Graduate Essay Prize
AWSS Graduate Essay Prize 2016
The Graduate Essay Prize Committee is delighted to award the graduate essay prize to Ania Aizman, a Ph.D. student in Comparative Literature at Harvard University, for her beautifully-written essay, "The Considerable Anarchism of the Present Moment: Post-Soviet Russian Philosophy in Search of a New (Old?) Avant-Garde." The essay forms the first chapter of her recently submitted dissertation Every Step a New Movement: Anarchism in the Stalinist-era Literature of the Absurd and its Post-Soviet Adaptations. Aizman introduces the reader to complicated philosophical concepts and spheres of influence in a clear, cohesive, accessible piece of scholarship. While she incorporates sophisticated analysis into her essay, her writing is refreshingly jargon free. This well-researched piece serves as a nuanced and intricate examination of the continuities and disjunctures in philosophical interpretations of early Soviet absurdist literature in the 1990s and more recently, and how geo-political developments in the post-Soviet period have informed these leftist philosophers. She concludes the chapter with a fascinating discussion of the Chto Delat' movement, demonstrating the continuing relevance of the legacy of the absurd in contemporary Russia. The committee hopes that Ms. Aizman will publish her dissertation in the near future so that it can receive the wide audience it deserves. For now, we are pleased to award her the AWSS Graduate Essay Prize.
For a list of past recipients click here.