Six finalists have been unveiled for the 2024 Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. This award is presented each year by the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research in recognition of outstanding scholarship in the humanities.
“The book prize was a birthday present from her husband, Melbern Glasscock, for whom the center is named,” Glasscock Center Director Dr. Troy Bickham said. “Both are avid readers, and the prize is a wonderful testament to that. Their decision to endow a prize that celebrates books that feature original humanities research that is accessible and appealing to academics and nonacademic audiences alike makes the Susanne M. Glasscock Book Prize unique.”
Bickham, a professor in the Department of History who has led the center since 2022, was able to increase the prize amount to $10,000 thanks to the continued support of the Glasscocks — raising the already-high profile of the award and increasing the entry pool significantly.
“This year, the submissions come from presses both within and outside the United States from authors who hail from across the globe,” Bickham said. “In consequence, they represent the great breadth of topics the humanities encompass each year. In the case of the finalists, topics range from racial identity in prison riots to explorations of the Amazon. What makes the books worthy is their authors’ original research combined with a conscious effort to make the research accessible both to scholars in and out of their respective fields and interested nonacademic audiences alike.”
Once publishers send in submissions, the books go through various selection committees, being swapped around throughout the summer as the shortlist of finalists is created. Once the winner is selected, the center will begin planning for their prize-giving event, which will include a celebration reception and a public lecture on Texas A&M campus by the winning author.
“We are thrilled to be celebrating the 25th year of the prize,” Bickham said. “The prize predates the Glasscock Center itself by several years, so this is a major milestone for the humanities at Texas A&M.”
Read about the finalists below via excerpts from the shortlisting committee’s reviews of each:
Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt
“Dr. Burton provides an important account of not only the prison revolt in Attica in 1970s, but also draws connection between the revolt and anticolonial and antiimperialist struggles outside the prison.”
Encyclopédie noire: The Making of Moreau de Saint-Méry's Intellectual World
“The book’s focus on Moreau de Saint-Méry, a canonical source in French Caribbean studies, allows Johnson to follow the intertwined circuits of eighteenth-century print culture, knowledge production, slavery and empire in the Atlantic world and to historicize the archive built on Moreau’s writing and print work.”
Political Disappointment: A Cultural History from Reconstruction to the AIDS Crisis
“While writing about the theme of disappointment in America's political arena over the last century, Marcus highlights its role in reenergizing the nation’s commitments to its lofty goals and ideals.”
“Larry Rohter's Into the Amazon presents a compelling narrative of Cândido Rondon's dedication to protecting both the Indigenous people of Brazil (a group to which he himself belonged) and the Amazonian environment.”
What is Extinction? A Natural and Cultural History of Last Animals
”What is Extinction? answers the question posed by its title through examining several crucial moments in modern history that have determined the way we think about extinction, from the American buffalo to fictions of the ends of humanity to the racial ideology of the Third Reich.”
Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo: Stories from the Animal Archive
“Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo is an engaging and insightful look at how the National Zoo in D.C. came into existence, from its early funding battles to how it collected animals for exhibition.”
For more information on the Glasscock Book Prize or the six finalists selected for the 2024 shortlist, please visit tx.ag/GCbookprize.