Inaugural $50,000 Prize Awards and Expands Open Access Book
Publishing in the Humanities
NEW
YORK, May 2, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The American
Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is pleased to announce the
winners of the 2024 ACLS Open Access Book Prizes and Arcadia Open
Access Publishing Awards. Supported by Arcadia, these prizes recognize and reward the
authors and publishers of exceptional, innovative, and open access
humanities books published from 2017 to 2022.
These prizes recognize and reward the
authors and publishers of exceptional, innovative, open access
humanities books.
History: Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in
Restoration London by Simon P. Newman
(University of London Press, 2022)
Multimodal: As I Remember It: Teachings (ʔəms tɑʔɑw) from the
Life of a Sliammon Elder by Elsie
Paul with Davis McKenzie,
Paige Raibmon, and Harmony Johnson (University
of British Columbia Press / RavenSpace, 2019)
Each prize winner was selected by a distinguished panel of
judges from a shortlist of five finalists. The winning authors
receive a cash award of $20,000, and
the winning publishers receive a grant for $30,000 to support the immediate open access
publication of at least two new books. The prizes, among the
largest for scholarly books, were announced today at the ACLS
Annual Meeting in Baltimore,
MD.
"ACLS is proud to award these outstanding authors and
publishers, whose commitment to open access is helping transform
the way scholarly insights reach people inside and outside the
academy," said ACLS President Joy
Connolly. "Their books freely provide communities worldwide
with accurate research on topics that have been historically and
often intentionally held at the margins of academic inquiry. We
look forward to continuing our work with Arcadia to cultivate an ecosystem in which
humanistic publications thrive in a larger circle of readers."
For more than 100 years ACLS has supported the creation and
circulation of knowledge that advances our understanding of
humanity and human endeavors. Amplifying humanistic scholarship
through initiatives such as the ACLS Open Access Books Prizes helps
cultivate a twenty-first-century ecosystem in which humanistic
publications can thrive.
Submissions for the 2025 ACLS Open Access Book Prizes and
Arcadia Open Access Publishing Awards will open in May 2024. Sign up to stay updated on the
prize and be notified when the competition opens.
About the American Council of Learned Societies
Formed
a century ago, the American Council of Learned Societies
(ACLS) is a nonprofit federation of 80 scholarly organizations.
As the leading representative of American scholarship in the
humanities and interpretive social sciences, ACLS upholds the core
principle that knowledge is a public good. In supporting its member
organizations, ACLS utilizes its endowment and $37 million annual operating budget to expand the
forms, content, and flow of scholarly knowledge, reflecting our
commitment to diversity of identity and experience. ACLS
collaborates with institutions, associations, and individuals to
strengthen the evolving infrastructure for scholarship. In all
aspects of our work, ACLS is committed to principles and practices
in support of racial and social justice.
About Arcadia
Arcadia is a charitable foundation that
works to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage and promote
open access to knowledge. Since 2002 Arcadia has awarded
more than $1.2 billion to organizations around the
world.
Supplemental quotes from judges:
History Judges
"Freedom Seekers is a deeply
researched, well-argued, and effectively presented look into a
hidden world within seventeenth-century London, that of slaves in the imperial
capital. It offers a new view into slavery's deeply embedded
history in Britain and the
Atlantic world, and challenges the field to tackle important and
challenging topics that still resonate in the modern world."
"Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration
London is a journey of a book. As a reader, I found myself
deeply immersed—Newman's writing is highly engaging and will likely
bring a completely new understanding of British history. The
stories of featured freedom-seekers will stick with me forever. A
must-read for just about any audience."
Multimodal Judges
"As I Remember It is
compelling because it looks both to the future and the past. The
intellectual contributions are massive: preserving a lost language,
culture, and folkways. The aspects of what has been lost to
colonialism and racism are acknowledged while being clear about
what heritage is being preserved. It also allows for persons
new to the ideas, language, and culture to experience it in ways
that approach being authentic, not mediated by other groups of
institutions."
"The initial protocol for being a respectful guest [provided
upon entry to As I Remember It] forecasts the centrality of
community control in this amazing archive. The team that
constructed this digital monograph have centered the community
while providing a broad and deep intervention into how we
understand knowledge."
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SOURCE American Council of Learned Societies