The Esther M. Terry Award

Distinguished Dissertations in Afro-American Studies

Dissertation committees may unanimously award students with a distinction for their doctoral work. All dissertations earning a distinction during the defense are automatically nominated for the annual Esther M. Terry Award for the most outstanding dissertation.

Crystal Lynn Webster, Ph.D. 2017
"Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood: Northern African American Children's Cultural and Political Resistance, 1780-1861"
Chair: Manisha Sinha

Markeysha Davis, Ph.D. 2016
"Daring propaganda for the beauty of the Human Mind:” Critical Consciousness—Raising in Poetry and Drama of the Black Power Era, 1965-1976"
Chair: James Smethurst

Karla V. Zelaya, Ph.D. 2015
"'Sweat the Technique'": Visible-izing Praxis Through Mimicry in Phillis Wheatley's "On Being Brought from Africa to America"
Chair: Steven Tracy

Donald Geesling, Ph.D. 2014
"'Survival Kits on Wax': The Politics, Poetics, and Productions of Gil Scott-Heron"
Chair: Ernest Allen

James Carroll, Ph.D. 2013
"Composing the African Atlantic: Sun Ra, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, and the Poetics of African Diasporic Composition"
Chair: Steven Tracy

Ernest Gibson, Ph.D. 2012
"In Search of the Fraternal: Salvific Manhood and Male Intimacy in the Fiction of James Baldwin"
Chair: James Smethurst

Kabria Baumgartner, Ph.D. 2011
"Intellect, Liberty, Life: Women's Activism and the Politics of Black Education in Antebellum America"
Chair: Manisha Sinha

Jonathan Fenderson, Ph.D. 2011
"'Journey Toward a Black Aesthetic': Hoyt Fuller, the Black Arts Movement and the Black Intellectual Community"
Chair: James Smethurst

Christopher Tinson, Ph.D. 2010
"The Fight for Freedom Must Be Fought on all Fronts: Liberator Magazine and Black Radicalism, 1960-1971"
Chair: Ernest Allen