de gruyter brill / GSA dissertation prize

The Selection and Review Process and Schedule:

1. The prize will be announced during the annual banquet and subsequently via the GSA website, social media channels, and newsletter.
2. Submissions are received and processed by the GSA Operations Director and should be sent to: prizes@thegsa.org with a subject line that clearly identifies the submission.
3. Submissions are distributed by the Committee Chair among Committee members according to their areas of expertise.
4. The Committee produces a shortlist of a small number of submissions (approximately 7-8), primarily on the basis of applicant statements and supporting statements, and proposes one reviewer for each. If required, the Committee should meet to produce the shortlist.
5. Once all reviews have been received, the Committee will meet, either in person or via zoom/teams, to discuss the reports, and will be joined by a representative of De Gruyter. The scores provided by reviewers will be treated as indicative markers, and will not of themselves determine the relative ranking of submissions or the final outcome. Committee members may need to undertake a further substantive assessment of some submissions before the meeting. A final decision will then be made by the Committee (suggested deadline of August 1).
6. Winning applicants will then be notified by the GSA President. The Executive Director will then correspond with the winners to see if they will be attending the next GSA conference. If so, their win will be announced publicly during the annual banquet and their names included in the banquet program.
7. In recognition of their contribution to the process, all committee members will receive a free copy of the winning manuscript (upon publication) as well as a free copy of any De Gruyter Brill book of their choice, plus the standard De Gruyter author discount of 30% on all titles purchased from De Gruyter during the time they serve on the committee.

Rules and Regulations:

1. To be eligible, a submission must be a doctoral thesis. The thesis must have been completed, successfully defended, and accepted within the last two calendar years from the submission deadline. The thesis must have been submitted as part of the requirements for a doctoral degree at any university in the world.
2. The subject(s) covered by the submission should fall within the remit of GSA. The Prize Committee will make the final decision on whether submissions are of sufficient relevance.
3. De Gruyter will extend an offer to the winner to publish the award-winning dissertation after it has been revised into a publishable book manuscript, upon acceptance by De Gruyter, at the sole discretion of De Gruyter. The winner may choose to decline this offer.
4. An annual award ceremony will be organized at the GSA Annual Conference.
5. The GSA-De Gruyter Prize is open to GSA members from any country. There is no age limit.
6. Submissions are accepted in English only, and must adhere to internationally recognized standards and conventions of academic writing, including of transliteration. Entries must include:

• (a) A brief covering letter stating (i) the applicant’s name, (ii) contact details and (iii) GSA membership number, (iv) the dates of the defense and acceptance of the thesis at the awarding institution, and (v) the name(s) and contact details of the supervisor(s).
• (b) The manuscript. The minimum preferred word limit is 80,000 words. There is no maximum limit.
• (c) The applicant’s curriculum vitae of a maximum of 2 pages.
• (d) A statement, of a maximum of 750 words, summarizing the submission and highlighting its originality and contribution to the field.
• (e) A scanned copy of the formal confirmation of the completion, successful defense and acceptance of the doctoral thesis from the awarding institution. If in doubt about the nature of this document, please inquire at your institution.

Items a.-d. should be in PDF format. All files must contain the applicant’s surname in the file name. Documents must be submitted in one email to prizes@thegsa.org by 5.00 pm GMT, November 1* in any given calendar year in order to be considered for the prize to be awarded in the following calendar year (i.e., 1 November 2025 for the award given in September 2026, etc.).

The applicant should also arrange for the supervisor or another academic who is more senior than the applicant and is familiar with the submission to submit a supporting statement that highlights its contributions to the field. This should be submitted by the supervisor or senior academic confidentially and directly to prizes@thegsa.org by 5.00 pm GMT, 15 November*, in the same year the dissertation is submitted. The full name of the applicant should be stated in the title and subject line of the email.

*Please note that the 2025 deadline has been extended to December 31, 2025. 

Alexander Compton (Ph.D. Emory University, 2024), "Reinventing the Global Citizen: Afro-Asian Decolonization and the Politics of Integration"

Laudatio:

In his rigorous and innovative dissertation, “Reinventing the Global Citizen,” historian Alexander Compton examines how policymakers conceptualized integration in exchange programs with African and Asian students as part of projects reconstructing national political self-conceptions in both Germanies from the early post-war period through reunification. Compton traces how the balance in “collaborative integration” shifted from an early focus on reforming white Germans after National Socialism through contact with African and Asian students into a more one-sided notion of integration, framing foreign students’ “ capacity for integration” as a prerequisite for obtaining rights.

His account moves between the East and West to show the commonalities in approaches to the “care” and control of African and Asian students—albeit with different ideological trappings. On both sides of the wall, policymakers valued the crossing of borders and diversity as tools for converting German, African, and Asian students into idealized “global citizens,” so long as that diversity was regulated and, above all, temporary. This regulation and management revolved around fears of the political consequences of students demanding substantive equality as well as the development of “irrational” and “excessive” forms of intimacy in the form of interracial relationships with white German women. Officials used models of the family (homestays) and later the dormitory as a more centralized, and thus more easily state-regulated, space for exchange—partly to manage the aforementioned fears and partly out of concern that students’ experiences of racism while seeking housing on the open market could harm Germany’s global reputation. Significantly, Compton’s research shows how students understood and organized against these attempts at control.

Compton’s work effectively draws on an eclectic range of sources (newspapers, social science tracts, school records, policy documents, interviews, novels) to tackle a broad array of themes including race, migration, citizenship, human rights, sexuality, and the family. It is no less remarkable that Compton weaves all these elements together into a nuanced, accessible, and well-developed argument that tells us something new about the transnational dynamics of the Cold War and decolonization, particularly because the author lets us hear the students' voices rather than merely talking about them. Compton’s work demonstrates methodological originality by interrogating integration and diversity as concepts through a spatial-emotional register with remarkable empirical precision and attention to international relations. The significance of the contribution is also more than apparent, as the work is situated within recent trends in Germanist and Europeanist historiography yet goes well beyond them. It productively inserts both Germanies into a crucial global story they have mostly been left out of, all the while subtly conveying how this informs our contemporary moment.

2026 De Gruyter Brill / GSA Dissertation Prize Committee

• Kate Zambon, University of New Hampshire
• Rebecca Jordan, Bowdoin College
• Bradley Nichols, University of Missouri