2025 LARRY MORRIS SCHOLARSHIP AWARD RECIPIENTS
This year we were able to award a full $2,500 scholarship to an outstanding doctoral student, plus a $500 runner-up prize to a greatly promising MFA student.
KLARA HEDLING is a PhD student in UNM’s Department of Philosophy whose studies have focused on Indian and German philosophy, particularly mystical and spiritual traditions. Faculty in her program describe her as “among the best of a new generation of philosophers with areas of expertise in both the Eastern and Western philosophical traditions” and someone whose work “exemplifies the scholarship’s purpose of supporting and inspiring the individual’s spiritual life in the 21st century.”
Hedling is currently working on her dissertation, which builds upon her previous studies of India's medieval Tantric Śaiva traditions, which flourished between the sixth and thirteenth centuries. Her project compares Śaiva philosophy with the philosophy of German thinker F.W.J. Schelling (1775-1854, coiner of the term “the unconscious”). Her research examines their concepts of consciousness, subjectivity, the Absolute (God), and matter, focusing on how these traditions engage with universal philosophical questions, particularly the relationship between mind and matter.
Hedling plans to use her $2,500 prize to participate in a conference titled "God and Consciousness in Indian Traditions," which will be held in Rishikesh, India, in April 2025. Klara’s invited presentation at the conference will examine Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta's theories of consciousness and God, focusing on their understanding of the relationship between mind and matter.
Hedling was selected based on her outstanding academic record (which includes degrees in philosophy at both the University of Glasgow and the University of Oxford), the scope and depth of her project, and the potential it holds not only for philosophical research and thought but also for its potential to impact concepts and practices of 21st century spirituality through contemporary exploration and contemplation of consciousness, mind, and matter. Her work demonstrates a deep commitment to fostering cross-cultural philosophical dialogue and demonstrating how historical and philosophical insights can meaningfully enrich modern thought.
Additionally, Klara’s work holds the possibility of furthering spiritual perspectives in ecological philosophy and in our looming reckoning with the expansion of artificial intelligence. It takes spiritual courage to explore academic philosophical research that bridges constructs from Eastern and Western traditions with fresh insight and respect for their significance in 21st century life.
JOHN HARDBERGER is a second-year MFA candidate in fiction in UNM’s Department of English. Faculty in his program describe him as “an excellent writer, with a wry sense of humor and knack for capturing the dignity of his characters” who “writes from a place of real self-awareness and compassion.” Another faculty member praised him as “a writer with big ideas and the self-discipline to wrestle with how to communicate those ideas through his fiction.” John currently serves as Fiction Editor at Blue Mesa Review, UNM's graduate literary magazine.
Hardberger’s runner-up scholarship prize will help support his current creative writing project, a literary science fiction novel tentatively titled Familiar. The novel, set at the turn of the 20th century in an alternate version of America, straddles other genres including fantasy, historical fiction, mystery, and horror, and is thematically focused on the intersection of faith and identity. The story centers around an excommunicated nun named Joanna formerly from a secretive, magic-wielding religious order who is drawn into a crime investigation. Through Joanna and other characters, the novel explores a range of perspectives and philosophies of spirituality and existence.
With this novel, Hardberger wants readers to ask what is lost in translation when spirituality is institutionalized, and how our institutions, spiritual and otherwise, might better support us in life. These concerns tie personally into John’s life. States the writer, “These are, to me, very important questions. I grew up in the church and walked away from it for many years, only to return, slowly, to my own definitions of spirituality and faith through the strange, magical experience of life on earth.”
John set the mysterious abbey in his book in central Wisconsin and is planning to travel there in the summer of 2025 to research the locale for authenticity and insight. His $500 award from the Larry Morris Memorial Scholarship will help with his trip expenses, which will include a personal retreat at the Holy Wisdom Monastery in Middleton, WI, located in a similar landscape and area to the abbey in the book.
Hardberger was selected for this award based on his academic record (which includes an undergraduate degree in journalism, with a minor in writing, from Northwestern University), the creativity and originality of his project, and the potential we feel it holds to impact concepts and practices of 21st century spirituality through the medium of fiction.