The Women in German Dissertation Prize comes out of the Women in German Memorial Fund. This Fund was established in memory of those of our member who have died and whose presence and participation in WiG we want to commemorate in an active way each year. In 1997 we established this Dissertation Prize in their memory. The fund is replenished by contributions from our membership and we encourage each of you to consider donating an amount – smaller or larger, depending on your circumstances – to keep it stocked. Donations can be sent to the WiG treasurer.
The terms of the WiG Dissertation Prize are as follows: Dissertations written by a WiG member that have been completed and filed in the preceding academic year are eligible, provided they are consonant with our mission statement. A dissertation can be nominated either by the candidate herself, by her dissertation director, or by another scholar familiar with her work.
The chair of the Dissertation Prize committee forwards all the eligible manuscripts she receives to a panel of three judges. The judges select the prize winner and the award is announced at the award ceremony held at the annual Women in German conference. For the 2003 constest, the judges were: Elke Frederickson (University of Maryland), Katrin Sieg (Goergetownn University), and Nancy Kaiser (University of Wisconsin). Helga W. Kraft (University of Illinois Chicago) was the committee chair.
The 2003 award for the best dissertation by a WiG member was given to Katharina Altpeter-Jones for her dissertation, "Trafficking in Goods and Women: Love and Economics in Konrad Flecks Flore and Blanscheflur ." She completed her dissertation at the Duke University under the direction of Ann Marie Rasmussen in July 2004. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Lewis and Clark College.
Excerpts from comments by evaluators:
This dissertation has an original and convincingly presented argument, a sophisticated and coherent theoretical framework, and a clearly defined methodological approach. There is scholarly depth on a variety of planes: historical understanding of thirteenth-century economic developments, medieval European literature, theories of commodity and gift exchange, the resonance in feminist theory of Gayle Rubins work, the chosen German text in its literary tradition, appropriate relays between changing social hierarchies and imaginative literary representations. Altpeter-Jones is a highly skilled reader of texts, presenting her analyses with circumspect argumentation. Theoretical material (example: Bataille in Chapter 6) is thoroughly integrated into the text; her vocabulary of analysis (example: polyvalent language of exchange) is carefully formulated and presented and entirely compelling. The innovative male figure
in Konrad Flecks Flore und Blanscheflur is convincingly interpreted; women as objects of exchange in an ethics of love accompanying a developing mercantile system of commodity exchange is thoroughly investigated, as are the construction and literary representation of a hegemonic social order in which the actors are positioned as men OR women and as exclusively heterosexual. Thorough and critical use is made of the highly suggestive essay by Gayle Rubin. This is feminist work of the highest caliber.It is a very intriguing reading of Fleck’s medieval text, which certainly breaks new ground by connecting very imaginatively discourses of literature and economics. The dissertation is well researched and a pleasure to read. It combines Cultural Studies, feminist theory, and economics discourses very successfully.
Congratulations Katharina! We wish you well!