New Directions in Critical Disability Studies Prize

2027 Call for Submissions: January 15, 2027

Description

The Critical Disability Studies Caucus welcomes submissions for the New Directions in Critical Disability Studies Prize, which recognizes the best presentation in Critical Disability Studies at the previous year’s ASA Conference.  

This award recognizes scholarship from early career scholars, including graduate students, that pushes critical disability studies in new and compelling directions. Such work might, for example, ask new questions, surface alternative genealogies, develop new methodologies and/or cripistemologies, work across inter/disciplines in new ways, theorize disability as a contested category, or examine disability’s relations to other identities or vectors of power such as race, gender, sexuality, and geographic location.

This presentation can be a traditional paper, a multimedia presentation, a workshop, or recorded and transcribed remarks given as part of an ASA panel or roundtable.

The award is based on presentations given at the previous year’s Conference (i.e. 2027’s award will be given to a presentation from 2026’s conference in Chicago). We strongly encourage all graduate students and early career scholars who presented at the previous year’s ASA conference (in Chicago) to apply. We also encourage session Chairs, co-participants, and audience members to nominate eligible papers they encountered at last year’s conference. 

Eligibility

This award recognizes early career scholars who are graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, independent academics, and/or contingently employed workers, bringing attention to those whose scholarly work is not yet circulating widely in disability studies. If you have questions about your eligibility, feel free to reach out to CDSC Co-Chairs Sarah Orsak (orsak@virginia.edu) and Jiya Pandya (jiya.pandya@yale.edu). 

Submissions can be made on behalf of a presenter or by the presenter themselves. 

Papers based on previous or forthcoming publications are ineligible. Submissions should not include the longer book or dissertation chapters on which the paper was based, or expanded versions of the talk. 

Awardee Recognition

The prize includes a certificate and recognition at the Opening Night Reception & Awards Ceremony at the subsequent ASA meeting (2026), which we hope the awardee will be able to attend. The awardee will be recognized in ASA’s award announcements that go out to all members, and the caucus will also announce the award on our listserv.

Awardees will be asked to participate in the following year’s New Directions in Disability Studies judging panel.

Submission Requirements: 

Please submit the following information via this form by January 15th, 2027 at 5pm EDT. Submissions are currently open and we encourage you to present while the Chicago conference is still top of mind.

The form will require the following:

1. Whether you are self-nominating or nominating on behalf of someone.
2. Name
3. Institutional affiliation and title (if any)
4. Contact information
5. Name of the ASA session in which the presentation was given
6. A 200-300 word precis that:
   • abstracts the submission
   • explains explicitly how it offers new directions for disability studies
   • Briefly situates the paper/submission in the nominee’s overall research (is it a new direction for you/them, part of a larger project, etc.)
   • Please note: The precis will be the first thing the panel reads, and is your opportunity to connect your submission to the award criteria.
7. The presentation itself, which may consist of:
   • A .docx copy of the paper and/or remarks
   • Notes on remarks, for a roundtable contribution. In this case, you may find it helpful to (with your collaborators’ permission) record your remarks to submit a transcript for the committee’s consideration.
   • Optional: Any audio-visual materials used as part of your presentation, such as a slideshow.

We look forward to reading your work!

Past Winners

• 2026: Hannah Brancato (doctoral student in American Studies, University of Maryland), as curator/chair of the roundtable of the “Resisting the Reparative: Moving Beyond the Trauma Industry” roundtable, with Istifaa Ahmed, Avgi Saketopoulou, and Lara Sheehi.
• 2025: No award due to prize restructuring
• 2024: Jiya Pandya (Doctoral Candidate in History, Princeton University), for “Provincializing Disability Studies: A Transnational Revisionist History”
• 2023: Nicholas Villarreal (PhD student in Cultural Studies, University of California Davis), for “Keto: How Anti-Fat Ideologies of Cure Are Deployed As “Science””
• 2020-2022: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the caucus did not give graduate student paper awards during these years.
• 2019: Sarah Orsak (Doctoral Candidate in Women’s and Gender Studies, Rutgers University), for “‘No Freak of Nature’: Capacity, Species, and Freedom in Thylias Moss’ Slave Moth”

• Honorable Mention: Ka-eul Yoo (PhD Candidate in Literature, University of California Santa Cruz) for “Deformed Ambassadors: The ‘Red’ Threat and U.S. Hansen’s Disease Controlling Policies in Cold War Korea”
• 2018: No award given
• 2017: Emily L Rogers for “Sick and Tired: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and ‘Anti-Scientism(s)’”

• Honorable mention: Ittai Orr for “Robert Montgomery Bird’s Neurodiversity Hypothesis”
• 2016: Jessica Cowing for “Obesity and (Un)fit Homes: Health and Belonging in a Settler Nation”