Winnerling’s work on the Jesuits' missionary activities in India bags Drupa Prize 2014

In his award-winning paper, Winnerling discusses the Jesuits, the Catholic religious order founded by a circle of friends around Spaniard Ignatius of Loyola on 15 August 1534.  It became known historically as the Society of Jesus (Societas Jesu).

Winnerling sheds light on a specific topic hitherto neglected: The missionary activities by Jesuits in India and Japan in the period from 1542 to 1574.

Missionary work played a particularly important role in Latin America, Africa and Asia in the context of 16th-century colonial politics, the period of the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal.  It was an irrevocable, natural feature of the time. The colonisation and conversion complemented and reinforced each other.

It’s probably undisputed from today’s perspective that conversion strategies did indeed contain imperialistic and racist approaches.  The point of departure of Tobias Winnerling’s dissertation is that the actions of the past can’t be judged by today’s ethical standards. A different set of evaluation criteria is needed. It’s precisely this phenomenon – mission work – that Tobias Winnerling examines in his 325-page dissertation, using the concrete example of the Jesuits and framing the order’s activities in the context of the 16th entury.

The prize was presented by Claus Bolza Schünemann, chairman of the executive board of Koenig & Bauer AG and president of the Drupa exhibitors’ advisory board 2016, Werner M. Dornscheidt, president and CEO of Messe Düsseldorf and Prof Dr H Michael Piper, president of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf during an awards ceremony at the Industry-Club Düsseldorf on 19 May.  

Every year, Messe Düsseldorf presents the Drupa Prize to the best doctoral thesis at the Philosophical Faculty of HHU. Since 1978, it has honoured outstanding humanities works produced at the Düsseldorf university and promoted their publication and dissemination with prize money of EUR 6,000.