2022 Perkins Prize Nominations

Established in 1994, the Perkins Prize honors Barbara Perkins and George Perkins, the founders of both The Journal of Narrative Technique and the Society itself. The prize, awarded to the book making the most significant contribution to the study of narrative in a given year, provides $1,000 plus a contribution of $500 toward the winning author’s expenses for attending the Narrative Conference at which the award will be presented.

The Perkins Prize is conceived as a book prize rather than an author prize. All books on the topic of narrative, whether edited collections, collaboratively written books, or monographs, are eligible to compete. If an edited collection or collaboratively written book is selected, the prize goes to the editor(s) or the collaborators. The winner of the competition for books published in 2020 will be announced at the MLA Convention in Washington, DC, in January 2022, and the prize will be presented at the 2022 International Conference on Narrative in Chichester.

To nominate books with a copyright date of 2020, please send an
email with “Perkins Prize” in the subject line to the chair of the judging committee, Sylvie Patron, sylvie.patron@u-paris.fr. Publisher, third-party, and self-nominations are all appropriate. Copies of books must be sent directly to each of the three judges. Please indicate in the nominating email whether the publisher or the author will send the books. The deadline for receipt of books by the judges is June 1, 2021.

Books should be sent by authors or their publishers directly to each of the three committee members:

Sylvie Patron, Université de Paris, France, personal address: 110 rue des Grands Champs, 75020 Paris, France; sylvie.patron@u-paris.fr.

Liesbeth Korthals Altes, University of Groningen (professor emerita), Netherlands, personal address: Vivienstraat 76, 2582RW Den Haag, Netherlands; e.j.korthals.altes@rug.nl.

Marco Caracciolo, University of Ghent, Belgium, personal address: Bernard Spaelaan 21, 9000 Ghent, Belgium; Marco.Caracciolo@ugent.be.

It is our utmost pleasure to inform the Society that the prize committee, consisting of Catherine Belling, Kent Puckett & Maria Mäkelä has chosen Yogita Goyal’s book Runaway Genres: The Global Afterlives of Slavery (NYU Press) for the Barbara Perkins and George Perkins Award. Altogether 23 titles were nominated among the books published in 2019. The prize recognizes the book that makes the most significant contribution to the study of narrative: http://narrative.georgetown.edu/awards/perkins.php

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Why Runaway Genres?

Powerfully argued, beautifully written, and utterly timely, Yogita Goyal’s Runaway Genres: The Global Afterlives of Slavery offers a new and crucial contribution to narrative theory.  Part of its considerable achievement comes from its understanding of the slave narrative not only as an object of study but also as a term of critical art.  Because, in other words, it takes the slave narrative as a portable, instrumental, and resistant narrative form, it offers new ways of thinking about what narrative theory, narratology, and the analysis of narrative genres can tell us about the relation between race, history, and aesthetics.  “Race,” she writes, “has always been entangled with form.”  More than that, Goyal’s treatment of the “global proliferation of the slave narrative” as a way to think through “increasing large-scale migration, the ongoing appeal of sentimentalism to narrate trauma, and a historical tendency to see current events as repetitions of the past” helps us not only to understand the place of politically charged narratives in history or the way that history relies on narrative forms but also to realize how narrative theory as narrative theory can emerge as a vital and urgently comparative contribution to social, political, and historical thinking.  At a moment when many are thinking about how to balance the coherence and considerable critical power of narrative theory with the need to address the ideas, the forms, and the narratives that underwrite the difficult history of the present, Runaway Genres offers new directions for the analysis of narrative while also helping to remind us of the potential narrative theory always had to see, to understand, and, at key moments, to resist both the world as it is and the stories on which that world sometimes relies.

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The award ceremony will take place at our online conference on Saturday, May 22, 2021.

On behalf of the ISSN Executive Council and the Perkins Prize Committee,

Maria Mäkelä

Past President, ISSN

Chair of the Perkins Prize Committee

2021 Perkins Prize Nominations

Established in 1994, the Perkins Prize honors Barbara Perkins and George Perkins, the founders of both The Journal of Narrative Technique and the Society itself. The prize, awarded to the book making the most significant contribution to the study of narrative in a given year, provides $1,000 plus a contribution of $500 toward the winning author’s expenses for attending the Narrative Conference at which the award will be presented.

The Perkins Prize is conceived as a book prize rather than an author prize. All books on the topic of narrative, whether edited collections, collaboratively written books, or monographs, are eligible to compete. If an edited collection or collaboratively written book is selected, the prize goes to the editor(s) or the collaborators. The winner of the competition for books published in 2019 will be announced at the MLA Convention in Toronto in January 2021, and the prize will be presented at the 2021 International Conference on Narrative in Chichester.

To nominate books with a copyright date of 2019, please send an email with “Perkins Prize” in the subject line to the chair of the judging committee, Maria Mäkelä: maria.makela@tuni.fi. Publisher, third-party, and self-nominations are all appropriate. Copies of books must be sent directly to each of the three judges. Please indicate in the nominating email whether the publisher or the author will send the books.

The deadline for receipt of books by the judges is July 1, 2020.

Books should be sent by authors or their publishers directly to each of the three committee members:

Maria Mäkelä

Faculty of Social Sciences

FI-33014 Tampere Finland maria.makela@tuni.fi

Catherine Belling

Medical Humanities & Bioethics

Arthur J. Rubloff Building

420 E. Superior St., 6th Floor

Chicago, IL 60611 U.S.A.

c-belling@northwestern.edu

Kent Puckett

1248 Yale Avenue

Claremont, CA 91711 U.S.A.

kpuckett@berkeley.edu

Established in 1994, the Perkins Prize honors Barbara Perkins and George Perkins, the founders of both The Journal of Narrative Technique and the Society itself. The prize, awarded to the book making the most significant contribution to the study of narrative in a given year, provides $1,000 plus a contribution of $500 toward the winning author’s expenses for attending the Narrative Conference at which the award will be presented.

The Perkins Prize is conceived as a book prize rather than an author prize. All books on the topic of narrative, whether edited collections, collaboratively written books, or monographs, are eligible to compete. If an edited collection or collaboratively written book is selected, the prize goes to the editor(s) or the collaborators. The winner of the competition for books published in 2018 will be announced at the MLA Convention in Chicago in January 2020, and the prize will be presented in March 2020 at the Narrative Conference in New Orleans.

To nominate books with a copyright date of 2018, please send an email with “Perkins Prize” in the subject line to the chair of the judging committee, Dan Punday: dpunday@english.msstate.edu

Publisher, third-party, and self-nominations are all appropriate.  Copies of books must be sent directly to each of the three judges. Please indicate in the nominating email whether the publisher or the author will send the books. The deadline for receipt of books by the judges is July 1, 2019.

Books should be sent by authors or their publishers directly to each of the three committee members:

Dan Punday

Department of English

Mississippi State University, Box E

Mississippi State, MS 39762

Astrid Ensslin

200 Old Arts 

University of Alberta

Edmonton AB

T6G 2E6

Canada

Paul Dawson

School of the Arts and Media

University of New South Wales

NSW 2052

Australia

Established in 1994, the Perkins Prize honors Barbara Perkins and George Perkins, the founders of both The Journal of Narrative Technique and the Society itself. The prize, awarded to the book making the most significant contribution to the study of narrative in a given year, provides $1,000 plus a contribution of $500 toward the winning author’s expenses for attending the Narrative Conference at which the award will be presented.

The Perkins Prize is conceived as a book prize rather than an author prize. All books on the topic of narrative, whether edited collections, collaboratively written books, or monographs, are eligible to compete. If an edited collection or collaboratively written book is selected, the prize goes to the editor(s) or the collaborators. The winner of the competition for books published in 2017 will be announced at the MLA Convention in Chicago in January 2019, and the prize will be presented in June 2019 at the Narrative Conference in Pamplona, Spain.

To nominate books with a copyright date of 2017, please send an email with “Perkins Prize” in the subject line to the chair of the judging committee, Sue Lanser:  lanser@brandeis.edu

Publisher, third-party, and self-nominations are all appropriate.  Copies of books must be sent directly to each of the three judges. Please indicate in the nominating email whether the publisher or the author will send the books. The deadline for receipt of books by the judges is June 1, 2018.

Established in 1994, the Perkins Prize honors Barbara Perkins and George Perkins, the founders of both The Journal of Narrative Technique and the Society itself. The prize, awarded to the book making the most significant contribution to the study of narrative in a given year, consists of $1,000 plus a contribution of $500 toward expenses for the winning author to attend the Narrative Conference where the award will be presented.

The Perkins Prize is conceived as a book prize rather than an author prize. Thus all books on the topic of narrative, whether edited collections, collaboratively written books, or monographs, are eligible to compete. If an edited collection or collaboratively written book is selected, the prize goes to the editor(s) or the collaborators. The winner of the competition for books published in 2016 will be announced at the New York MLA Convention in January 2018, and the prize will be presented at the Narrative Conference in Montréal, Québec, in April 2018.

To nominate books with a copyright date of 2016, please send an email with “Perkins Prize” in the subject line to The Chair of the judging committee:

Brian McHale mchale.11@osu.edu

Publisher, third-party, and self-nominations are all appropriate.  Copies of books must be sent to each of the three judges. Please indicate in the nominating email whether the publisher or the author will send the books. The deadline for nominations and for receipt of books by the judges is June 1, 2017.

Books should be sent by authors or their publishers directly to each of the three members of the judging committee:

Brian McHale
Department of English
The Ohio State University
421 Denney Hall
164 Annie and John Glenn Ave.
Columbus OH 43210
 
Porter Abbott
7271 Gills Pier Rd.
Northport, MI  49670
 
Sue J. Kim
Department of English
UMass Lowell
O’Leary Library 476
61 Wilder Street
Lowell, MA 01854

Award Announcement from the Vice-President of ISSN, Jan Alber:

“As Chair of this year’s Perkins Prize committee, I now have the pleasure of announcing the winner.

The Perkins Prize for the book making the most significant contribution to the study of narrative in 2015 goes to:

Perkins Prize for Books Published in 2015

Established in 1994, the Perkins Prize honors Barbara Perkins and George Perkins, the founders of both The Journal of Narrative Technique and the Society itself. The prize, awarded to the book making the most significant contribution to the study of narrative in a given year, consists of $1,000 plus a contribution of $500 toward expenses for the winning author to attend the Narrative Conference where the award will be presented. 

The Perkins Prize is conceived as a book prize rather than an author prize. Thus all books on the topic of narrative, whether edited collections, collaboratively written books, or monographs, are eligible to compete. If an edited collection or collaboratively written book is selected, the prize goes to the editor(s) or the collaborators. The winner of the competition for books published in 2015 will be announced at the Philadelphia MLA Convention in 2017, and the prize will be presented at the Narrative Conference in Lexington, KY, in March 2017. 

To nominate books with a copyright date of 2015, please send an email with “Perkins Prize” in the subject line to the Chair of the judging committee: Jan Alber <janalber@aias.au.dk>. Publisher, third-party, and self-nominations are appropriate. Copies of books must be sent to each of the three judges. Please indicate in the nominating email whether the publisher or the author will send the books. The deadline for nominations and for receipt of books by the judges is June 1, 2016. 

Books should be sent by authors or their publishers directly to each of the three members of the judging committee: 

PD Dr. Jan Alber

Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies

Aarhus University
Høegh-Guldbergs Gade 6B, building 1630
8000 Aarhus C
Denmark

Dr. Alice Bell

Sheffield Hallam University

Humanities Department

1122 Owen Building

City Campus

Sheffield, S1 1WB

England, UK

Prof. Dr. Thomas Pavel

Centre de l’Université de Chicago à Paris

6, rue Thomas Mann

75013 Paris

France

 
Established in 1994, the Perkins Prize honors Barbara Perkins and George Perkins, the founders of both The Journal of Narrative Technique and the Society itself. The prize, awarded to the book making the most significant contribution to the study of narrative in a given year, consists of $1,000 plus a contribution of $500 toward expenses for the winning author to attend the Narrative Conference where the award will be presented. 

The Perkins Prize is conceived as a book prize rather than an author prize. Thus all books on the topic of narrative, whether edited collections, collaboratively written books, or monographs, are eligible to compete. If an edited collection or collaboratively written book is selected, the prize goes to the editor(s) or the collaborators. The winner of the competition for books published in 2014 will be announced at the Austin MLA Convention in 2016, and the prize will be presented at the Narrative Conference in Amsterdam in June 2016. 

To nominate books with a copyright date of 2014, please send an email with “Perkins Prize” in the subject line to the Chair of the judging committee: Richard Walsh <richard.walsh@york.ac.uk>. Publisher, third-party, and self-nominations are appropriate. Please indicate in the email whether the publisher, the author, or the Chair of the judging committee is to be responsible for ensuring that books are sent to the judges. Copies of books must be sent to each of the three judges.The deadline for nominations and for receipt of books by the judges is June 1, 2015. 

Books should be sent by authors or their publishers directly to each of the three members of the judging committee: 

Richard Walsh
Dept. of English & Related Literature
University of York
Heslington
York YO10 5DD
UK

Henrik Skov Nielsen
Centre for Fictionality Studies
Institut for Æstetik og Kommunikation
Aarhus Universitet
Jens Chr. Skous Vej 7
Bygn. 1485 / lokale 318
8000 Århus C
Denmark

Robyn Warhol
36 Larch Rd.
South Burlington VT  05403
USA