We are pleased to announce that the 2009 Dru Whitaker Prize for a paper delivered at this year’s Pacific Rim Conference on Literature and Rhetoric goes to Don Unger for his presentation, “Navigating Third Space and the Construction of Hybridity Narratives.” Honorable mention goes to Monika Kurber for “Shared Memories: William Manchester, the Protest Essay, and the Process of Inclusion.”

We want to thank the graduate students who applied for this year’s prize. The pool of applicants was exceptional, making the choice particularly difficult. A panel of three English Department faculty members not directly associated with the conference made their decision according to the following criteria: quality and originality of scholarship, depth of scholarly research and interpretation, and clarity of ideas.

The Prize was created in 2007 in memory of Dru Whitaker, a graduate student in the UAA English Department’s Masters Program who was known for her academic integrity and love of learning. The Prize recognizes a graduate student from the UAA English Department who presents an essay of outstanding scholarship at the annual Pacific Rim Conference.

We are grateful to the Whitaker family and the English Department for their support and to the graduate students for their participation and excellent submissions from this year’s conference.

Rebecca Knighton, Theo Sery, and Jessie Nixon

2009 Pacific Rim Conference Co-directors