graduate award information
Purpose of the Graduate Award:
Each year, the Gesellschaft für Anglophone Postkoloniale Studien/Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies (GAPS) confers the GAPS Graduate Award. The aim is to honour outstanding theses in postcolonial studies (undergraduate and master’s theses as well as state examination theses) submitted to universities and colleges in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Theses from the fields of literary and cultural studies, linguistics, and didactics are eligible and welcome. Theses that were submitted outside of these countries are eligible for consideration if written by a student member of GAPS. The award winners are chosen by a three-person jury composed of university instructors. The Graduate Award for young academics was first conferred in 2008.
Who can nominate candidates?
GAPS accepts both self-nominations and nominations from lead thesis advisors who are GAPS members. Candidates can self-nominate their thesis if it has received the highest grade (e.g. 1.5 or higher in Germany). If the evaluation process of a thesis spanned two calendar years, nominations should be made for the year in which the evaluation process was completed.
Nominations can be submitted anytime. The deadline for submission is on 15 January each year.
How does the nomination process work?
Nominations are to be sent to the GAPS board, which then forwards them to the jury. For its work, the jury requires the examination thesis, the primary supervisor’s report, and (optionally) any other advisors’ reports in electronic form (PDF files). Please send nominations to:
Gesellschaft für Anglophone Postkoloniale Studien
Attn: Prof. Dr. Timo Müller
University of Konstanz
president(at)g-a-p-s.net
What is the award’s endowment, and where is it presented?
The GAPS Graduate Award is endowed as follows:
• € 500 prize
• Payment of travel expenses (second-class train travel) and one night’s hotel accommodation for attending the award presentation at the GAPS annual conference as well as the fees for the conference
• Free GAPS membership for two years (starting in the year of the award)
• Opportunity to publish the thesis on the GAPS website
In addition to the Graduate Award, up to two recognition awards may be conferred. These are endowed as follows:
• Free GAPS membership for two years (starting in the year of the award)
• Payment of travel expenses (second-class train travel) and one night’s hotel accommodation for attending the award presentation at the GAPS annual conference as well as the fees for the conference
The GAPS Graduate Award and the two recognition awards will be presented during the GAPS annual conference.