Winkler Memorial Prize

The John J. Winkler Memorial Prize

The John J. Winkler Memorial Trust invites all undergraduate and graduate students in North America (plus those currently unenrolled who have not as yet received a doctorate and who have never held a regular academic appointment) to enter the eighteenth competition for the John J. Winkler memorial prize. This year the Prize will be a cash award of $1500, which may be split if more than one winner is chosen.

The Prize is intended to honor the memory of John J. ("Jack") Winkler, a classical scholar, teacher, and political activist for radical causes both within and outside the academy, who died of AIDS in 1990 at the age of 46. Jack believed that the profession as a whole discourages young scholars from exploring neglected or disreputable topics, and from applying unconventional or innovative methods to their scholarship. He wished to be remembered by means of an annual Prize that would encourage such efforts. In accordance with his wishes, the John J. Winkler Memorial trust awards a cash prize each year to the author of the best undergraduate or graduate essay in any risky or marginal field of classical studies. Topics include (but are not limited to) those that Jack himself explored: the ancient novel, the sex/gender systems of antiquity, the social meanings of Greek drama, and ancient Mediterranean culture and society. Approaches include (but are not limited to) those that Jack's own work exemplified: feminism, anthropology, narratology, semiotics, cultural studies, ethnic studies, and lesbian/gay studies.

The Winners of the 2012 Winkler Prize

Donna Zuckerberg, a Ph.D. candidate in Classics at Princeton won the 2012 graduate prize with “The morphê of Menelaus in Euripides' Helen.”

In the undergraduate division, the prize went to David Rosenthal of Stanford for “Androgyny as Liminality: Achilles’ Gender Crossing in the Iliad.”  

Honorable mention in the undergraduate division was also awarded to Amanda Klause for her essay, “Mansura dabo monimenta per aevum: The Metamorphoses as Museum.”

The 2013 Winkler Prize Competition

The winner of the 2013 Prize will be selected from among the contestants by a jury of four, as yet not named.

The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2013. Essays should not exceed the length of 30 pages, including notes but excluding bibliography and illustrations or figures. Electronic submission is required. Essays should be sent in .pdf format. Please include an email with your essay in which you provide the following information: your college/university, your department or program of study, whether you are a graduate or undergraduate, your email and regular mail addresses, a phone number where you can be reached in May of 2010, and the title of your work.

The Prize is intended to encourage new work rather than to recognize scholarship that has already proven itself in more traditional venues. Essays submitted for the prize should not, therefore, be previously published or accepted for publication. The Trust reserves the right not to confer the Prize in any year in which the essays submitted to the competition are judged insufficiently prizeworthy.

Contestants may send their essays and address any inquiries to: Kirk Ormand, Dept. of Classics, Oberlin College; kirk.ormand@oberlin.edu.

The John J. Winkler memorial Trust was established as an independent, charitable foundation on June 1, 1990. Its purpose is to honor Jack Winkler's memory and to promote both his scholarly and his political ideals. Inquiries about the Prize, tax-deductible gifts to the Trust, and general correspondence may be addressed to: Kirk Ormand, John. J. Winkler Memorial Trust, Dept. of Classics, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH 44074

Previous Winners of the Winkler Prize