Awards and Prizes for Rural Women’s Studies
All too often, Rural Women’s Studies are marginalized within more established disciplines and research areas. Women’s Studies and gender history organizations focus on urban women. Rural history groups focus on men. This blog is just one of the ways that the Rural Women’s Studies Association and its members seek to promote the study of and activism serving rural women. RWSA’s triennial conferences raise the visibility of our field, as do scholars who present on rural women at other conferences. Another great way to raise the visibility of rural women’s studies is to apply for relevant awards and prizes.
Today we share a few awards that may be of interest to scholars of Rural Women’s Studies. Help us to build this list! Please share relevant prize announcements by commenting on this post, or share them on our Facebook page or our Twitter feed @RuralWomenSA. Did you win an award or get your research published? Let us know, so that we can celebrate with you and help spread the word about the great work being done in Rural Women’s Studies.
Western Association of Women Historians Awards:
Gita Chaudhuri Prize
The Gita Chaudhuri Prize is an annual prize that recognizes the best monograph about the history of women in rural environments, from any era and any place in the world, published by a WAWH member.
A rural community is defined by a group of people who:
- live in a given geographical area with its own natural resources serving as a major bedrock support to produce agricultural crops and food products (grains, meat, fish, poultry, egg honey etc.),
- may make profits from surplus goods taken to markets, which may include making handicraft works (potteries, needleworks, quilts, paintings on a canvas etc.) as marketable commodities.
The committee is especially interested in projects that include rural women who:
- create local employment opportunities for others,
- service others within the community for maintaining daily lives,
- build a prosperous future for themselves and their children while raising their families, and
- work in small or large ways for the well-being of the community members while advancing in their own lives
Read more about the Gita Chaudhuri Prize and see a list of previous recipients here.
Founders’ Dissertation Fellowship
The Founders’ Dissertation Fellowship is an annual award to graduate students who show promise of significant contributions to historical scholarship. Funds from these Awards may be used for purposes directly or indirectly related to the dissertation, such as expenses for research, attendance of scholarly conferences, and the preparation of the dissertation.
Read more about the Founders Dissertation Fellowship and a see a list of previous recipients here.
Southern Association for Women Historians Awards:
Julia Cherry Spruill Prize: The Julia Cherry Spruill Prize for $750 is awarded for the best published book in southern women’s history. Only monographs are eligible.
Willie Lee Rose Prize: The Willie Lee Rose Prize of $750 is awarded for the best book in southern history authored by a woman (or women). Only monographs are eligible.
Elizabeth Taylor Prize: The A. Elizabeth Taylor Prize is awarded annually for the best article published during the preceding year in the field of southern women’s history. Editors, scholars, and authors are invited to nominate eligible articles for the prize.
Anne Firor Scott Mid-Career Fellowship: This fellowship is awarded every two years and provides assistance to scholars who are past the first stage of their careers, and are working on a second book or equivalent project in southern and/or gender history. The next award year is 2016.
Coalition for Western Women’s History / Western History Association Awards:
Armitage-Jameson Prize
The Armitage-Jameson Prize, first given in 2010, is awarded to the most outstanding monograph or edited volume published in western women’s and gender history. The Prize is named in honor of Dr. Susan Armitage and Dr. Elizabeth Jameson for their pioneering work in the field of western women’s history.
Irene Ledesma Prize
The Irene Ledesma Prize is a cash award of $1000 for graduate student research in gender and western women’s history. The Irene Ledesma Prize is named in honor of Dr. Ledesma’s important contributions to the fields of Chicana and working-class history.
$500 Annual award for the best article in the field of women and gender in the North American West
Coordinating Council for Women in History Awards:
Catherine Prelinger Award – a $20,000 award to a scholar whose career has not followed a traditional path through secondary and higher education and whose work has contributed to women in the historical profession. Read more…
Ida B. Wells Graduate Student Fellowship – a $1000 annual award given to a graduate student working on a historical dissertation that interrogates race and gender, not necessarily in a history department. Read more…
CCWH/Berks Graduate Student Fellowship – a $1,000 award to a graduate student completing a dissertation in a history department. Read more…
Joan Kelly Memorial Prize – a $1,000 annual award for the book in women’s history and/or feminist theory that best reflects the high intellectual and scholarly ideals exemplified by the life and work of Joan Kelly. (1928-1982). Read more…
Agricultural History Society Awards:
Theodore Saloutos Memorial Award for the best book on agricultural history.
Henry A. Wallace Award for the best book on any aspect (broadly interpreted) of agricultural history outside the United States.
Everett E. Edwards Award for the best article submitted to Agricultural History by a graduate student.
Vernon Carstensen Memorial Award for the best article in Agricultural History.
Wayne D. Rasmussen Award for the best article on agricultural history not published in Agricultural History.
National History Day History of Agriculture and Rural Life Award.
The society established the History of Agriculture and Rural Life Award to raise awareness of agricultural and rural history among secondary school students interested in history. Projects in any of the National History Day categories are eligible, including papers, dramatic presentations, media presentations, and exhibits, both by individuals and groups at either the Senior or Junior levels. The prize is awarded in June at the campus of the University of Maryland during the awards ceremony of the National History Day Contest. In addition to two hundred dollars, students receive certificates of their achievement and a complimentary copy of the issue of the Society’s journal, Agricultural History, announcing the winner of the award.
National Women’s Studies Association:
Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize
The prize includes $1,000 and recognition for groundbreaking monographs in women’s studies that makes significant multicultural feminist contributions to women of color/transnational scholarship.
Learn more about the prize.
Sara A. Whaley Book Prize
Thanks to a generous bequest from Sara A. Whaley, NWSA will offer two $2,000 Sara A. Whaley book awards on the topic of women and labor. This prize honors Sara Whaley, who owned Rush Publishing and was the editor of Women’s Studies Abstracts. Each year NWSA will award up to 2 book awards for monographs that address women and labor.
Learn more about the prize.
NWSA-University of Illinois Press First Book Prize
The National Women’s Studies Association and the University of Illinois Press are pleased to announce a new competition for the best dissertation or first book manuscript by a single author in the field of women’s and gender studies. Applicants must be National Women’s Studies Association members. We welcome nonfiction manuscripts that exemplify cutting-edge intersectional feminist scholarship, whether the area of focus is historical or contemporary. The competition is open to scholars from all disciplinary backgrounds, but we especially encourage work that speaks effectively across disciplines, and projects that offer new perspectives on concerns central to the field of women’s and gender studies.
NWSA and the University of Illinois Press are pleased to offer a $1,000 advance to the winner.
Application details.
NWSA Graduate Scholarship
NWSA will award $1,000 to a student who, in the fall of the year of the award, will be engaged in the research or writing stages of a Master’s Thesis or Ph.D. Dissertation in the interdisciplinary field of women’s studies. The research project must enhance the NWSA mission. This opportunity is open to current NWSA individual members. (online application preview here)
Lesbian Caucus Award
The purpose of the annual NWSA Lesbian Caucus Award is to provide a $500 research award in recognition of a Master’s Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation research project in areas of Lesbian, Queer, and LGBT Studies that resonates with the mission of NWSA.
NWSA Women of Color Caucus-Frontiers Student Essay Award
The purpose of the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) Women of Color Caucus-Frontiers Student Essay Awards is to discover, encourage, and promote the intellectual development of emerging scholars who engage in critical theoretical discussions and/or analyses about feminist/womanist issues concerning women and girls of color in the United States and the diaspora.
One (1) $500 award is available for women of color who are current graduate students and members of NWSA.
Prize-winning essays will automatically be considered for publication by Frontiers; all essays are subject to Frontiers peer review process. If winning essays are accepted for publication, additional revisions may be required.
American Studies Association:
Lora Romero First Book Publication Prize
The American Studies Association is delighted to announce the 2016 competition for the Lora Romero First Book Publication Prize. The prize consists of a lifetime membership in the ASA and is awarded every year for the best-published first book in American Studies that highlights the intersections of race with gender, class, sexuality and/or nation.
Ralph Henry Gabriel Dissertation Prize
The Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize is awarded annually to the best doctoral dissertation in American Studies, American Ethnic Studies or American Women’s Studies. The prize honors Ralph Henry Gabriel, Professor Emeritus at Yale University, and a founder and past president of the American Studies Association.
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