The Metropole is holding a blog contest for the UHA’s graduate student members to provide an opportunity for emerging scholars to gain experience working through the editorial process. We are excited to announce the panel of expert judges who will choose our winner, who will recieve a $100 prize and a certificate of recognition:

Judge 1: Pulitzer Prize Winner and UHA President-Elect Heather Ann Thompson

Professor Thompson of the University of Michigan may be best known for the prize-winning book, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy, but she has also written extensively for publications as numerous and esteemed as The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, The Washington Post, Jacobin, The Atlantic, Salon, Dissent, NBC, New Labor Forum, The Daily Beast, and The Huffington Post. Thompson is also a prolific #twitterstorian, and regularly comments and retweets on issues of mass incarceration.

Judge 2: Bancroft Prize Winner and Former UHA President, THE Tom Sugrue

You would be mistaken to remember Professor Sugrue of New York University for only his canonical book The Origins of the Urban Crisis, as Sugrue has also written and co-authored works on the Civil Rights movement in northern cities, on what the election of President Barack Obama signals about the history of race in the U.S., and on Americans’ enduring but fraught commitment to democracy. When not working on these longer projects, Sugrue has blogged for Talking Points Memo and published in London Review of Books, The Nation, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Dissent, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Hollywood Reporter, Detroit Free Press, and Philadelphia Inquirer. He can be found on Twitter fighting the good fight against the forces of ignorance that seem to be in global ascendance.

Judge 3: Elder Statesman of Urban Geography and Current UHA President Richard Harris

The list of works published by Professor Harris of McMaster University stretches to 21 pages, and does not include the elegant addresses he has written of late for the UHA newsletter. In addition to his two most recent books–Creeping Conformity: How Canada became Suburban and Building a Market: The Rise of the Home Improvement Industry, 1914-1960–Harris has contributed to Canada’s National Post and is regularly sought out for interviews in publications ranging from the CBC to The Globe and Mail. We are still working to convince him to join Twitter, where we think he would have much to contribute.

We hope grad students will take advantage of this great opportunity to collaborate with an ace team of editors and have their work read by three of urban history’s luminary scholars. Make sure to get in submissions by 11:59 PM on November 26 in order to be considered for the prize.