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There is no good general
history of prizes and awards. Some of the major individual prizes, including
the Nobels, Pulitzers, and the Booker Prize, have spawned fairly detailed
studies; literary prizes seem on the whole to have been more written about
than prizes of other kinds. The thousands of newspaper and magazine
articles about prizes are mostly publicity pieces posing as news or tediously
repetitive attacks on the crassness and inappropriateness of the whole prize
industry. There is very little in the way of serious historical or sociological
study of this subject.
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Awards,
Honors & Prizes.
14th Edition. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997. The
most complete index of prizes and awards currently available.
One
volume covers the U.S.; a second
volume covers international prizes. |
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Billot, Diane,
ed. Money for Writers: grants, awards, prizes, contests,
scholarships, retreats, resources, conferences, and Internet information.
New York: H. Holt and Co., 1997. A useful, up-to-date listing of
awards, prizes, and etc. for writers in all genres. In
stock at Amazon.com |
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Braudy, Leo.
The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and its History. New
York: Oxford UP, 1987.
Not a study of awards as such, but an important work on the rise
of celebrity and the changing nature of prestige, with considerale
relevance to the world of prizes. Available in Hardcover
and in Paperback.
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Corse, Sarah M.
Nationalism & Literature: The Politics of Culture in Canada
& the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.
Contains a chapter comparing the role of literary prizes in Canada
and the U.S. Interesting work by a young sociologist. This
title usually ships within 2-3 days. |
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Espmark, Kjell.
The Nobel Prize in Literature: A Study of the Criteria
behind the Choices. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co.,
1986. Uncritical but informative look behind the scenes of the Nobel
in literature, funded by the Swedish Academy. This
title usually ships within 24 hours. |
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Gebert, Michael.
The
Encyclopedia of Movie Awards. New York: St. Martins,
1996.
Massive listings of award winners, including the film festivals
and even the Golden Raspberry Awards. |
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Goff, Martin, ed.
Prize Writing: An Original Collection of Writings by Past Winners to Celebrate
21 Years of the Booker Prize (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989).
Goff is brilliantly successful administrator of the Booker Prize; his methods
have been widely emulated. Goffs introduction to this volume is
the closest thing to an official history of the Booker. |
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Hitchens, Christopher.
"These Glittering Prizes." Vanity Fair 56 (January 1993).
There are many
hundres of journalistic attacks on book prizes which lament their supposedly
deleterious effect on literary culture. This is one of the wittiest.
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Hohenberg, John.
The Pulitzer Diaries: Inside Americas Greatest Prize.
Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1997. Enjoyable
memoir of a longtime administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes.
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Odendahl, Teresa
Jean. Charity Begins at Home. New York: Basic
Books, 1990. A
simplistic but widely read study of philanthropy, which argues for the
essentially self-interested behavior of those whose wealth supports fellowships,
awards, and grants, as well as other instruments of seeming generosity.
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Ostrower,
Francie. Why the Wealthy Give: The Culture of Elite
Philanthropy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1995. Another
study of philanthropy and cultural prestige. A subtler, though
also less critical, book than Odendahls. Available in Hardcover
and in Paperback.
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Shaw, David.
Press Watch: A Provocative Look at How the Newspapers Report the
News (New York: Macmillan, 1984). Contains
the most convincing expose of the Pulitzer Prizes (pp 184-215). For
a softer treatment, see Hohenberg. |
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Sutherland, John.
"The Bumpy Ride to the Booker, 1981", Times Higher Education Supplement,
October 30, 1981. The
best brief history of Britains most prestigious book prize. |
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Wiley, Mason, and
Damien Bona. Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History
of the Academy Awards. 10th Anniversary Edition. New York:
Ballentine, 1996. The most reliable and well written of the many
Oscar annuals. Review:
 |
Compiled
by Jim English
University of Pennsylvania
School of Arts and Sciences
Department of English
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6273
Telephone: 215-898-7341
Fax: 215-573-2063
jenglish@actuality.sas.upenn.edu |
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