“What is so detestable about war is that it reduces the individual to complete insignificance,” wrote the English surrealist poet David Gascoyne during World War II. Existentialism, which began with phenomenology prior to World War I and came of age during the Second World War, arose in an era of “extreme ideology and extreme suffering” notes Sarah Bakewell in her excellent 2016 intellectual history of the movement, At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom Being and Apricot Cocktails.

Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, and numerous others sought a new way forward amidst a generation besot by industrialized total war. Though wide differences existed between each in terms of philosophical thought and beliefs, in general they all embraced the idea of authenticity and personal agency.  Survival in this new age depended on one’s ability to “decide to live” to engage the issues of the time; a philosophical system “designed for a species that had just scared the hell out of itself, but that finally felt ready to grow up and take responsibility,” writes Bakewell.

Well, most of us don’t live in Occupied Paris, the Pacific Theater, or the Russian Front, but needless to say, several aspects of this era seem to be reappearing and millions of people around the world do live under such distress: see Syria and Myanmar for just two examples. So at first blush, our announcements regarding the UHA awards might feel slight, yet, in our own way as historians, we aspire to the same kind of engagement and authenticity that Camus, Beauvoir, and Sartre all attempted.

Camus, pictured above receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, bickered with Beauvoir and Sartre about how to move forward. In novels like The Plague and treaties like The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus put forth the idea that life and the impersonal systems we all toiled under were absurd, however, it was up to us to determine how and why we endured. “We must decide whether to give up or keep going,” Bakewell summarizes. Heroism, as depicted by the protagonist of The Plague, was not about winning or losing but rather about enduring for a purpose even in the face of limitless odds. Despite differences, Sartre and Beauvoir came to a similar conclusion: “the art of life lies in getting things done.”

Sometimes the fetid residue of social media can be distressing, even oppressive. However, this only adds value to the work done by UHA members. Every article, book, and dissertation produced is an effort to push through this post-truth age of political discourse; a grappling with who we are and an expression of a writer’s belief system even when submerged beneath historical detail. History’s importance, be it for national debates or identity, has rarely been greater. In our role as historians, we search for evidence, craft narratives, and assert arguments as both an expression of our authentic selves and as a means to get closer to establishing the truth about our ocean of municipal, state, and national history. After all, to quote David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas: “My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”  It’s our ocean, drop your knowledge into it, watch the multiplicity of historical waves roll in and let us celebrate your contribution to the rising tide of truth.

Kenneth Jackson Award for Best Book in North American Urban History in 2017

The UHA will award a prize of $500 for the best monograph in North American urban history with a copyright date of 2017. To be considered, please submit three (3) copies of the book, each containing a complete publication citation. All materials must be received by May 1, 2018.

Submit one book directly to each member of the Jackson Award committee:

Margaret Garb
Washington University in St. Louis
Campus Box 1062
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130-4899

Paul Gleye
Department of Architecture & Landscape Architecture
North Dakota State University
650 NP Avenue
Fargo, ND 58102

Monica Perales
Department of History
University of Houston
3553 Cullen Boulevard – Agnes Arnold Hall Room 524
Houston, TX 77204-3003

Criteria for selection for all awards: significance, originality, quality of research, sophistication of methodology, clarity of presentation, cogency of arguments, and contribution to the field of urban history. Membership in the UHA is not required. All works must be in English or in English translation. Late or incomplete submissions cannot be considered. Submissions will be considered incomplete unless a copy of the book is received by each of the three (3) award committee members by the deadline. Submissions must be accompanied by a single page providing the author’s current address, e-mail, and telephone number(s). Letters of recommendation and endorsement are discouraged. The winner will be announced in late summer 2017, with formal presentation of the award at the UHA biennial conference in Columbia, South Carolina, on October 18-21, 2018. The Urban History Association reserves the right not to award this prize.

Arnold Hirsch Award for Best Article in Urban History published in a scholarly journal in 2017 (no geographic restriction)

The UHA will award a prize of $250 for the best article on urban history published in a scholarly journal with a publication date of 2017 (either in print or online as part of a journal’s early online version). To be considered, please submit three (3) copies of the article, each containing a complete publication citation. All materials must be received by May 1, 2018.

Articles must be submitted by email as attachments in PDF format. Submit one copy of the article directly to each member of the Hirsch Award committee:

Brodwyn Fischer
University of Chicago
Email: bmf@uchicago.edu

Lionel Frost
Monash University (Australia)
Email: lionel.frost@monash.edu

Benjamin Looker
Saint Louis University
Email: ben.looker@slu.edu

Criteria for selection for all awards: significance, originality, quality of research, sophistication of methodology, clarity of presentation, cogency of arguments, and contribution to the field of urban history. Membership in the UHA is not required. All works must be in English or in English translation. Late or incomplete submissions cannot be considered. Submissions will be considered incomplete unless a copy of the article is received by each of the three (3) award committee members by the deadline. Submissions must be accompanied by a single page providing the author’s current address, e-mail, and telephone number(s). Letters of recommendation and endorsement are discouraged. The winner will be announced in late summer 2017, with formal presentation of the award at the UHA biennial conference in Columbia, South Carolina, on October 18-21, 2018. The Urban History Association reserves the right not to award this prize.

Michael Katz Award for Best Dissertation in Urban History completed in 2017 (no geographic restriction)

The UHA will award a prize of $350 for the best dissertation in urban history with a completion date in 2017. To be considered, please submit three (3) copies of the dissertation, each containing information on where and when completed. All materials must be received by May 1, 2018.

Dissertations must be submitted by email as attachments in PDF format. Submit one copy of the dissertation directly to each member of the Katz Award committee:

 

Andrew Diamond
Sorbonne Université
Email: andrew.j.diamond@gmail.com

Lily Geismer
Claremont McKenna University
Email: Lily.Geismer@claremontmckenna.edu

Jim Wunsch
SUNY Empire State College
Email: muel1984@gmail.com

Criteria for selection for all awards: significance, originality, quality of research, sophistication of methodology, clarity of presentation, cogency of arguments, and contribution to the field of urban history. Membership in the UHA is not required. All works must be in English or in English translation. Late or incomplete submissions cannot be considered. Submissions will be considered incomplete unless a copy of the dissertation is received by each of the three (3) award committee members by the deadline. Submissions must be accompanied by a single page providing the author’s current address, e-mail, and telephone number(s). Letters of recommendation and endorsement are discouraged. The winner will be announced in late summer 2017, with formal presentation of the award at the UHA biennial conference in Columbia, South Carolina, on October 18-21, 2018. The Urban History Association reserves the right not to award this prize.

Featured image: Camus wins Nobel Prize, October 17, 1957, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress