The Graduate Student Caucus (GSC) of the Comics Studies Society is committed to encouraging finely-crafted and innovative comics scholarship by members of the graduate student community. To promote the writing and dissemination of such scholarship, the GSC awards the Hillary Chute Award for Best Graduate Student Paper. The award is named for Hillary Chute, whose pioneering work as a comics scholar paved the way for feminist and political readings of graphic memoir. Papers will be judged by blind review based on overall quality and contribution to the field of Comics Studies.
Eligibility and qualifications: This prize recognizes outstanding graduate student scholarship in Comics Studies during the previous calendar year. In order to qualify for this award:
- The author must be a graduate student during the awards cycle or have been a graduate student in the year before the awards cycle. This means that the author must either be enrolled in a graduate program at the point of submission or have completed one the year before.
- The author must be a member of CSS at the point of submission. More information on how to join or renew membership may be found on the Society’s website.
- The paper must be at least 7 but no more than 15 pages (not including citations or images). It must have been written during the eligibility year. It may be a conference or seminar paper, or it may be an excerpt from a larger work (like an M.A. thesis or dissertation), but it must stand on its own for evaluation. It must also be unpublished.
The Chute Award winner will receive a plaque and a monetary prize. They will also have the opportunity to have a consultation with an editor of Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society.
