Call for Submissions

The Association for Queer Anthropology (AQA) is proud to announce the 2024 Ruth Benedict Book Prize Competition for outstanding anthropological scholarship on a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer topic.

The Ruth Benedict Book Prize is presented each year at the American Anthropological Association’s annual meeting to acknowledge excellence in a scholarly book written from an anthropological perspective about a topic that engages issues and theoretical perspectives relevant to LGBTQ studies. The Prize is awarded in each of two separate categories, one for a single-authored monograph and another for an edited volume.

Submissions may be on any topic related to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people, or other gender/sexual formations and categories from any world culture area. Topics may include the study of normativity, queer theory, and the social/historical construction of sexual and gender identities, discourses, and categories. Authors may represent any scholarly discipline, but the material submitted must engage anthropological theories and methods. Submissions may be self-nominated or may be sent by a press or another person.

Books submitted for the competition must have a publication date of 2023 or 2024 and may not have been submitted previously. Page proofs of books scheduled for 2024 publication are acceptable but must include a letter from the publisher confirming the anticipated publication date of 2024.

To nominate a work, please submit one copy of the book or edited volume to each of the six committee members, with the author or editor’s name, mailing address, email address, and telephone number printed clearly on a separate cover letter indicating that it is a submission for the Ruth Benedict Book Prize. 

To obtain the mailing addresses of the committee members and for all other inquiries, please email Vaibhav Saria (vsaria@sfu.ca), the Chair of the Ruth Benedict Book Prize Committee. 

All submissions must be received by June 15, 2024