Prize-Winning Publications

With reputations for seeking out creative, top-quality scholarship, as well as for high editorial and review standards, it is no surprise that AAUP member presses publish a large number of prize-winning books and journals. Scholarly societies, regional institutions, national and international bodies regularly recognize the publications of university presses for their contributions to the academy and to the wider society.

Browse All Prizes by Press:

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Nota Bene

Featuring a few recent awards of note for AAUP members' books and authors. Use the alphabet menu above to browse more prizes.

2012 Edgar Award

On Conan Doyle: Or, the Whole Art of Storytelling
Michael Dirda
Princeton University Press, 2011
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For the second year running, a university press title has been awarded an Edgar Award for mystery writing. Princeton University Press's On Conan Doyle, by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Dirda, was honored with the Critical/Biographical prize (after a 2011 Edgar went to Nebraska's Scoreboard, Baby). Combining memoir and appreciation, On Conan Doyle is an engaging personal introduction to Holmes's creator, as well as a rare insider's account of the curiously delightful activities and playful scholarship of The Baker Street Irregulars.

2012 Bancroft Prizes

The 2012 Bancroft Prize, awarded by Columbia University, honors three works that, while disparate in subject matter, demonstrate the powerful impact of re-examination of historical events in an ever-changing, ever-evolving world. Empires, Nations, and Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860 by Anne F. Hyde, published by University of Nebraska Press; Age of Fracture by Daniel T. Rodgers, published by Belknap Press at Harvard University Press; and Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement by Tomiko Brown-Nagin and published by Oxford University Press were all honored this year.

2012 Kate Tufts Discovery Award

Radial Symmetry
Katherine Larson
Yale University Press, 2011
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The Kate Tufts Discovery Award, given by Claremont University's School of Arts and Humanities, honors a first book by a poet of genuine promise. Katherine Larson, a molecular biologist and field ecologist by trade, was presented with this year's award for her 2011 book, Radial Symmetry, "a transcendent body of poems" published by Yale University Press.

2012 Frost Medalist

Marilyn Nelson was awarded this year's Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry. Past winners include Previous winners of this award include Wallace Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Marianne Moore, and Charles Simic. Louisiana State University Press has published four volumes of Nelson's poetry.

2012 Grawemeyer Award for Education

The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future
Linda Darling-Hammond
Teachers College Press, 2010
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The purpose of the Grawemeyer Award for Education, awarded by the University of Louisville, is "to stimulate ideas that have the potential to bring about significant improvement in educational practice and attainment." Linda Darling-Hammond has been honored for The Flat World and Education (Teachers College), showing that the U.S. no longer leads the world in education because, unlike in Europe and Asia, we spend much less on the education of low-income and minority students, and that providing equal opportunity to all students would keep us educationally competitive.

2012 Grawemeyer Award for Religion

Your Spirits Walk Beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion
Barbara Dianne Savage
Harvard University Press, 2008
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Barbara Dianne Savage's award-winning book, Your Spirits Walk Beside Us, introduces new perspectives on the study of black religion and the political role of African American churches, including their unrecognized diversity and exaggerated political activism. The Grawemeyer Award in Religion honors and publicizes insights into the relationship between human beings and the divine and the ways this relationship may empower human beings to attain wholeness, integrity or meaning.

2012 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order

The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding
Séverine Autesserre
Cambridge University Press, 2010
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Séverine Autesserre's Cambridge-published title has received this year's Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, awarded by the University of Louisville. The award is intended to stimulate the recognition, dissemination and critical analysis of outstanding proposals for improving world order. Drawing from more than 300 interviews and 18 months of field research, Autesserre analyzed a global effort to curb widespread violence in the Congo. She found the attempt failed because international workers overlooked the importance of local disputes over land, resources and political power.

2011 National Book Award, Poetry

Head Off & Split: Poems
Nikky Finney
Northwestern University Press, 2011
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The 2011 National Book Award for poetry was presented to Nikky Finney for Head Off & Split: Poems, published earlier this year by TriQuarterly, an imprint of Northwestern University Press. The mission of the National Book Awards is "to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of good writing in America." Finney's collection sustains a sensitive and intense dialogue with emblematic figures and events in African American life.