2022 Johnson Prize and Fogelson Prize Winners Announced
Awards recognize scholarly accomplishments in thesis projects by students in the Masters Program in Social Sciences.
By Sarah Steimer
The Earl S. and Esther Johnson Prize and Raymond D. Fogelson Prize recognize outstanding Master of Arts theses, honoring young scholars for their work in social science research. The winners of each prize receive a $1,000 award.
Raymond D. Fogelson Prize
The Fogelson Prize — presented in honor of Raymond D. Fogelson, a leading expert in Southeast ethnology — is awarded for the best MA thesis in the ethnological and historical sciences.
Tori Gross (chair), Dawn Herrera, Julius Jones, Lily Xiao-Lei Huang, Claire Watson, and Marshall Kramer, each a preceptor in MAPSS, served as the selection committee.
Grace Richards
Faculty reader: Robert Richards, Morris Fishbein Distinguished Service Professor, Departments of History and Philosophy
“The thesis is the most effective and convincing I have read in this year’s cohort, and it is among the few MA papers that is equally successful at marshaling primary sources and in speaking to a larger interpretive debate,” says Richards’s preceptor John McCallum, the Earl S. Johnson Instructor in History. “This is one of the best theses I have read in MAPSS and it compares favorably with work by students who have gone on to PhD study at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other peer departments.”
Honorable mention:
C.A.R. Hawkins Lewis
Faculty Reader: Ryan Jobson, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology of Anthropology
In discussing the work of this thesis, Lewis’ preceptor, Ella Wilhoit, says, “Hawkins is a deeply knowledgeable, insightful, self-motivated scholar, who has clearly demonstrated the unusual talent of excavating, distilling, and interweaving complex strands of theory.”
Earl S. and Esther Johnson Prize
The Johnson Prize — established in the memory of the founder and long-time Director of the Masters of Arts Program in the Social Sciences, Earl S. Johnson — is presented to two individuals with papers that best combine high scholarly achievement with concern for humanistic aspirations and the practical applications of the social sciences. The prize committee is charged to particularly note the paper’s explicit or implicit public policy implications. This year, Amit Anshumali (Chair), John McCallum, Ella Wilhoit, Marshall Jean, Kyla Bourne, Ruben Barron and Brianne Painia, each a MAPSS preceptor, served.
Daniel Muras
Faculty Reader: Alan Kolata, Bernard E. and Ellen C. Sunny Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Anthropology
“Daniel is an extremely talented writer who has managed to support several compelling arguments with a myriad of evidentiary sources, all in a tightly and logically structured narrative,” says Ella Wilhoit, Muras’s preceptor.
Tianhao Hou
Faculty reader: Elisabeth Clemens, William Rainey Harper Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Sociology
“His is an exceptionally fine thesis, framed by literature and engaged with contemporary scholarship,” says Clemens.