February 14, 2022
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PUBLISHERS ANNOUNCES 2022 PROSE AWARD WINNERS FOR EXCELLENCE AND THE R.R. HAWKINS AWARD
Duke University Press; Harvard University Press; Little, Brown and Company; and The MIT Press are Honored
Top PROSE Awards Prize, The R.R. Hawkins Award, Goes to Duke University Press’ Experiments in Skin: Race and Beauty in the Shadows of Vietnam
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) today announced the four Excellence winners of its annual PROSE Awards, which recognize best-in-class scholarly publications in four categories: Biological & Life Sciences, Humanities, Physical Sciences & Mathematics, and Social Sciences. AAP also announced the winner of the program’s top prize, the prestigious R.R. Hawkins Award.
“We are proud to announce that the R.R. Hawkins Award goes to Duke University Press for Experiments in Skin: Race and Beauty in the Shadows of Vietnam by Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu,” commented Syreeta Swann, Chief Operating Officer, AAP. “We also congratulate Duke University Press; Harvard University Press; Little, Brown and Company; and The MIT Press for winning this year’s Excellence Awards for their exceptional titles. Together, these top honorees reflect an extraordinary level of academic achievement and cultural insight, illustrating that scholarly publishing continues to be an essential force both in academia and the culture at large.”
R.R. Hawkins Awards Winner
Ken Wissoker, Senior Executive Editor, Duke University Press, commented, “It was a special privilege to work with Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu on this book, a brilliant reimagining of what the humanities should be. Archival, ethnographic, scientifically curious, and visually astute, Experiments in Skin links crucial moments in US and Vietnamese histories in a palpably human way.”
Wissoker added, “The book’s insights, commitments, and methods exemplify scholarly writing and speak to the importance of the Duke list and of university press publishing overall. I could not be more grateful to the AAP, the PROSE Award program, and its judges for recognizing the way the most important ideas and the best thinking come from a wide range of authors and presses. It is a special honor for this award to be given to this book and to Duke University Press.”
PROSE Chief Judge Nigel Fletcher-Jones, PhD, commented, “Every so often a PROSE Award submission comes along that shouts out to the judges, ‘this is a story that absolutely needed to be told’ and Experiments in Skin: Race and Beauty in the Shadows of Vietnam (Duke University Press) by Professor Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu at NYU is one of them.”
Fletcher-Jones added, “In this case, the book clearly illustrates Faulkner’s famous line, ‘the past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ Experiments in Skin is a finely written amalgam of ethnography, military history, chemistry, and biomedicine that illuminates the links between the substantial modern day ‘cosmeceutical’ industry in Vietnam; the Vietnam War and its continuing toxic aftermath in the form of dioxin in the food chain; and the racist history of dermatological experimentation in both the US and Vietnam that occurred around that war and continues to resonate to this day.”
2022 PROSE Excellence Winners are as follows:
PROSE Award for Excellence in Humanities and R.R. Hawkins Award Winner
- Experiments in Skin: Race and Beauty in the Shadows of Vietnam, Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, Duke University Press
PROSE Award for Excellence in Biological and Life Sciences
- Global Health Security: A Blueprint for the Future, Lawrence O. Gostin, Harvard University Press
PROSE Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
- Atlas of Forecasts: Modeling and Mapping Desirable Futures, Katy Börner, The MIT Press
PROSE Award for Excellence Social Sciences
- HALFWAY HOME, Reuben Miller, Little, Brown and Company
About the PROSE Awards
Since 1976, the AAP’s PROSE Awards have recognized publishers who produce books, journals, and digital products of extraordinary merit that make a significant contribution to a field of study.
During the 2022 PROSE cycle, more than 560 works were nominated for review by a panel of 24 judges. Judges ultimately selected 106 titles to be honored as finalists, and a further 39 outstanding titles to be honored as Category Winners. Of the 39 Category Winners, today’s R.R. Hawkins Winner and four Excellence Award Winners significantly advanced their respective fields and represent the remarkable quality of scholarly publishing today.
More information about the 2022 PROSE Awards can be found here.