graduate award
The GAPS Graduate Award recognizes outstanding graduation theses on new Anglophone literatures and cultures as well as varieties of English. More details about the award can be accessed here.
2024
After due deliberation, the GAPS Graduate Award Jury has decided not to award a prize this year.
2023
The GAPS Graduate Award 2023 has been awarded to:
Lena AMBERGE (Potsdam University)
for her graduate (MA) thesis
“Worlds of Loss: Absence and Grief in Australian Climate Fiction” (supervised by Prof. Dr. Anja Schwarz and Prof. Dr. Nicole Waller)
The thesis has been published on the GAPS website and can be downloaded here (PDF).
A recognition award has been conferred to:
Katharina Anna Maria KRUMPECK (Vienna University)
for her graduate (MA) thesis
“Resisting monophony: Collectively plaiting together voices as decolonising Oceanic feminist strategy in four Wan Smolbag plays”
(supervised by Univ.-Prof. PD Melissa Kennedy)
2022
The GAPS Graduate Award 2022 has been awarded to:
Stefanie KEMMERER (Frankfurt University)
for her graduate (MA) thesis
“Yogascapes: The Visual Politics of Transcultural Yoga as seen on Instagram”
A recognition award has been conferred on:
Alisa PREUSSER (Münster University)
for her graduate (MEd) thesis
“The Politics of Disposability: Negotiating the US-Canadian Border through Representations of Waste in Thomas King’s Novel Truth & Bright Water“
2021
The GAPS Graduate Award 2021 has been awarded to:
Corina WIESER-COX (Bremen University)
for her graduate (MA) thesis
“Brujeria in the Borderlands: Portrayals of Mexican American Witchcraft in Hollywood Films”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Kerstin Knopf
A recognition award has been conferred on:
Elena IPPENDORF (Leipzig University)
for her graduate (MA) thesis
“Genre and Geography in Welsh Crime Fiction”
Thesis supervisor: Dr. Ellen Grünkemeier
2020
After due deliberation the GAPS Graduate Award Jury decided that none of the theses submitted were prize-worthy. Consequently, neither the Graduate Award proper nor the complimentary prize were conferred for 2020.
2019
The GAPS Graduate Award 2019 has been awarded to:
Marie BERNDT (Bonn University)
for her graduate (MA) thesis
“‘Jamaicans wid ah different flag’: Representations of Precarious LGBTQ Lives in Jamaican Fiction of the New Millennium”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp
The thesis has been published on the GAPS website and can be downloaded here (PDF).
2018
The GAPS Graduate Award 2018 has been awarded to:
Rufaro BAKARE (Frankfurt University)
for her graduate (MA) thesis
“The Madman, the Woman and the Child (De)liberate the Nation of Zimbabwe: Counter-discursive Readings of Dambudzo Marechera’s The House of Hunger, Yvonne Vera’s The Stone Virgins and NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Frank Schulze-Engler
A complimentary prize has been awarded to:
Anika GERFER (Münster University)
for her graduate (MA) thesis
“White Appropriation of Jamaican Creole in Reggae Music”
Thesis supervisor: Dr. Michael Westphal
2017
The GAPS Graduate Awards 2017 have been awarded to:
Manuela Jasmin ZEHNTER (Bonn University)
for her graduate (MA) thesis:
“Narrative Constructions of Post-Colonial Digitalized Worlds and Identities in Selected Short Story Cycles”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp
and
Philipp MEER (Münster University)
for his graduate (M. Ed.) thesis:
“Attitudes toward Accents of English in Trinidadian Secondary Schools”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Dagmar Deuber
2016
The GAPS Graduate Award 2016 has been awarded to:
Yann LE GALL (University of Potsdam)
for his graduate (MA) thesis:
“‘If these skulls could talk…’ Subjectification and Memory Practice in Repatriation and Reburial of Colonial Human Remains”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Lars Eckstein
The thesis has been published on the GAPS website and can be downloaded here (PDF).
A complimentary prize has been awarded to:
Hannah PARDEY (Leibniz University Hannover)
for her graduate (MA) thesis:
“Historiographic Metafiction from the Nigerian Diaspora”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Jana Gohrisch
2015
The recipient of the GAPS Graduate Award 2015 is:
Eva C. HÄNSEL (University of Münster)
for her graduate thesis
“Standard English in St Vincent and the Grenadines: A Study of Newscasters’ Accents.”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Dagmar Deuber
2013
The recipient of the GAPS Graduate Award 2013 is:
Maike LENGEMANN (University of Freiburg)
for her graduate thesis
“De powa of de word in the riddum of de word’: Local cultural resources for a global market in Trinidadian rapso music”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Christian Mair
Complimentary prizes have been awarded to:
Smaran DAYAL (University of Freiburg)
for his graduate thesis
“‘Back-to-Bom!’ Urban cosmopolitanism and naming in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.”
Thesis supervisor: Dr. Miriam Nandi
and
Jeyapriya SRIEASWARANATHAN (University of Münster)
for her graduate thesis “M(O)ther and Militant, Munition and Make-Up: Discursive Constructions of the Female LTTE Militant Figure”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Mark Stein.
2012
The GAPS Graduate Award 2012 has been awarded to:
Regina Anna Petra SCHULZ (University of Cologne)
for her graduate thesis on
“Performances in US-Mexican-American Borderlands”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Hanjo Berressem
[Thesis nominated by co-supervisor Prof. Dr. Heinz Antor, Cologne]
Complimentary prizes have been awarded to:
Christina NEUMANN (University of Augsburg)
for her graduate thesis on
“Geografictione: Aritha van Herk’s Places Far From Ellesmere“
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Katja Sarkowsky
and
Friederike HAHN (WWU Münster)
for her graduate thesis on
“Language Discourse and Language Use in three texts by Ngugi wa Thiong’o: The River Between, Devil on the Cross and Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir“
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Dagmar Deuber
2011
The GAPS Graduate Award 2011 has been awarded to:
Michael WESTPHAL (WWU Muenster)
for his graduate thesis at the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg on “A History of Jamaican Creole in the Jamaican Broadcasting Media”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Dr. Christian Mair
The thesis has been published on the GAPS website and can be downloaded here (PDF).
Complimentary prizes have been awarded to:
Andrea Juliette MAIR (University Munich)
for her graduate thesis on
“Writing Slums: Eine Lektüre zeitgenössischer indischer Literatur in Englisch”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Tobias Döring
and
Marijke KÄHLER (University Berne)
for her graduate thesis on
“Encountering the Liminal Body, Engaging with the Self”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Virginia Richter
2010
The GAPS Graduate Award 2010 has been awarded to:
Johannes BARTHEL (University Erlangen-Nürnberg)
for his graduate thesis (Magisterarbeit) on
“Moving in between Locations and Cultures: Dancehall, Hip Hop, and Cultural Exchange in the In-Between Space of the Black Atlantic”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Antje Kley
Complimentary prizes have been awarded to:
David REUTER (Kiel University)
for his graduate thesis (Staatsexamensarbeit) on
“How uniform is Canadian English?”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Matthias Meyer
and
Karsten LEVIHN (University Frankfurt/Main)
for his graduate thesis (Magisterarbeit) on
“Borders: Fictions of Globalization and the Margin of the Nation State”
Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. Frank Schulze-Engler
2008
The GAPS Graduate Award 2008 was awarded to:
Andrea MOLL (Freiburg University)
for her graduate thesis on
“Linguistic Surface and Deep Level Structures in Aboriginal English: A Case Study of New South Wales Aboriginal English”
The thesis has been published on the GAPS website and can be downloaded here (PDF).
Complimentary prizes were awarded to:
Carla MÜLLER-SCHULZKE (University Frankfurt/Main)
for her MA Thesis on
“Transkulturelle Klangwelten: ‘Asian British Music’ zwischen akustischer Erfahrung und kultureller Repräsentation” [“Transcultural Sound Worlds: ‘Asian British Music’ between Acoustic Experience and Cultural Representation”]
and
Christine KRENZKE (Kiel University)
for her graduate thesis on
“Raumdarstellung in Margaret Atwoods Cat’s Eye” [“Representation of Space in Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye“]