Holman wins Grawemeyer Award

Dr. Susan Holman received the University of Louisville and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary Grawemeyer Award in Religion. Holman, Senior Writer at the Incubator, received the 2016 prestigious award for her new book, Beholden: Religion, Global Health, and Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2015), which explores the contrasts between health care efforts based in public health—which commonly focus on justice and human rights—and faith-based health initiatives that are more often shaped by ideologies of gift and philanthropic aid. Holman—who holds dual degrees in nutrition science and religion—highlights how a combined approach, one that engages religious views and traditions with dialogue about economic and social rights, can be useful in combating global health problems. The book draws on a variety of true stories from across history, such as the role of water in religious pilgrimage, food aid during the 2010 Haiti earthquake, religion-health assets models in southern Africa, and ethical challenges related to concepts of civic duty in 19th-century American health care and political diplomacy. “By the final chapter,” said award director Dr. Shannon Craigo-Snell, the book “evokes an image of global humanity in which we all recognize that we are beholden to one another—both givers and receivers in inescapable interconnection.”

Founded in 1984 by Louisville entrepreneur, H. Charles Grawemeyer, the Award was created to inspire ideas for “bettering the world” each year in five different fields: music composition, education, religion, psychology, and ideas improving world order. Considered one of the most prestigious honors in its field, the religion award particularly focuses on published works that demonstrate “creative and constructive insights into the relationship between human beings and the divine, and ways in which this relationship may inspire or empower human beings to attain wholeness, integrity or meaning, either individually or in community.”