The Ruth Benedict 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 lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender topic. The Ruth Benedict 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.
2024 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
Benedict Prize Winners
2023
MONOGRAPHS
Omar Kasmani
Queer Companions: Religion, Public Intimacy and Saintly Affects in Pakistan
(Duke University Press, 2022).
0
Honorable Mention:
Joseph C. Russo
Hard Luck and Heavy Rain: The Ecology of Stories in Southeast Texas
(Duke University Press, 2023)
2022
MONOGRAPHS
Serena Owusua Dankwa
Knowing Women: Same-Sex Intimacy, Gender, and Identity in Postcolonial Ghana
(Cambridge University Press, 2021)
Honorable Mention:
Jafari S. Allen
There’s a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life
(Duke University Press, 2022)
2021
MONOGRAPHS
Vaibhav Saria
Hijras, Lovers, Brothers: Surviving Sex and Poverty in Rural India
(Fordham University Press, 2021)
Honorable Mention:
Sa’ed Atshan
Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique
(Stanford University Press, 2020)
2020
MONOGRAPHS
Ana-Maurine Lara
Queer Freedom: Black Sovereignty
(SUNY Press 2020)
Sarah Luna
Love in the Drug War: Selling Sex & Finding Jesus on the Mexico-US Border
(University of Texas Press 2020).
EDITED VOLUME
Paul Boyce, E.J. Gonzalez-Polledo, and Silvia Posocco
Queering Knowledge: Analytics, Devices, and Investments after Marilyn Strathern
(Routledge 2020)
2019
MONOGRAPH
Amy Brainer
Queer Kinship and Family Change in Taiwan
(Rutgers University Press 2019)
Honorable Mention:
B Camminga
Transgender Refugees and the Imagined South Africa
(Palgrave Macmillan 2019)
2018
MONOGRAPH
George Paul Meiu
Ethno-erotic Economies: Sexuality, Money and Belonging in Kenya
(University of Chicago Press, 2017)
Honorable Mention:
Lyndon K. Gill
Erotic Islands: Art and Activism in the Queer Caribbean
(Duke University Press, 2018)
2017
MONOGRAPH
Eric Plemons
The Look of a Woman: Facial Feminization Surgery and the Aims of Trans- Medicine
(Duke University Press, 2017)
Honorable Mention:
Denis M. Provencher
Queer Maghrebi French: Language, Temporalities, Transfiliations
(Liverpool University Press, 2017)
2016
MONOGRAPHS
David A. B. Murray
Real Queer? Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Refugees in the Canadian Refugee Apparatus
(Rowman & Littlefield, 2015)
Honorable Mention:
Gregory Mitchell
Tourist Attractions: Performing Race and Masculinity in Brazil’s Sexual Economy
(University of Chicago Press, 2015)
EDITED VOLUME
Queer Brown Voices: Personal Narratives of Latina/o LGBT Activism
(University of Texas Press, 2015)
2015
MONOGRAPHS
Lucinda Ramberg
Given to the Goddess: South Indian Devadasis and the Sexuality of Religion
(Duke University Press, 2014)
Honorable Mention:
Bobby Benedicto
Under Bright Lights: Gay Manila and the Global Scene
(University of Minnesota Press, 2014)
EDITED VOLUME
2014
MONOGRAPHS
Noelle M. Stout
After Love: Queer Intimacy and Erotic Economies in Post-Soviet Cuba
(Duke University Press, 2014)
Honorable Mention:
Elisabeth L. Engebretsen
Queer Women in Urban China: An Ethnography
(Routledge Press, 2014)
EDITED VOLUME
Lal Zimman, Jenny Davis, and Joshua Raclaw
Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in Language, Gender, and Sexuality
(Oxford University Press, 2014)
2013
MONOGRAPHS
Naisargi Dave
Queer Activism in India: A Story in the Anthropology of Ethics
(Duke University Press, 2012)
Honorable Mention:
Amanda Lock Swarr
Sex in Transition: Remaking Gender and Race in South African
(State University of New York Press, 2012)
EDITED VOLUME
Susan Stryker and Aren Aizura
The Transgender Studies Reader 2
(Routledge Press, 2013)
2012
MONOGRAPHS
Margot Weiss
Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality
(Duke University Press, 2012)
Honorable Mention:
Scott Lauria Morgensen
Spaces Between Us: Queer Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Decolonization
(University of Minnesota Press, 2011)
EDITED VOLUME
Gayle Rubin
Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader
(Duke University Press, 2011)
2012
MONOGRAPHS
Evelyn Blackwood
Falling into the Lesbi World: Desire and Difference in Indonesia
(Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2010)
Roger N. Lancaster
Sex Panic and the Punitive State
(University of California Press, 2011)
EDITED VOLUME
Peter A. Jackson
Queer Bangkok: 21st Century Markets, Media, and Rights
(Hong Kong University Press, 2011)
2010
MONOGRAPHS
Deborah Gould
Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight Against AIDS
(University of Chicago Press, 2009)
Ellen Lewin
Gay Fatherhood: Narratives of Family and Citizenship in America
(University of Chicago Press, 2009)
EDITED VOLUME
David A. B. Murray
Homophobias: Lust and Loathing Across Time and Space
(Duke University Press, 2009)
2009
MONOGRAPHS
Rudolf Pell Gaudio
Allah Made Us: Sexual Outlaws in an Islamic City
(Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)
Mary L. Gray
Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America
(New York University Press, 2009)
EDITED VOLUME
Ellen Lewin and William L. Leap, Editors
Out in Public: Reinventing Lesbian/Gay Anthropology in a Globalizing World
(Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)
2008
Mark Padilla
Caribbean Pleasure Industry: Tourism, Sexuality, and AIDS in the Dominican Republic
(University Of Chicago Press, 2007)
Barbara L. Voss
The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis: Race and Sexuality in Colonial San Francisco
(University of California Press, 2008)
2007
MONOGRAPHS
David Valentine
Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category
(Duke University Press, 2007)
Gloria Wekker
The Politics of Passion: Women’s Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora
(Columbia University Press, 2007)
EDITED VOLUME
Saskia Wieringa, Evelyn Blackwood, and Abha Bhaiya, Editors
Women’s Sexualities and Masculinities in a Globalizing Asia
(Palgrave Press, 2007)
2006
Tanya Erzen
Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement
(University of California Press, 2006)
2005
Tom Boellstorff
The Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia
(Princeton University Press, 2005)
2004
MONOGRAPH
Megan Sinnot
Toms and Dees: Transgender Identity and Female Same-Sex Relationships in Thailand
(University of Hawaii Press, 2004)
EDITED VOLUME
Ellen Lewin and William L. Leap, Editors
Out in Theory: The Emergence of Lesbian and Gay Anthropology
(University of Illinois Press, 2004)
2003
Martin F. Manalansan IV
Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora
(Duke University Press, 2003)
2002
Hector Carrillo
The Night is Young: Sexuality in Mexico in the Time of AIDS
(University of Chicago Press, 2002)
2001
Arlene Stein
The Stranger Next Door: The Story of a Small Community’s Battle over Sex, Faith, and Civil Rights
(Beacon Press, 2001)
2000
MONOGRAPHS
Esther Newton
Margaret Mead Made Me Gay: Personal Essays, Public Ideas
(Duke University Press, 2000)
Stephen O. Murray
Homosexualities
(University of Chicago Press, 2000)
EDITED VOLUME
Barbara L. Voss and Robert A. Schmidt, Editors
Archaeologies of Sexuality
(Routledge, 2000)
1999
Evelyn Blackwood and Saskia E. Wieringa, Editors
Female Desires: Same Sex Relations and Transgender Practices Across Cultures
(Columbia University Press, 1999)
1998
Jennifer Robertson
Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan
(University of California Press, 1998)
1997
MONOGRAPH
Kath Weston
Render Me, Gender Me: Lesbians Talk Sex, Class, Color, Nation, Studmuffins
(Columbia University Press, 1996)
EDITED VOLUME
Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang, Editors
Two-spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality
(University of Illinois Press, 1997)
1996
William L. Leap
Word’s Out: Gay Men’s English
(University of Minnesota Press, 1996)
Carter Wilson
Hidden in the Blood: A Personal Investigation of AIDS in the Yucatan
(Columbia University Press, 1995)
1995
Joseph Carrier
De Los Otros: Intimacy and Homosexuality Among Mexican Men
(Columbia University Press, 1995)
1994
Esther Newton
Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years in America’s First Gay and Lesbian Town
(Beacon Press, 1993)
1993
Roger Lancaster
Life is Hard: Machismo, Danger, and the Intimacy of Power in Nicaragua
(University of California Press, 1992)
Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis
Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community
(Routledge, 1993)
1992
Ellen Lewin
Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gender in American Culture
(Cornell University Press, 1993)
1991
Richard Parker
Bodies, Pleasures, and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil
(Beacon Press, 1991)
1990
Kath Weston
Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship
(Columbia University Press, 1991)
Serena Nanda
Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India
(Wadsworth Press, 1990)
1987
Gilbert Herdt
The Sambia: Ritual and Gender in New Guinea
(Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1987)
1986
Walter L. Williams
The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture
(Beacon Press, 1986)