Winners of the 2008-2009
English Department Graduate Program Awards

Winner of the 2008 Bernard Benstock Dissertation Prize

Amanda Tucker

“At Home in the World: Globalism in Modern Irish Writing”

Amanda Tucker’s “At Home in the World: Globalism in Modern Irish Writing” makes an important intervention in the field of Irish Studies by analyzing Irish writers whose national identity communicates with transnational contexts of experience. Working with an impressive array of authors and genres, and grounded in historical and critical contexts, Tucker’s carefully written thesis demonstrates that Irish writers formed attachments to foreign countries, that those relationships affected their relationships with Ireland, and that their work reflects a global consciousness based on such transnational experiences. The project combines traditional Irish Studies with the emerging field of Irish Diaspora Studies, and carries implications for understandings of modernism and individual and collective identity.

 

Winner of the 2008-2009 Mary K. Parker Prize

Matthew Sagorski

“Cultural Convergence and the Queer Archive in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home”

Rather than maintaining a strict separation between queer and normative identities and cultures, Matthew Sagorski’s essay argues for a complex intertwining of the two in Bechdel’s Fun Home. It adeptly analyzes visual materials and intertextual relations, and places them in the context of theoretical conversations concerning queer identity and history.

 

Winners of the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award

• Margaret Cardillo
• Lucas Harriman
• Allison Johnson