Undergraduate Project Prize Winners
2022-2023 Winners
For HUM-sponsored or co-listed courses from spring 2022 – winter 2023
Dolores Kohl Kaplan Project Prize
Jaharia Knowles — Audio project of music about environmentalism and climate change
For Art, Ecology, and Politics (HUM 370) • Instructor: Rebecca Zorach
Alice Berline Kaplan Writing Prize
Sadie Bernstein — "When was the last time you played with dirt?"
For Art, Ecology, and Politics (HUM 370) • Instructor: Rebecca Zorach
Morris Kaplan Writing Prize
Blair Donohue — "Prenatal Ultrasonography and the Cultural Experience of Pregnancy: A Case of Co-Production"
For Race/Gender/Sex & Science: Identities and Difference (HUM 370) • Instructor: Steven Epstein
Kaplan Humanities Scholars Prizes
Maria Chebli — "The aesthetics of shaping memory: between monumental commemoration and celebration"
For Revolutions: Visualizing Radicalism (Moscow, Madrid, Mexico) • Instructors: Miguel Caballero and Nina Gurianova
Yong-Yu Huang — "This Isn’t Personal: Punishment and Resistance in Burn! and Green Island"
For Islands • Instructors: Daniel Immerwahr and Jules Law
Miya Liu — “'Disappearing' Islands: How the Diction of a Single Word Disembodies Stories"
For Islands • Instructors: Daniel Immerwahr and Jules Law
Cate Rose — "Seeing Double: Analyzing the Significance of Paul Gauguin’s 1896 artwork 'Why are you angry?'”
For Islands • Instructors: Daniel Immerwahr and Jules Law
Ethan Zhou — "Redefining Prisons: Literal, Institutional, and Intangible Forms of Imprisonment on Islands"
For Islands • Instructors: Daniel Immerwahr and Jules Law
2020-2021 Winners
For HUM-sponsored or co-listed courses from spring 2020 – winter 2021
Dolores Kohl Kaplan Project Prize
Andrew Thomas — “Post-Mortem: Franc Fallico"
For The Crime Centered Documentary (HUM 370) • Instructor: Debra Tolchinsky
Dolores Kohl Kaplan Writing Prize
Joy Fu — "Special Ops Cody and the Votive Statues: Archiving Temporal Complexity of Iraq"
For Reorienting (HUM 211) • Instructors: Hannah Feldman, Rebecca Johnson, Kirsten Scheid
Morris Kaplan Writing Prize
Ganpicha Sahasakul — "Documentary tendencies and subjectivities in Ryan"
For The Animated Documentary (HUM 370) • Instructor: Eric Patrick
Alice Berline Kaplan Writing Prize
Samantha Waitkus — "The Score Precedes the Scene: Capturing and Creating Life in 'Framelessness' and Her"
For The Cinema of Always-On Computing (HUM 325) • Instructor: James Hodge
Jean Gimbel Lane Writing Prize
Nia Robles Del Pino — “'Kurdish Women breathing, existing' and the temporalities of the self"
For Reorienting (HUM 211) • Instructors: Hannah Feldman, Rebecca Johnson, Kirsten Scheid
Kaplan Humanities Scholars Prizes
Fall 2020 - Alternative Americas: Science Fiction and Speculative Futures • Instructors: Jules Law, Juan Martinez, and Kelly Wisecup
Bella Gibb — "A Non-Zero-Sum Game: Literary Structure, Linguistics, and Compatibilism in Ted Chiang’s ‘Story of Your Life'"
Mihir Rajwade — “The Rejection of Reality: An Exploration of The Comet by W.E.B. DuBois”
Winter 2021 - Reorienting • Instructors: Hannah Feldman, Rebecca Johnson, Kirsten Scheid
Jiacheng Yin — "Acts of Solidarity: Reorienting Self in a Disorienting System"
Rivers Leche — “The Ballad of Special Ops Cody and the Histories of Space"
2019-2020 Winners
For HUM-sponsored or co-listed courses from spring 2019 – winter 2020
Dolores Kohl Kaplan Project Prize
Alec Abramson — "The Conrad Hilton Hotel Chicago"
For Ancient Rome in Chicago (HUM 325) • Instructor: Francesca Tataranni
Morris Kaplan Project Prize
Kendra Gujral, Matt Lenz, Lexi Schiff, and Samantha Waitkus (Group project) — "Korean Shakespeare: Localization to Globalization"
For Shakespeare: Global, Local, Digital (HUM 325) • Instructors: Wendy Wall and Susie Phillips
Dolores Kohl Kaplan Writing Prize
Meghan Clare Considine — "Blessed Blessed Oblivion or, to be a Man in Contemporary Silwan"
For Contemporary Middle Eastern Performance (HUM 370) • Instructor: Shayna Silverstein
Morris Kaplan Writing Prize
Lauren Katz — "A More Than Double Life"
For Shakespeare: Global, Local, Digital (HUM 325) • Instructors: Wendy Wall and Susie Phillips
Alice Berline Kaplan Writing Prize
Dorothy Gaeng — "Community and Resistance in Cabrini Green"
For Race and the American Midwest (HUM 371) • Instructor: Doug Kiel
Jean Gimbel Lane Writing Prize
Margaret Young — "Rape Trauma Syndrome and the Pathologization of Sexual Assault"
For Race/Gender/Sex and Science (HUM 370) • Instructor: Stephen Epstein
Kaplan Humanities Scholars Prizes
Fall 2019 - Empire • Instructors: Adia Benton, Daniel Immerwahr, and Jules Law
Neel Shah — "Hind Swaraj and Essentialist Nationalism"
Angelina Jaglinski — "Soundscape in The Battle of Algiers"
Winter 2020 - Drugs: Culture, History, Politics • Instructors: Ana Arjona, Lina Britto, and Mark Hauser
Flora Tian — "The Opium Empire: The Rise of Colonial Opium Monopoly Systems"
Laura Isabel Sastoque Pabón — "Drugs and Immigration—Is the Colombian Rural Population Condemned?"
2018-2019 Winners
Dolores Kohl Kaplan Project Prize
Sofia Salgado — "Bernardino de Sahagún: A Different Kind of Colonizer"
Morris Kaplan Project Prize
Woojae Julia Song — "A Feature Film, featuring Real Revolutionaries!"
Alice Berline Kaplan Writing Prize
Emily Feng — "The Emergence and Theoretical Significance of Multifaceted Asexual Identities"
Marion Heltzel Seder Writing Prize
Jacob Jordan — "Puberty Suppression in Young People with Gender Dysphoria: A Proactive Pause"
Jean Gimbel Lane Writing Prize
Megan Clare Considine — "Curatorial Responsibility and the Limits of the Archive in Paul Chan’s Waiting for Godot in New Orleans at the Museum of Modern Art"
2017-2018 Winners
Dolores Kohl Kaplan Writing Prize
Tuuli Sandvold — "Picasso and Duende in The Path to Guernica"
Morry Kaplan Writing Prize
Calvin Anderson — "The Mistaken Truth-Guided Aperture of Pity and Terror"
Alice Berline Kaplan Project Prize
Seri Lee — "Transoceanic Geographies of Intimacy"
Jeff and Kathy Zukerman Writing Prize
Stacy Tsai — "Seeing Mutton Flaps: Neoliberalization of Global Health and 'New Colonialisms' in Tonga"
2016-2017 Winners
Dolores Kohl Kaplan Prize for Best History Project
Calvin Anderson — "Easy to Rule:" James Alley Blues and the Rural African-American Experience in the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
Morry Kaplan Prize for Best Paper on Politics and Culture
Libby Berry — "On the Origins of Party Polarization"
Jean Gimbel Lane Prize for Best Paper on Digital Media
Mari Morsch — "How to Use the Internet When the Clinic Doesn't Cure"
Pick Laudati Prize for Best Project in Visual and Textual Studies
Paola de Varona — "Querida America"
Marion Heltzel Seder Prize for Best Media Studies Project
Julia Popham — "Exploring the Pages of John Donne"
Alice Kaplan Prize for Best Research Paper
Margot Zuckerman — "From Countercultures to Counting Calories: The New Moosewood Cookbook and the Mainstreaming of Vegetarianism
2015-2016 Winners
Jeff and Kathy Zukerman Prize for Best Digital Humanities Project
Tanner Howard — "Traversing the Borderlands: The New Mexican Alabado and 20th Century Americanization"
Marion Heltzel Seder Prize for Best Cultures in Translation Paper
Jenna Levin — "Dissent, Discussion, and Censorship in Habima Theatre's The Merchant of Venice"
Alice Kaplan Prize for Best Global Humanities Paper
Adina Goldman — "The Oldest Dance: Movement and Gender Performance in Huapango, a Huastec Othello"
Dolores Kohl Kaplan Prize for Best Paper in Literary Criticism
Justin Farmer — "Pining for Affection"
Jean Gimbel Lane Prize for Best Digital Humanities Project
Jennifer Zhan — "The Blessings of Res Publica"
2014-2015 Winners
Marion Heltzel Seder Prize for Best Theoretical Paper
Natalie Fallert — “The State of Women According to Locke”
Dolores Kohl Kaplan Prize for Best Paper in Literary Criticism
Daniel Moynihan — “Trapped in the Cloven Pine: A Transgender Reading of the The Tempest’s Ariel"
Jean Gimbel Lane Prize for Best Visual Studies Paper
Kyle Allen-Niesen — “Globalization, Oceans, and Robert Redford: JC Chandor’s All is Lost as Allegory for the State of the American Dream”
John H. and Len Perkins Prize for Best Media Studies Paper
Linnea Hodge — “'what would i say?’ or How the Internet Tells Us What to Say”
Morry Kaplan Prize for Best Research Paper
Anastasia Misheva — “The History of Race in Physical Anthropology"