Program in Writing and Rhetoric

PWR Boothe Prize Essay Archive

first page of published essay in book

Boothe Prize essays for 2023-2024

The 2023-2024 Boothe Prize book will be available in summer 2024.

PWR Winners for 2023-2024

  • Miriam Awan (Winner, Spring 2023). “Gender Panic: How the Mainstream News Media Legitimizes Anti-Transgender Political Rhetoric.” Instructor: Chris Kamrath. 
  • Zoe Colloredo-Mansfeld (Honorable Mention, Spring 2023). “The Transformational Moves of Art: Exploding Landscapes, Geographies, and Histories Toward Liberation.” Instructor: Selby Wynn Schwartz.
  • Felicia Yan (Winner, Autumn 2023). “‘It Was Beautiful and It Was Our School’: Examining the Legacy of Segregated Public School Buildings of North Carolina and the Materiality of Racialized Educational Spaces." Instructor: Sangeeta Mediratta.
  • George Porteous (Honorable Mention, Autumn 2023). “Silhouetting the Past: Politics, Public Memory, and Aesthetic Ambiguity in Kara Walker’s (Mis)representations” Instructor Peter Tokofsky.
  • Juliet Bell (Winner, Winter 2024). “‘I’m Like Literally Addicted to This’ The Implementation of Emotional Manipulation Strategies in Digital Advertising.” Instructor: Agnes Hong.  
  • Yannick Mofor (Honorable Mention, Winter 2024) "Curing National Amnesia: The Next Steps Needed for Britain and South Africa to Create a Fulfilling Public Memory Culture.” Instructor: Peter Tokofsky.

Boothe Prize essays for 2022-2023

The 2022-2023 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF here.

PWR Winners for 2022-2023

Boothe Prize essays for 2021-2022

The 2021-2022 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2021-2022

Boothe Prize essays for 2020-2021

The 2020-2021 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF and as an eBook.

PWR Winners for 2020-2021

Prize essays for 2019-2020

The 2019-2020 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2019-2020

Prize essays for 2018-2019

The 2018-2019 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2018-19

Prize essays for 2017-2018

The 2017-2018 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2017-18

Prize essays for 2016-2017

The 2016-2017 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2016-17

Prize essays for 2015-2016

The 2015-2016 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2015-16

Prize essays for 2014-2015

The 2014-2015 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2014-15

Prize essays for 2013-2014

The 2013-2014 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2013-14

Boothe Prize essays for 2012-2013

The 2012-2013 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2012-13

Boothe Prize essays for 2011-2012

PWR Winners for 2011-2012

Boothe Prize essays for 2010-2011

The 2010-2011 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2010-2011

IHUM Winners for 2010-2011

Boothe Prize essays for 2009-2010

The 2009-2010 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2009-2010

IHUM Winners for 2009-2010

  • Fiona Hinze (Winner, Spring 2009): "An Encounter with Angel Island"
  • Mia Newman (Honorable Mention, Spring 2009): "Under the Yoke: The Institution of Marriage in Middlemarch"
  • Alex Hertz (Winner, Fall 2009): "A Challenging Invitation to Faith"
  • Ben Pittenger (Honorable Mention, Fall 2009): "Trains, Pains, and Automobiles: The Liminal Trek beyond Survival in The Piano Lesson and Maus I"
  • Kelly Vicars (Winner, Winter 2010): "Intertwining Art"
  • Evan Storms (Honorable Mention, Winter 2010): "Antigone and the Social Contract Theory of the Crito"

Boothe Prize essays for 2008-2009

The 2008-2009 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2008-2009

IHUM Winners for 2008-2009

  • Sarrah Nomanbhoy (Winner, Spring 2008): "Embracing Ambiguity in 'Bartleby the Scrivener'"
  • Nicole Gordon (Honorable Mention, Spring 2008): "When a Silent Killer Confronts a Silent Society: Stanford University's Response to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic from 1980-1989"
  • Adam Adler (Winner, Fall 2008): "Wisconsin v. Yoder: Maximizing Religious Choice"
  • Rachel Kolb (Winner, Winter 2009): "Thought Aids Acting, Not Action: Laurence Olivier's and Franco Zeffirelli's Versions of Hamlet"
  • Jacob Vandermeer (Honorable Mention, Winter 2009): "Identity Manipulation in Candide andThe Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano as Model for the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World"

Boothe Prize essays for 2007-2008

The 2007-2008 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2007-2008

Boothe Prize essays for 2006-2007

The 2006-2007 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2006-2007

Boothe Prize essays for 2005-2006

The 2005-2006 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2005-2006

IHUM Winners for 2005-2006

  • Jessica Lee (Winner, Spring 2005): "Death of the Faces of God"
  • Julie Byren (Honorable Mention, Spring 2005): "If You're Lost Enough to Find Yourself: Unveiling Nature's Secrets in Robert Frost's 'October' and 'Directive'"
  • Patrick Leahy (Winner, Fall 2005): "The Three Furies of Dublin"
  • Nathan Pflueger (Honorable Mention, Fall 2005): "Hamlet's Imagined Filial Love"
  • Sarah Johnson (Winner, Winter 2006): "Breaking the Watch Along With the Wedding Glass: Conceptions of Time in the Transition from Biblical to Rabbinic Judaism" 
  • Jason Dunford (Honorable Mention, Winter 2006): "Empowering the Oppressed: The Role of Language in the Struggle Against Apartheid in South Africa"

Boothe Prize essays for 2004-2005

The 2004-2005 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2004-2005

IHUM Winners for 2004-2005

  • Wendy Hagenmaier (Winner, Spring 2004): “‘To render it:’ Acts of Structural Passion in Levertov’s ‘An English Field in the Nuclear Age’.”
  • Lia Hardin (Honorable Mention, Spring 2004): “Hear the Thunder: Isolation and Emotional Power in Kafka and Eliot.”
  • Salvatore Bonaccorso (Winner, Fall 2004): “Self-Discovery through Language in Omeros andWalden.”
  • Anne Wyman (Honorable Mention, Fall 2004): “Art Refracts Life.”
  • Yun Chu (Winner, Winter 2005): “The Analysis of Rational Violence in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Goethe’s Faust across Three Mediums: Literature, Music, and Art.”
  • Emily Dalton (Honorable Mention, Winter 2005): “Poetic Justice, Memory As A Moral Force."

Boothe Prize essays for 2003-2004

The 2003-2004 Boothe Prize book is available as a PDF.

PWR Winners for 2003-2004

  • Joshua Smith (Winner, Spring 2003), "Conflict Diamonds: Resolving Africa's Worst Resource Wars"
  • Jennifer Cribbs (Honorable Mention, Spring 2003), "Darkness in the Vicious Kitchen: An Analysis of Feminist Themes and Suicidal Imagery in Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath's Poetry"
  • Rui Xiong Kee (Winner, Fall 2003), "Exploring the 'Communist' in the Communist Insurrection in Malaya"
  • Jasmine Hanifi (Honorable Mention, Fall 2003), "Belonging to America: Rhetoric of the Second Generation"
  • Andrew Leifer (Winner, Winter 2004), "Harry Potter and the Battle of International Copyright Law"
  • Hammad Ahmed (Honorable Mention, Winter 2004), "Grafting Cuba Onto the American Body Politic: The Intersection of Natural Science and Foreign Policy in the Annexationist Era"

IHUM Winners for 2003-2004

  • Steph Abegg (Winner, Spring 2003), "Rome: The City of Gods"
  • Gloria Nguyen (Honorable Mention, Spring 2003), "In Search of the Perfect Love"
  • Anne Kalt (Winner, Fall 2003), "Perspectives on the Human Good"
  • Bob Hough (Honorable Mention, Fall 2003), "Faith in Death"
  • Patrick R. Callier (Winner, Winter 2004), "Matter, Systems, and Alternatives from the Americas by Borges"
  • Annie Kalt (Honorable Mention, Winter 2004), "Male and Female Love Worlds: Inherently Separate Landscapes?"

Boothe Prize essays for 2002-2003

PWR Winners for 2002-2003

  • Mari Hayman (Winner, Spring 2002), “Adoption Issues in Latin America: Behind the Silence and the Secrets”
  • Jennifer Kong (Honorable Mention, Spring 2002), “Fulfilling Stanford's Commitment to Diversity: Eliminating Gender Bias and Increasing the Number of Tenured Women Faculty”
  • Prabhu Balasubramanian (Winner, Fall 2002), “Pharmaceutical Patents: Life Savers or Profit Makers?"
  • Andre de Alencar Lyon (Honorable Mention, Fall 2002), “The Question of Textual Ideology in Changing Lanes”
  • Eric Adamson (Winner, Winter 2003), “Malleability, Misrepresentation, Manipulation: The Rhetoric of Images in Economic Forecasting”
  • David Craig (Honorable Mention, Winter 2003),“Instant Messaging: The Language of YouthLiteracy”

IHUM Winners for 2002-2003

  • Heather MacKintosh Sims (Winner, Spring 2002), "Reflections of an Empire: The British Celts as Indicators of Roman Self-Perception"
  • Jason Glick (Honorable Mention, Spring 2002), "Trading Land for Cultural Power: Anazaldua's and Cardenal's (Re)constructions of Mestiza Identity" 
  • Andre de Alencar Lyon (Winner, Fall 2002), “Traversing the Gap Between Reality and the Individual in Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse”
  • Liang Dong (Honorable Mention, Fall 2002), “State and Empire: (De)Construction of the National Identity”
  • Luke Lindley (Winner, Winter 2003), “A Heap of Broken Images: Conflicting Narratives of Nature in Milton's 'Lycidas'”
  • Brian Caliando (Honorable Mention, Winter 2003) “Don't Spazz: It's Not Rational and It's Not Moral”

Boothe Prize essays for 2001-2002

Boothe Prize essays for 2000-2001