Yuan Changying Prize Winners 23/24!
GENDER.ED and the School of Social and Political Science’s Gender Politics Research Group are delighted to announce the winners and shortlist for the annual Yuan Changying Prize. Winning observations will be posted as a GENDER.ED blog series over the coming days.
Image Credit: Cultural Relics
The Yuan Changying Prize recognises outstanding ‘gender observations’ written by students (and nominated by tutors) in the pre-Honours course Understanding Gender in the Contemporary World. Gender observations require students to link material from the course to their own day-to-day experiences and observations. The prize is named after Yuan Changying in consultation with students, in recognition of the first female Chinese graduate in the University of Edinburgh’s history.
The 2023/24 winners of the Yuan Changying Prize are:
First Prize: Ariella Glaser (Year 1, MA Sociology and Politics): Killing Eve as the anti-spy thriller: subversions of gender and sexuality [nominated by Kanak Rajadhyaksha]
Jury comments on Ariella's piece: This is a nuanced and innovative analysis with sophisticated arguments, and a lucid and engaging assessment of how Killing Eve subverts spy thriller ‘tropes’, bringing in insights from gender studies and queer studies. The essay clearly went beyond the reading list, and synthesised literature in innovative ways, offering an original analysis with a wide-ranging discussion of gender. The committee were especially impressed with the conclusion which included a reflection on whether the ending destroys the work that has come before and was unusual in considering what kind of analytical space is opened up by the movie.
Second Prize: Harriet Marchand (Year 1, MA Politics): The Vibrator [nominated by Miklas Fahrenwaldt]
Jury comments on Harriet's piece: The panel felt this offered an excellent historical and geographical tracing of the gendered and racialised history of the vibrator. It crafted an original archive of historical and contemporary texts and developed a compelling analysis of gendered orders, labour, intersectionality, and showed gender as critical to capitalism. It demonstrated how a technological object can be both liberating, and work as a commodity built on women’s (racialised and classed) labour in the global economy. The committee were impressed by the critical reflection on whom the vibrator was aimed for, for whom it is liberatory and what privileges that belies.
Shortlisted Nominees:
Yamuna Sieber-Guht (Year 1, MA International Relations & International Law): An Analysis of Germany’s Feminist Foreign Policy [nominated by Alex Nevins]
Lucy Gardiner (Year 2, MA History): Masculinities and Femininities in ‘Barbie’ [nominated by Emilia Belknap]
Callum Wooster (CAHSS Visiting Student): Make Love, Do War: Gender in Bottoms [nominated by Ruth Griggs]
florrie Fuller (Year 1, MA English Literature): Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers [nominated by Rory Wilson]
Eliza Goldstone (Year 2, MA Geography): Masculinities and Femininities in The Bear [nominated by Victoria Amos]
Congratulations to all of the nominees, and to all Understanding Gender students for the superb work that you produced in the course – it has been a pleasure working with you this year!