The award, presented by the University of Chicago Press, recognizes excellence and innovation in the work of emerging feminist scholars.
An international jury chose Samuels’s essay from a field of eighty-six submissions.
Samuels’s essay explores representations of Millie and Christine McKoy, African American conjoined twins born into slavery in North Carolina in 1851, through an interdisciplinary analysis between historical, visual culture studies, feminist theory, and critical race theory perspectives.
Physically joined at the pelvis, the twins were objects of curiosity, inspection, and invasion from the moment of their birth.
By developing a “critical feminist disability praxis,” Samuels advocates a more rigorous ethics of representation with regard to narratives and images of the McKoys, particularly in relation to certain distorted or exploitive images that continue to circulate up to the present day.
In addition to her scholarship in English and Gender and Women’s Studies, Samuels is also a part of the Disability Studies Cluster.
Samuels' article will be published in the Fall 2011 issue of Signs and will be awarded a $1,000 prize.
Congratulations, Ellen!