Ellen Craft Essay Prize
The Scottish Association for the Study of America

The Ellen Craft Essay Prize for an outstanding piece of work in gender, minority or women’s studies relating to the Americas.

The Scottish Association for the Study of America (SASA) is thrilled to announce this year’s Ellen Craft Essay Prize is now open for submissions. The Ellen Craft Essay Prize is awarded to the best essay by a graduate student or early-career researcher on a topic relating to women, gender or minority studies within the Americas. SASA recognises a broad definition of the Americas and includes anything situated within North, South or Latin America, at any point in history. Following the success our inaugural competition, we cannot wait to read your submissions this year.

Entrants are invited to produce an essay on any topic relating to women, gender or minority studies within the Americas. The work should be 3000-4000 words in length, including footnotes (excluding a bibliography). The work may be part of ongoing research projects or an original piece but must not have been submitted to other essay prize competitions. Past entrants are welcome to submit again. Previous first-place winners are not eligible to be selected for a second year. A selection of the SASA committee and external reviewers will judge all submissions. SASA will award the winning author a prize of £100 as well as an invitation to give an abbreviated keynote address (20- 30 minutes) at our online annual conference on Saturday, 6 March 2021.

The namesake of this prize, Ellen Craft, fled slavery in 1848. Dressed as a white, male slaveholder, Ellen, along with her husband dressed as her slave, escaped across 1000 miles of slave states to freedom. Following their escape, the couple travelled to the UK where they gave a series of lectures on their lives as slaves and their journey. The creators of this award found Ellen Craft a fitting namesake. Her often forgotten story is emblematic of the type of scholarship this award hopes to promote.

The Ellen Craft Essay Prize is intended, in a small way, to answer some of the current issues facing American Studies scholarship within the UK both in subject matter and participants. This is in keeping with our sister organisations and is a response to the 2018 RHS and BAAS reports on race, ethnicity, diversity and inclusion across historical studies. The Ellen Craft Essay Prize is intended to help to promote, encourage and share the study of women, gender and minority topics in American Studies at postgraduate and early career levels.

ELIGIBILITY AND SUBMISSION

This essay prize competition is open to current PhD students based at UK universities and academic institutions and early career researchers residing in the UK who are within the first five years of finishing their doctorate. Submissions should be sent to the SASA committee by email to: sasaessayprize@gmail.com. Please also submit either a brief academic CV or a brief bio demonstrating your eligibility for the prize and including your full contact details. Please include in your email whether you would be interested in giving the abbreviated keynote at our annual conference should your essay be chosen as the winner. Deadline for submission will be Monday, 4 January 2021 and entrants will be informed in early February 2021. Good luck!