Philip M. Hicks and Susan Snyder Awards

2019 Hicks Prize for Literary Criticism

1^st Prize

Cee Howe ’19: “Twies a day it passed thurgh his throte”: The Aural and Oral Passages of the Prioress’s Tale

Honorable Mention

Leo Elliot ‘19: Ghosts of Fascisms Past and Future: Arendt, Orwell, and totalitarian language in Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story

The Hicks prizes are endowed by friends of Philip M. Hicks, former Professor of English and Chairman of the Department of English Literature. 

2019 Snyder Prize for Best Critical Essay by a First-Year Student

1^st Prize

Daria Syskine ’22: It’s Not About Mr. Collins: Charlotte’s Pursuit of Domestic Happiness

Honorable Mention

Keyan Shayegan ’22: Essay on the reading of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter

The Snyder prize is funded by the Department of English Literature in memory of Susan Snyder, distinguished Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature and Chairman of the Department.

More about the Susan Snyder Prize

Susan Snyder was a Renaissance scholar, and a valued teacher in the Department of English Literature at Swarthmore for 24 years.  Her  books include editions of A Winter’s Tale & All’s Well That Ends Well; an edited collection of essays on Othello; the monographs The Comic Matrix of Shakespeare’s Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear, 1979; Pastoral Process: Spenser, Marvell, Milton, 1998; and Shakespeare: A Wayward Journey, a collection of essays published posthumously in 2002.  The Snyder prize celebrates her dedication to the scholar’s life as a model for our students’ work in criticism.

2018 Hicks Prizes for Literary Criticism: Anna Weber (1st prize);  Colette Gerstmann and Willa Glickman (Honorable Mention)

 (1^st prize)

Anna Weber '19: The (Un)Comfortable Woman: Ugly Feelings in Erika Sánchez’s Poetry

(Honorable Mention)

Colette Gerstmann '18: A “Disappearing Act “: Jefferson, Chesnutt, and American Invisibility
Willa Glickman '18: Reality at the Point and Periphery in Stevens An Ordinary Evening in New Haven

2018 Snyder Prize for Best Critical Essay by a First-Year Student: Twan Sia and Sarah Wheaton (1st prize) and Shaoni White and Nicole Liu (Honorable Mention)

(1^st prize)

Twan Sia ‘21: Wisdom Beyond His Years: A Teen’s Reflection on Negritude
Sarah Wheaton ‘21: Towards an Honest Interpretation:  Cliché and Sarcasm in Eichmann in Jerusalem

(Honorable Mention)

Shaoni White ‘21: No Place Like Home: Oz as a Template for Imperialist Portal Fantasy
Nicole Liu ‘21: The Evolution of “Snow” in Winter Conception