Dave Vliegenthart wins Mallinckrodt prize 2025

During the opening of the academic year, Dave Vliegenthart received the Mallinckrodt Prize from Dean Hanneke Muthert. The prize, which is awarded every ten years, is intended for the most original thesis in Theology and Religious Studies. Vliegenthart obtained his PhD cum laude in 2017 with his thesis entitled Franklin Merrell-Wolff: An Intellectual History of Contemporary Anti-Intellectualism in America. ‘Like every PhD candidate, I put my heart and soul into my thesis. The Mallinckrodt Prize feels like recognition and reward for this, and I feel very honoured!’

‘Reasoned Flights Beyond Reason’ as ‘Secular Religion’

In his thesis, Vliegenthart examines the colourful life and teachings of the relatively unknown American ‘philosopher’ Franklin Merrell-Wolff (1887-1985), the spiritual leader of a small new religious movement called The Assembly of Man. He uses Merrell-Wolff and his Assembly as a microhistorical lens to examine macrohistorical developments in the history of contemporary spirituality in North America between approximately 1800 and 2000. In doing so, Vliegenthart shows how socio-historical developments during this period contributed to two typical characteristics of contemporary spirituality: firstly, the intertwining of secular and religious beliefs and practices from Asian and Euro-American traditions into a so-called “secular religion”; and secondly, the increasing intellectualisation of non- or anti-intellectual claims about direct experiences – feelings or intuitions – of a transcendent source of meaning, that is to say, “reasoned flights beyond reason”.

Dave Vliegenthart (Dordrecht, 1980) obtained master's degrees in Business Communication (RUN), Philosophy (RUN) and Religious Studies (UvA). He currently works as an assistant professor in a Liberal Arts and Sciences programme at University College Maastricht. His current research builds on his doctoral research: he is editing a handbook on anti-intellectualism and publishing on 21st-century developments in spirituality beyond the modern and postmodern, also known as “metamodern spirituality”.

About the Mallinckrodt Prize

The Mallinckrodt Prize was established in 1925 by the descendants of Professor Willem Mallinckrodt, who was appointed as a professor of ecclesiastical studies at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen from 1902 to 1915. The prize is awarded every ten years to the author of the most original thesis in Theology and Religious Studies defended at a Dutch public university. The assessment is carried out by professors affiliated with the current Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society.

Previous winners

• 1935 dr. K.H. Miskotte
• 1945 dr. W.C. van Unnik
• 1955 dr. D.J. Hoens
• 1965 dr. G.H.M. Posthumus Meyes
• 1975 dr. H.W. de Knijff
• 1985 dr. L.J. van den Brom
• 1995 prof.dr. E. Talstra
• 2005 dr. G. Jensma
• 2015 dr. F. Stock