Committee on Lesbian and Gay History announces prizes

The Committee on Lesbian and Gay History has announced the winners of its 2001 prize competition. The John Boswell prize for an outstanding book on lesbian-gay history written in English by a North American went to Lisa Duggan for Sapphic Slashers: Sex, Violence, and American Modernity. The book is an examination of the 1892 trial of Alice Mitchell for the murder of her lover, Freda Ward, in Memphis, Tenn. Honorable Mention for the prize went to Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950 by Gregory M. Pflugfelder. Debra Michaud took the prize for an outstanding paper on lesbian-gay history for “The Discursive Construction of the Lesbian Subject in Late Nineteenth-Century America: An Investigation Into the Trials of Lillian Duer,” an exploration of sensationalism surrounding another “lesbian murder,” one that occurred in Maryland in 1878. Honorable mention in this category went to Tim Retzloff for “Seer or Queer? Reflections of Race, Class, Sexuality, and Mass Media in the 1956 Arrest of Detroit’s Prophet Jones.” For a complete listing of other equally long award-winning titles, as well as information on the CLGH and next year’s competition, go to www.oneinstitute.org.