologian and social philosopher Michael Novak, the Novak Award rewards new outstanding research by scholars early in their academic careers who demonstrate outstanding intellectual merit in advancing the understanding of theology's connection to human dignity, the importance of limited government, religious liberty, and economic freedom. Recipients of the Novak Award make a formal presentation on such questions at an annual public forum known as the Calihan Lecture. The Novak Award comes with a $10,000 prize.
The Novak Award forms part of a range of scholarships, travel grants, and awards available from the Acton Institute that support future religious and intellectual leaders who wish to study the essential relationship between theology, liberty, free market economics, and the importance of the rule of law. Details of these scholarships may be found at www.acton.org/programs/students/.