Report from the Annual Awards Dinner 2019
On Saturday 5 January 2019 friends of the K-SAA gathered in Chicago for the Annual Awards Dinner. This event takes place each year at the MLA convention. The K-SAA bestows awards on two 'Distinguished Scholars', and presents the K-SAA Essay Prize.
The Distinguished Scholar Awards 2018 were presented to:
- Beth Lau (presented by Greg Kucich)
- Michael O’Neill (presented by Mark Sandy; awarded posthumously)
It is with deep sadness that the K-SAA presented Michael's award after his passing in December 2018. You can read our short online tribute to him - a truly remarkable and inspiring scholar and poet - here. The K-SAA will be printing a printed tribute to Michael by Mark Sandy and Duncan Wu in the next issue of the Keats-Shelley Journal. Duncan Wu gave an encomium at the dinner, and Mark Sandy collected the award on Michael’s behalf, and has returned the commemorative plaque to his family.
The K-SAA annual Essay Prize was awarded to Greg Ellermann for his piece entitled “A Poetics of Ether,” European Romantic Review 29.3 (2018), 389-98.
This event is also where we present our annual K-SAA postcard. The theme this year was #KeatsOdes2019. You can read the winning entry, and two highly commended entries, here.
Some more photos/Twitter activity from the evening....
Earlier in the day, Manu Chander did Romanticists proud by winning the MLA's 'Humanities in Five' contest, a fast-paced session where scholars from a range of fields were challenged to present their research to non-specialist audiences in five minutes. Check out the video here.
See you all next year!