2025 Essay Competition

 

Man is at war unless peace is made. Peace is not automatic, but is always concluded. It has to be created—it is not natural. It is your mistake to think that peace is natural and war is unnatural—it is the other way around. Every time there has been a peace, it has been stated, it has been concluded. No step toward peace comes about by accident: it is an act of creation, a conscious effort, an effort of speech and inspiration. It is not ordinary but sublime to end a war…. To be able to be in the shoes of the enemy is the only way to make peace.

—“The Cross of Reality” (Lecture 6: October 28, 1953)

 

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy was not a pacifist.

He lived through two world wars, serving as an officer stationed outside Verdun during the first, and wrote extensively on the destructive power of war and its aftermath, as well as its occasional necessity. As we mark the second year of the Russia-Ukraine war and approach the second year of renewed conflict in the Middle East, as well as continuing violence in Myanmar, the Sudan, and elsewhere, the Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy Fund invites papers that consider the place of war in human history.

Besides commentaries on familiar works like Out of Revolution, The Christian Future, and Planetary Service, the Fund welcomes submissions that make use of this website’s interactive bibliography, which provides links to Rosenstock-Huessy’s essays grappling with this topic, and its “read and search” page.

All submissions will be blind reviewed by an international panel of judge; the author of the winning essay will receive $500. The panel of judges will evaluate essays on the clarity of the thesis and argument, the author’s engagement with the sources, intellectual depth, and originality.

Submissions must be original, unpublished essays in English, 4,000-8,000 words long (excluding footnotes and bibliography), in an MS-Word document in Times New Roman font, 12pt, double spaced, and formatted according to The Chicago Manual of Style. The author’s name, email address, affiliation and standing should be indicated only on a separate title page. Contestants may not submit more than one essay.

THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS is April 30th, 2025. Questions and submissions should be sent to Dr. Stephanie Brenzel by 11:59pm ET, April 30th, 2025.

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