The Stern Award, named for luminary Jerome Stern, is given each year at the conference by the editor and editorial board of Studies in American Culture to recognize the best article published in the journal’s previous year.

The 2024 Stern Award goes to:

Phillis Lynne Burns

Associate Professor at Otterbein University

“‘We Know a Place: An American Afrofuturism Speculative Sanctuary.”

SPACE

Previous Winners:

2023

Michael Martin

Nicholls State University

“‘Her Helpless Children’: Narratology, History, and the Female Speaker in Antebellum Southern Captivity Narratives.”

SPACE

2022

Robert McDonald

“‘Imagining Harry Crews: The Landscape of A Childhood.”

SPACE

2021

Eva Tettenborn

“No One’s Magical Negro: Reclaiming Black Masculines in Colson Whitehead’s Apex Hides the Hurt”

SPACE

2020

Raquel Albarrán

“Schomburg and the Coloniality of Objects: An Introduction”