Professor Kirsten Shepherd-Barr presented with Honorary Doctorate
4 June 2024
Professor Kirsten Shepherd-Barr was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Bergen at a ceremony on 24 May 2024. Professor Camilla Brautaset, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Bergen, presented Professor Shepherd-Barr with the award. In her introduction, she describes Professor Shepherd-Barr as a “highly distinguished scholar who has combined academic research with active engagement in theatre as a living art form, highly relevant to modern society”.
Professor Brautaset describes Professor Shepherd-Barr’s work as “fundamentally outward looking” and states that “her professional expertise and experience transcend traditional boundaries of academia”. She details Professor Shepherd-Barr’s collaborations with artists and renowned theatres and acknowledges that she was “among the first to develop the field of theatre and science”.
She also praises Professor Shepherd-Barr’s work on LitHits:
“Professor Shepherd-Barr is also an innovator and an entrepreneur. She is the founder behind the digital reading app, LitHits. The motivation behind this project is ambitious. How can using phones and reading books be complementary rather than competing activities? LitHits shows just how this can be done by connecting the world to brilliant literature through new technology.”
Professor Brautaset also describes Professor Shepherd-Barr as “a leading ambassador for the Humanities at large”.
To find out more about LitHits, and to subscribe to its monthly emails, please visit the LitHits website. You can also explore the Ten-Minute Book Club, which was born out of the LitHits initiative, on the English Faculty website. The book club features a range of literary excerpts that you can read in just ten minutes.
Watch the presentation of the award on the University of Bergen’s YouTube channel.