Category: Past Winners

The 2018 Timothy Dow Adams Awards

The editors of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies are pleased to present the annual Timothy Dow Adams Awards in conjunction with the 2018 International Auto/Biography Association conference at the Universidade Federal de São João del-Rei, July 11-14.

The 2018 Timothy Dow Adams Faculty Award is made to a professor-student research team. Dr. Mildred Mickle of Penn State Greater Allegheny and Abandon Shuman, a graduate student in the Master of Social Work program at the University of Washington in Seattle, received the joint award for their interrelated presentations: “The Process of Writing the Transgender Multimedia Narrative: Doorways, Hallways, and In-Between” and “Mentoring Abandon Shuman’s Transgender Multimedia Narrative: Doorways, Hallways, and In-Between.” The prize includes financial support for travel and lodging as well as an invitation to submit an essay to a/b: Auto/Biography Studies.

The winner of this year’s Timothy Dow Adams Student Award is Silvia Maria Fernandez Alves da Silva. Fernandez Alves da Silva is a doctoral candidate in the Program of Letras at Costa Universidade Federal da Paraíba. Her presentation is entitled, “The Testimony of the Slave Poet Juan Francisco Manzano: Voices of Memory and Silence.” The student award includes a travel grant and an essay mentorship with the editors of a/b.

This year, the Timothy Dow Adams Awards were extended to include two travel grants awarded in consultation with the IABA Student and New Scholar Network. The winners of the 2018 travel grants are Ina Batzke, a doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Literature at the University of Münster, and Agata Lagiewka, Lecturer in the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the National University of Ireland, Galway. These travel grants were fully funded by generous donations. Thank you to all who contributed. If you would like to contribute to next year’s Timothy Dow Adams Awards, please contact Ricia Chansky at ricia.chansky@upr.edu.

These awards are made in honor of Timothy Dow Adams, one of the founding editors of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies and a longtime friend and supporter of the journal. His outstanding scholarship—including the two books, Telling Lies in Modern American Autobiography and Light Writing and Life Writing: Photography in Autobiography—have impacted greatly the study of life narratives. We hope his legacy lives on in these awards.

Congratulations to the 2018 winners!

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Winner of the 2015 Hogan Award

Philip HoldenPhilip J. Holden wins the 2015 Hogan Prize

The editors of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies are very pleased to announce the inception of The Hogan Prize, which will be presented annually in recognition of an outstanding essay published in a special issue of the journal. Essays selected for this prize are nominated by our guest editors and selected by an independent judge. The prize includes publication in the special issue and an award of $750. This award is generously supported by Routledge Journals.

The prize was named in honor of two of the journal’s founding editors, Rebecca and Joseph Hogan, who worked tirelessly and creatively to expand the field of auto/biography studies. This award recognizes ingenuity in scholarly research and supports critical work that advances the field.

The inaugural award has been made to Philip J. Holden for his essay, “Selves in Dialogue: W. Somerset Maugham and Dementia’s Stories,” which was published in the special issue, “Broken Dialogues” (30.2, Autumn 2015).

The essay was nominated for this award by guest editor, Eva C. Karpinski, and selected by the guest judge, Leigh Gilmore. Dr. Gilmore’s response to the essay is published in 31.1, Winter 2016.

Congratulations, Philip!

Holden Gilmore
Philip Holden and Leigh Gilmore

 

 

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Stefan Kjerkegaard and Arnaud Schmitt win the 2016 Hogan Award

The 2016 Hogan Prize

The editors of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies are very pleased to announce the winners of the second annual Hogan Prize. Arnaud Schmitt and Stefan Kjerkegaard are the 2016 winners for their coauthored essay, “Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle: A Real Life in a Novel” (31.3, Autumn 2016).

The 2016 guest judge was Julia Watson, Professor Emerita of The Ohio State University. Dr. Watson’s response to the prize-winning essay will be published in our next issue (32.1, Winter 2017). Congratulations, Arnaud and Stefan!

The Hogan Prize is an annual award presented to an outstanding essay published in a volume of the journal. The prize was named in honor of two of the journal’s founding editors, Rebecca and Joseph Hogan, who worked tirelessly and creatively to expand the field of auto/biography studies. This award recognizes ingenuity in scholarly research and supports critical work that advances the field. The prize includes an award of $750. This award is generously supported by Routledge Journals.

To purchase an individual subscription of the journal for $35, please click here.

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2016 Timothy Dow Adams Award Winners: Orly Lael Netzer, Nick Mdika Tembo, and Fethiye Çetin

The editors of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies are pleased to present the annual Timothy Dow Adams Awards in conjunction with the 2016 International Auto/Biography Association conference at the University of Cyprus.

The 2016 Timothy Dow Adams Award winner is keynote speaker Fethiye Çetin, author of My Grandmother: An Armenian-Turkish Memoir. Çetin is a human rights lawyer in Turkey. The prize includes support for travel and lodging as well as an invitation to submit an essay to the special issue of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies that will be developed on the conference theme.

Two graduate students were also selected to receive Timothy Dow Adams Awards this year: Nick Mdika Tembo and Orly Lael Netzer are the recipients. Tembo, a doctoral candidate at Stellenbosch University, will present “Writing the Self, Writing Human Rights Violations in Two Post-genocide Rwandan Testimonios” and, Lael Netzer, a doctoral candidate at the University of Alberta, will present “Conversational Poetics and Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return.” The graduate student award includes a travel grant and an essay mentorship with the editors of a/b.

All winners were nominated for this award by the IABA conference co-convener, Amy-Katerini Prodromou, and selected by the editors of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies.

This award is made in honor of Timothy Dow Adams, one of the founding editors of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies and a longtime friend and supporter of the journal. His outstanding scholarship—including the two books, Telling Lies in Modern American Autobiography and Light Writing and Life Writing: Photography in Autobiography—have impacted greatly the study of life narratives.

Cetin cover“When Fethiye Çetin was growing up in the small Turkish town of Maden, she knew her grandmother as a happy and universally respected Muslim housewife. It would be decades before her grandmother told her the truth: that she was by birth a Christian and an Armenian, that her name was not Seher but Heranush, that most of the men in her village had been slaughtered in 1915, that she, along with most of the women and children, had been sent on a death march. She had been saved (and torn from her mother’s arms) by the Turkish gendarme captain who went on to adopt her. But she knew she still had family in America. Could Fethiye help her find her lost relations before she died? There are an estimated two million Turks whose grandparents could tell them similar stories. But in a country that maintains the Armenian genocide never happened, such talk can be dangerous. In her heartwrenching memoir, Fethiye Cetin breaks the silence.”

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2015 Timothy Dow Adams Award Winners

2015 Timothy Dow Adams Award Winners with a/b editor, Ricia Chansky: Zeinab McHeimech, Theresa N. Rojas, Chansky, and Lisa R. Brown. Not pictured: Luis Adolfo Gomez.
2015 Timothy Dow Adams Award Winners with a/b editor, Ricia Chansky: Zeinab McHeimech, Theresa N. Rojas, Chansky, and Lisa R. Brown. Not pictured: Luis Adolfo Gómez González.

This year, two faculty prizes were awarded. The faculty award winners were Luis Adolfo Gómez González of the Université du Québec à Rimouski for his presentation, “Autobiographical Writing: Proposed as a Methodology and an Epistemology for First-Person Research,” and Lisa R. Brown of the University of the West Indies at Mona for her presentation, “We Meet Again! Researcher, Subject, and Text in Caribbean Life Writing.” The faculty award included a travel grant to the meeting of the IABAA at which the presentation was given, and an invitation to submit the presentation essay to a/b.

Two graduate student awards were also made this year. Zeinab McHeimech and Theresa N. Rojas are the recipients. McHeimech, a doctoral candidate at Western University, presented “Islamic Hermaneutics of Dhikr in Malcolm X’s Autobiography and ‘Umar bin Said’s Slave Narrative.” Rojas, a doctoral candidate at The Ohio State University, presented “The Unthinkable Mind: Lynda Barry’s Autobifictionalography as Mirror Box Therapy.” The graduate student awards included a travel grant and an essay mentorship with the editors at a/b.

These scholars were nominated by conference co-conveners, Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson. Congratulations to our winners!

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