Ruggiero Outstanding Dissertation Award

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This annual award, which carries a $500 prize, was established with the support of Guido Ruggiero, Professor of History, in memory of his brother, David John Ruggiero. 

For Guido Ruggiero's career, please see HERE.

Each spring, the Center invites faculty to submit nominations. Ph.D. graduates who have completed an outstanding dissertation in any humanities discipline may be nominated, regardless of the specific topic or timeframe covered.  Full details can be found in the Guidelines document below. 

Ruggiero Dissertation Award 2022 Guidelines / 2023 Guidelines TBA

2022 WINNER OF THE DAVID JOHN RUGGIERO DISSERTATION AWARD

Gabriela Andrea Faundez Rojas (Department of History)

Gabriela Faundez Rojas’s dissertation, “Conquest and Hagiography: Rewriting Saints after the Norman Conquest,”    is a sophisticated and nuanced study of Anglo-Saxon hagiographies. It demonstrates how seemingly minor shifts in the content, structure, or topics of medieval hagiographies reflect larger cultural, political, social, and religious changes unfolding in the wake of the Norman Conquest of 1066. Thoroughly interdisciplinary, “Conquest and Hagiography” draws from historical, literary, and religious studies to make   an important argument about the survival of early medieval religious cults into the twelfth century, which were embedded within the changing landscape of a post-Conquest world.      The dissertation is notable for the skilled, close readings of source texts, the rich theoretical frameworks it brings to bear on the archive, and a deep engagement with secondary literature. With clear, succinct prose and a careful eye toward changing histories, “Conquest and Hagiography” is an important work that is sure to attract scholarly attention.