The Scottish Association for the Study of America (SASA) is thrilled to announce that this year’s Ellen Craft Essay Prize is now open for submissions. The Ellen Craft Essay Prize is intended to help to promote, encourage and share the study of marginalised voices in American Studies at the postgraduate and early career levels. It hopes, in a small way, to answer some of the current issues facing American Studies scholarship within the UK both in subject matter and participants.
The Ellen Craft Essay Prize welcomes submissions from postgraduate students and earlycareer researchers on any topic relating to the study of marginalised communities within the Americas. This includes, but is not limited to, subjects relating to Black, LGBQT+, Indigenous, and immigrant history and culture, as well as that of others who have been underrepresented in scholarship. Check out our list of previous winners to see what past awardees have explored: https://www.scotamstudies.org/essay-prizes. SASA recognises a broad definition of the Americas and includes anything situated within North, South or Latin America, at any point in history. The work should be 3,000-4,000 words in length, including footnotes (excluding a bibliography). The work may be part of ongoing research projects or an original piece, but must not have been submitted to other essay prize competitions. Past entrants are welcome to submit again. Previous first-place winners are not eligible to submit again. A panel of the SASA committee and external reviewers will judge all submissions. SASA will award the winning author a prize of £100 and an invitation to our annual conference in March 2027.
The namesake of this prize, Ellen Craft, was an activist and freedom fighter who fled enslavement in 1848. Dressed as a white, male enslaver, Ellen, along with her husband, who dressed as an enslaved man, escaped across 1000 miles of slave states to freedom. Following their escape, the couple travelled to the UK, where they gave a series of lectures on their lives as enslaved people and their journey. The creators of this award found Ellen Craft a fitting namesake. Her often forgotten story is emblematic of the type of scholarship that this award aims to acknowledge and
disseminate.
This essay prize competition is open to current postgraduate students based at UK universities and academic institutions and early career researchers residing in the UK who are within the first five years since finishing their doctorate. Submissions should be sent by email to the SASA
committee: sasaessayprize@gmail.com. Please also submit either a brief academic CV or a brief bio demonstrating your eligibility for the prize and including your full contact details. Deadline for submission will be Monday, 7 December 2026 and entrants will be informed in February 2027.
