Helene W. Koon Memorial Award

​​WSECS established this award as a tribute to the innovative scholarship, creative teaching, and generous spirit of Helene W. Koon, a scholar of eighteenth-century dramatic literature and professor of English at California State University, San Bernardino.

The WSECS Committee offers an award of $250 for the best paper presented at the annual conference by a graduate student, post doc, independent scholar, contingent or junior faculty member.  All nontenured delegates are encouraged to submit their papers via e-mail to the conference organizers no later than the Friday following the meeting.  Papers may not be longer than 2500 words plus notes.  The WSECS Committee will notify the winner, acknowledge the award on the society website, and present it at the following year’s conference.     

The 2019 WSECS Committee was pleased to confer multiple awards: 

First Prize: 'Ilaheva Tua'one (University of Utah), “Nocturnal Revelling: HMS Dolphin, The Story of the Ship That Lost Its Integrity”​
Second Prize: Anna Toledano (Stanford University), “Indefatigable Azara: A Spanish Naturalist in South America”​
Third Prize: Taylin Nelson (King’s College London), “‘Becoming an animal’: Shedding Humanity and Re-assuming Animality in Oliver Goldsmith’s Works”