The Waterloo Centre for German Studies (WCGS) is pleased to announce the shortlist for its annual Book Prize.
Established in 2017, the WCGS Book Prize recognizes first-time authors whose scholarly work contributes substantially to our understanding of any aspect of German-speaking society. The prize foregrounds good writing, scholarly relevance, originality, and the ability to reach audiences beyond the academic sphere.
This year’s shortlist, drawn from books published in 2020, demonstrates once again the vitality and broad scope of the research being done in German studies today. Each link leads to a description of the book and an interview with the author.
- Amstutz, Nina. Caspar David Friedrich: Nature and the Self. (Yale University Press)
- A revelatory book that draws attention to previously neglected aspects of the painter’s engagement with natural science and philosophy.
- Eicher, John P.R. Exiled Among Nations: German and Mennonite Mythologies in a Transnational Age. (Cambridge University Press)
- This striking transnational study explores how religious migrant communities negotiated with nationalism in the period 1870-1945.
- Eyerly, Sarah. Moravian Soundscapes: A Sonic History of the Moravian Missions in Early America. (Indiana University Press)
- An original and compelling reconstruction of Moravian society in Pennsylvania that explores their songs and sounds.
- Fleischman, Thomas. Communist Pigs. An Animal History of East Germany’s Rise and Fall. (University of Washington Press)
- The story of East Germany’s fateful embrace of industrial pork production is told in this ingenious new study.
- Florvil, Tiffany N. Mobilizing Black Germany: Afro-German Women and the Making of a Transnational Movement. (University of Illinois Press)
- New ground is broken in this important chronicle of Black movements in Germany of the 1980s and 1990s.
- George, Alys X. The Naked Truth: Viennese Modernism and the Body. (University of Chicago Press)
- An absorbing new interpretation of fin-de-siècle Vienna that places the body at the centre of early modernism.
The winner, who receives a CAD $3,000 prize, will be announced mid-December.
For inquiries, please contact the Waterloo Centre for German Studies (wcgs@uwaterloo.ca). For further information, please go to the WCGS Book Prize page.