Black Queer Studies Collection

Congratulations!

Congrats to the inaugural winners Black Queer Studies Student Awards!

Allen Porterie from Theater and Dance won the Roberts Graduate Award, and Jeremiah Baldwin from Government, Rhetoric & Writing, and AADS won the Hogan/Schell Undergraduate Awards.

And congrats to Alexandria Cunningham and Tolu Osunsade, who were awarded Honorable Mentions. Thanks to Hershini Young, Neville Hoad, Nessette Falu, and Lyndon Gill who served as faculty judges on the awards selection committee.

Check back in Fall 2023 to submit to next year's awards!

The UT Libraries is thrilled to announce the inaugural Black Queer Studies Student Awards. These awards will recognize, honor, and celebrate excellence in student scholarship and creative endeavors in the field of Black Queer Studies.

Awards

• The Monica K. Roberts Graduate Award, $1,200 (pre-tax).
• The Hogan/Schell Undergraduate Award, $800 (pre-tax).
• Winning submissions are eligible to be archived in the Texas ScholarWorks repository. Winners retain their copyright and can publish the work elsewhere.
• Winners will be honored at an annual reception and awards ceremony at the Perry-Castañeda Library in Spring 2023.

To Submit

• Please read the Eligibility, Submissions and Evaluation Criteria carefully.
• Submissions are due Friday, December 16 at 11:59 pm.
• To submit, you need to do two things:

1. Fill out this Google Form with your information and project abstract: https://bit.ly/BQSCAwardsForm
2. Send your submission as a file attachment to bqscawards@gmail.com 

Eligibility

• Submissions are limited to currently-enrolled students at UT Austin. Graduate or undergraduate students enrolled in any UT college/school are eligible.
• Submissions must be from the past two academic years, regardless of where the work was conducted (including at previous institutions).
• Previous winners are ineligible for reapplication for one academic year.

Submissions

• Submissions may take many forms but most will fall into two categories: academic/research projects and creative/non-traditional work. 
   
  • Academic/Research Projects: An eligible academic paper can be published or unpublished at the time of submission but must have been written in the last two academic years. Work from class assignments and work in-progress are acceptable, including thesis or dissertation chapters. Other academic projects include, but are not limited to, exhibits, practica, and capstones. Academic papers should include citations and references to works in the Black Queer Studies Collection, and projects such as exhibits or capstones should include a short, written treatise contextualizing the work and include citations from the collection.
     
  • Creative/Non-traditional Works: Eligible creative works include, but are not limited to, visual art, collections of poetry and creative writing, playscripts, recordings of music or creative performances, podcasts, or zines. Creative works must be accompanied by a cover letter, treatise and/or artist’s statement explaining and contextualizing the work along with citations and references to inspiration from works in the Black Queer Studies Collection. 

Evaluation Criteria

• Submissions must draw upon the body of work in the Libraries’ Black Queer Studies Collection and must include citations and references to books, films, works, or other materials in the collection. 
• Strong submissions demonstrate: Strong understanding of the field of Black Queer Studies; originality and critical analysis; grasp and execution of disciplinary methods of the student’s area of study (ethnography for anthropology, literary criticism for literary studies, photography for studio art, etc.)
• Previously published, exhibited, or performed work is eligible, as well as work submitted for other prizes. By submitting their work, applicants are confirming their intellectual property rights over their work.

Questions?

• Contact bqscawards@gmail.com

About Monica K. Roberts

The graduate award is named in honor of the late Monica Katrice Roberts (May 4, 1962 – October 5, 2020).  Known as the TransGriot (Gree-oh) a French term for West African jele/kevel/gewel/arokin — a storyteller, oral historian, and praise singing poet-musician — Ms. Roberts was an African-American blogger, journalist, archivist, online talk show host and trans human rights advocate. A native Houstonian, proud Texan and unapologetic Black Trans woman, she founded her blog TransGriot in 2006 to appropriately and respectfully document violence against and accomplishments within transgender communities globally, nationally and locally. Ms. Roberts used her blog to speak truth to power, discuss the world around her, share her passion for sports and foster understanding and acceptance of trans people especially within communities of color. Beyond her blog, her writing also appeared in various online and print publications including the Bilerico Project, Ebony.com, the Huffington Post and the Advocate. Among her many honors, she received the Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award (2015), the Robert Coles Call of Service Award (2016), a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Blog (2018), the Barbara Jordan Breaking Barriers Award from the Mayor of Houston (2019), and the Susan J Hyde Award for Longevity in The Movement from the National LGBTQ Task Force (2020). On the day of Ms. Roberts’ memorial service, Houston’s Mayor declared October 24 Monica Katrice Roberts Day. Her great legacy continues at https://transgriot.com/.

About Kristen Hogan and Lindsey Schell

The undergraduate prize is named for Kristen Hogan and Lindsey Schell, who founded the UT Libraries’ groundbreaking Black Queer Studies Collection in 2009-2010. At the time, Kristen was a graduate student at UT's School of Information, and she observed issues in library cataloging practice when describing race, sexuality, and gender. She approached Lindsey Schell, who at the time was the librarian for Women's & Gender Studies. They worked with UT faculty and other library staff to create a new description practice that made books by Black Queer and Trans authors more visible and discoverable in the library catalog. To learn more about the collection’s founding, please see this article by Kristen Hogan in the journal Progressive Librarian. 

Prize Funding

The prize money is dispersed through the UT Libraries, and primarily draws from the Black Queer Studies Collection Endowment, originally funded through a crowd-sourced fundraising campaign in 2021. Additional support for these awards and the Black Queer Studies Collection comes from the African and African Diaspora Studies Department, the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies, the Center for Women's and Gender Studies, and the English Department.