The George C. Casey Prize
The George C. Casey Prize awards $300 for the best undergraduate essay on any topic relating to the situation of gender and society. Papers written in any course, in any department or program within the university are eligible. Papers may not exceed 4,000 words, excluding notes and bibliography, and must be accompanied by a memo from the instructor of the course for which the paper was written attesting to the student's enrollment. Papers from Spring 2007, Fall 2007 and Winter 2008 are eligible for this year's Casey Prize. The deadline for this year's Casey Prize has passed. Please consider submitting an essay next year.
Cora Leech won the 2008 George C. Casey Prize for her essay titled “Rape Myths in Romance Novels: More Troubling than Porn?” written for Dr. Don Misch’s Gender Studies course “Sexual Assault in America.” The award committee praised Leech’s essay for its "skillful interweaving of categories of rape myths with her reading of selected romance novels, interrogating how the fictions at once mirror and create dominant cultural myths about rape.”
2008 Honorable Mention went to Megan Brown for “Super Women, Tip Drills & Kobe Bryant: Rape Disclosure among African Americans,” also written for Misch’s course.
The Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs Prize
The Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs Prize is given to an outstanding senior thesis written in the Gender Studies Program.
Katherine Gorringe won the 2008 Dobbs Prize for her thesis: “When She Sings, I Hear Revolution: Radical Feminist Demands on Women in Popular Music, 1969-1973.” The award committee lauded the thesis as “an original, carefully researched and well-written thesis that represents a contribution to recent historical accounts of the theoretical formulations and political goals of ‘second wave’ feminism and to recent work on social movement formation and consolidation.” In particular, the committee noted that the thesis “provides a spectrum of radical feminist positions rather than trying to produce a monolithic version of radical feminism.”
Past Dobbs Thesis Award recipients include:
2007 - Jessica Mathiason, for her thesis entitled "Trans Hollywood Blockbusters and teh Genital Reveal."
2006 - Abigail Rogosheske, for her thesis entitled "Pineapples and Politics: Ugandan Women and the Road to Empowerment."
2005 - Thanh Nguyen, a senior History/Gender Studies Major, won both the 2005 George C. Casey Prize for best undergraduate essay and the 2005 Dobbs Prize her thesis, entitled "Beyond Borders: Brides, Grooms, & Brokers in Viet-Dai Marriages."
Gender Studies honors theses are available for reading and check-out in the Gender Studies Library.
The Rae Arlene Moses Leadership Award
In honor of her career-long dedication to women at Northwestern, the Gender StudiesProgram, along with its affiliates and friends, established the Rae Arlene Moses Leadership Award in Gender Studies. The award is presented each spring to a graduating senior who has fostered initiatives and demonstrated leadership, both within the classroom and in co-curricular activities sponsored by the Gender Studies program.
The 2008 Moses Award goes to Undergraduate Board co-chair Sharlyn Grace. Under the direction of Grace and co-chair Marissa Faustini, the board produced an especially active year of events, inviting two speakers, Michelle Citron and Julia Serano, and organized a teach-in by the Mexico Solidarity Network on gender and the Zapatista movement and an evening with Chicago’s own “Actor Slash Model.”
Past Moses Leadership Award recipients include:
2007 - Julie Keller and Jessica Mathiason
2006 - Corey Robinson
2005 - Annie Lee
Honors in Gender Studies
Gender Studies majors can choose to write a thesis in their senior year. Outstanding theses are awarded honors by the Gender Studies Honors Committee. The thesis that was awarded honors in 2008 was:
- Katherine Gorringe, “When She Sings, I Hear Revolution: Radical Feminist Demands on Women in Popular Music, 1969-1973.”
2007 honors theses included:
- Jessica Mathiason, "Trans Hollywood Blockbusters and the Genital Reveal"
- Rupali Sharma, "Colonial Myths, Gendered Realities and Hyphenated Identities: An Analysis of Muslim-American Women's Veiling Practices after 9/11"
- Poornima Yechoor, "Can the HIV-postive Hindu Woman Speak?: Sex, Tradition, and AIDS in Contemporary Bollywood Cinema"
All of these excellent theses are available for reading in the Gender Studies library (Kresge 2-360).
