Dr. Joanna Kusiak-Corcoran, affiliated with the Department of Management in Digital and Networked Societies at Kozminski University and the University of Cambridge, has been named the laureate of the prestigious Nine Dots Prize 2023. This biannual award is a unique distinction that honors yet-to-be-written books, aiming to inspire and support innovative thinking in response to contemporary challenges.
In this year’s competition, participants were asked to respond to the question: “Why has the rule of law become so fragile?” Dr. Kusiak-Corcoran won a prize of $100,000 and a contract to publish her book with Cambridge University Press in 2024. Her book, titled Radically Legal: Berlin Constitutes the Future, tells the story of a grassroots social movement that used a forgotten clause in the German constitution to reclaim 240,000 apartments from multimillion-dollar corporations.
Dr. Kusiak-Corcoran’s book, available in bookstores and online, is a work of creative non-fiction that combines political, historical, and philosophical analysis with the author’s personal narrative. The author explores strategies for transforming popular anger into a force that can radically change the system rather than destroy it. The book has received widespread acclaim for its innovative approach and bold ideas, which have the potential to attract a broad audience.
The official book launch took place at an event at King’s College in Cambridge, where Dr. Kusiak-Corcoran was warmly welcomed as a junior research fellow. The Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CRASSH) also organized an online discussion featuring the author.
