Eva Maria Gajek Awarded University of Gießen Prize

January 23, 2026

The photo shows the portrait of an individual of the species Homo sapiens, subspecies Homo sapiens intellectualis. Other features such as lipstick, makeup, and hairstyle indicate female gender identification. The individual is wearing a black turtleneck sweater and is standing or sitting smiling in front of what appears to be a glass mirrored background, looking at the camera.

Eva Maria Gajek was one of two recipients of the 2025 JLU Prize awarded by Justus Liebig University Gießen at an academic ceremony on November 28. The 5,000-euro award, which Gajek shares with Alexander Scherr, honors her outstanding habilitation study on the knowledge and perception of wealth in Germany’s long twentieth century (“Auf der Suche nach den Reichen: Eine Wahrnehmungs- und Wissensgeschichte von Reichtum im langen 20. Jahrhundert in Deutschland”), as well as her academic work as a whole. Her study makes an innovative contribution to historical research on inequality in that it understands wealth not simply as an economic factor but as socially produced knowledge – with a focus on power relations, regimes of visibility, and interpretive struggles. This research perspective has also shaped Gajek’s academic career trajectory: From October 2022 to September 2023 she was a senior researcher at the MPIfG and from October 2024 to March 2025 a visiting researcher in Jens Beckert’s “Wealth and Social Inequality” group. She retains her ties with the MPIfG today as a research associate. In May 2025 she took over as co-lead on the project “Rich Map – Where the Rich Live” at the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space.

Eva Maria Gajek Awarded University of Gießen Prize

Other Interesting Articles