MLA Prize for Independent Scholars Winners
2020–21
- Jordan S. Carroll, University of Puget Sound, for Reading the Obscene: Transgressive Editors and the Class Politics of US Literature (Stanford Univ. Press, 2021)
- Honorable mention: Jeremy Colangelo, University of Western Ontario, King’s College, for Diaphanous Bodies: Ability, Disability, and Modernist Irish Literature (Univ. of Michigan Press, 2021)
- Honorable mention: Mary C. Flannery, Geneva, Switzerland, for Practising Shame: Female Honour in Later Medieval England (Manchester Univ. Press, 2019)
2018–19
- Kevin A. Morrison, Henan University, China, for Victorian Liberalism and Material Culture: Synergies of Thought and Place (Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2018)
- Honorable mention: Abigail G. H. Manzella, Columbia, Missouri, for Migrating Fictions: Gender, Race, and Citizenship in U.S. Internal Displacements (Ohio State Univ. Press, 2018)
2016–17
- Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Brandeis University, for Ending Ageism; or, How Not to Shoot Old People (Rutgers Univ. Press, 2017)
2014–15
- Mimi Yiu, Vancouver, British Columbia, for Architectural Involutions: Writing, Staging, and Building Space, c. 1435–1650 (Northwestern Univ. Press, 2015)
2012–13
- Joël Des Rosiers, Montreal, for Métaspora: Essai sur les patries intimes (Triptyque, 2013)
2011
- Melissa Bradshaw, Chicago, Illinois, for Amy Lowell, Diva Poet (Ashgate, 2011)
2010
- Tom Duggett, Suzhou, China, for Gothic Romanticism: Architecture, Politics, and Literary Form (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
2009
- Susan Whyman, Fair Haven, New Jersey, for The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers, 1660–1800 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2009)
2008
- William Pallister, Oakland, California, for Between Worlds: The Rhetorical Universe of Paradise Lost (Univ. of Toronto Press, 2008)
2007
- Andrés J. Nader, Berlin, Germany, for Traumatic Verses: On Poetry in German from the Concentration Camps, 1933–1945 (Camden House, 2007)
2006
- Eric Edward Paras, Reston, Virginia, for Foucault 2.0: Beyond Power and Knowledge (Other Press, 2006)
2005
- Henry Hitchings, London, England, for Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005)
2004
- Alan Palmer, London, England, for Fictional Minds (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2004)
- June Chun Yip, Los Angeles, California, for Envisioning Taiwan: Fiction, Cinema, and the Nation in the Cultural Imaginary (Duke Univ. Press, 2004)
2003
- Dana Phillips, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for The Truth of Ecology: Nature, Culture, and Literature in America (Oxford Univ. Press, 2003)
2002
- Diana Saco, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for Cybering Democracy: Public Space and the Internet (Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2002)
2001
- David Roessel, Washington, DC, for In Byron's Shadow: Modern Greece in the English and American Imagination (Oxford Univ. Press, 2001)
2000
- Joe Snader, Wilmington, Delaware, for Caught between Worlds: British Captivity Narratives in Fact and Fiction (Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2000)
1999
- Steven J. Holmes, Rosindale, Massachusetts, for The Young John Muir: An Environmental Biography (Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1999)
1998
- Janet Galligani Casey, for Dos Passos and the Ideology of the Feminine (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998)
1997
- Gary Schmidgall, New York, New York, for Walt Whitman: A Gay Life (Dutton Plume, 1997)
1996
- Graham Robb, Oxford, England, for Unlocking Mallarmé (Yale Univ. Press. 1996)
- Finalist: Carolyn Burke, Santa Cruz, California, for Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996)
1995
- Nora Sayre, for Previous Convictions: A Journey through the 1950s (Rutgers Univ. Press, 1995)
1994
- Kenneth M. Cameron, for Africa on Film: Beyond Black and White (Continuum Books, 1994)
- Honorable mention: Mary Price, for The Photograph: A Strange, Confined Place (Stanford Univ. Press, 1994)
1993
- Olga Augustinos, for French Odysseys: Greece in French Travel Literature from the Renaissance to the Romantic Era (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1993)
- Honorable mention: Carl Hill, for The Soul of Wit: Joke Theory from Grimm to Freud (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1993)
1992
- Hans J. Rindisbacher, for The Smell of Books: A Cultural-Historical Study of Olfactory Perception in Literature (Univ. of Michigan Press, 1992)
1991
- Marie-Laure Ryan, for Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory (Indiana Univ. Press, 1991)
- Honorable mention: David B. Morris, for The Culture of Pain (Univ. of California Press, 1991)
1990
- William Merrill Decker, for The Literary Vocation of Henry Adams (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1990)
- Honorable mention: Charles Musser, for The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990)
1989
- Emily W. Sunstein, for Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality (Little, Brown and Co., 1989)
1988
- Harriet Blodgett, for Centuries of Female Days: Englishwomen's Private Diaries (Rutgers Univ. Press, 1988)
1987
- Wayne F. Cooper, for Claude McKay: Rebel Sojourner in the Harlem Renaissance (Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1987)
- Keith W. F. Stavely, for Puritan Legacies: Paradise Lost and the New England Tradition, 1630–1890 (Cornell Univ. Press, 1987)
1986
- Paul van Caspel, for Bloomers on the Liffey: Eisegetical Readings of Joyce's Ulysses (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1986)
1985
- Edward Brunner, for Splendid Failure: Hart Crane and the Making of The Bridge (Univ. of Illinois Press, 1985)
1984
- Gloria C. Erlich, for Family Themes and Hawthorne's Fiction: The Tenacious Web (Rutgers Univ. Press, 1984)
1983
- Zdzislaw Najder, for Joseph Conrad: A Chronicle (Rutgers Univ. Press, 1983)