Since 1902, the University of Sydney has been offering literary prizes across various disciplines to encourage scholarship in a particular subject area and recognize outstanding work produced by undergraduates, postgraduates, and academic staff alike. Submission requirements typically require writing pieces such as essays and poems on nominated topics submitted under a pseudonym; prizes are then typically distributed by its Academic Board unless otherwise indicated.
Students studying art history and architecture may submit an original research paper or essay addressing any given topic in art history. Their essay should show they have made significant contributions to research into it and be written in English. This prize is named in memory of Professor Sidney Thomas (1915-2009), an exceptional educator, scholar, administrator who tirelessly championed its study at the University. It is administered by the Art History Department.
The Sidney Hillman Foundation seeks to shed light on some of the greatest issues of our time: such as finding a stable basis for global peace, increasing access to housing, medical care and employment security for all, advocating civil liberties and democracy as well as combatting race or religious-based discrimination. Each month it awards Hillman prizes for journalism from America and Canada respectively as well as an investigative journalism prize that advances common interests.
Dr. Emily Michelson from University of St Andrews has been recognized with the 2023 Sidney E. Mead Prize presented annually by Society for Church History for her book Catholic Spectacle and Rome’s Jews: Early Modern Conversion and Resistance (Princeton University Press 2022). This prize recognizes an advanced graduate student or recent PhD who has written an article that advances knowledge of Christianity while contributing to Church History as a discipline more broadly.
Ender Baskan of Vre Books was awarded the 2021 Judith Wright Poetry Prize this month during Melbourne’s Overland Writers and Readers Festival by judges Patrick Lenton, Alice Bishop and Sara Saleh for his poem ‘are You Ready?’ He was joined in his victory by two runners-up Miriam Webster and Mikee Donato Sto Domingo.
Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize seeks “outstanding, original short fiction loosely themed around travel”. Supported by Malcolm Robertson Foundation and open to writers at all stages of their careers, its winner will receive $5000 plus having their work published in Overland; two runners-up will each be presented with $750 prizes.
The Langhorne Medal at the University of Sydney honors one of its eminent medieval history and humanities scholars from 1854 onwards, Sir Samuel Langhorne. Today it remains among its most esteemed awards at the university.