Each year, the Victorians Institute awards the Patrick Scott Prize, given for the best graduate paper presented at the annual conference. The prize carries a $500 cash prize, and should the paper be of publishable quality (as determined by the editors), the Victorians Institute Journal shall have first right of refusal.
To be considered, please submit the complete paper (including works cited and images) without your name, along with a separate cover sheet that does include your name, institutional affiliation, and paper title to apionke@ua.edu. Selected members of the VIJ Editorial Board will serve as the selection committee and the winner will be recognized at the following year’s Victorians Institute Conference.
Previous Award Recipients
2023: Alexandra Kadis (University of Maryland, College Park), “Japanese Acrobats as Athletes on the Victorian Stage: The Victorian Reception of Japanese Acrobatic Troupes, 1867–1870”
2022: Shalmi Barman (University of Virginia), “The Factory Girl’s Address: Ellen Johnston and the Politics of Form”
2021: Molly Lewis (Baylor University), “Literacy and Preservation in The Death and Burial of Cock Robin”
2019: Darby Walters (University of Southern California), “Mapping Symptoms: Global and Anatomical Spaces in The Last Man”
2018: Hope Rogers (Princeton University), “Peas to Cranford: Consuming Food and the Novel”
2017: Joshua Benson (The George Washington University), “Dead Babies and Adulterers: Biopolitical Murders and Literary Prophylaxis in On the Face of the Waters”
2016: Mary Bowden (Indiana University), “Plotting Plants and Plant Plots: Darwin’s Botanical Illustrations”
2015: Josh Poklad (Leeds Trinity University), “Sleigh Bells and Factory Elves: The Spectacular Economy of Santa Claus”
2014: Thomas Berenato (University of Virginia), “Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Mystery of Forgiveness”
2013: Fran Thielman (Appalachian State University), “Jane Eyre and Public Health: A Closer Look at the Lowood School Epidemic”
2012: Ann M. Mazur (University of Virginia), “Victorian Women, the Home Theatre, and the Cultural Potency of A Doll’s House”
2012: Winter Jade Werner (Northwestern University), “Competing Cosmopolitanisms in Bleak House”
2011: Alexander Chase-Levenson (Princeton University), “The Near East and West End: Spectacle, History, and the Presentation of the Ancient Near East Britain, 1820-1860”