The Religious Studies Graduate Group is delighted to announce the winners of our annual research awards!
Sana Rizvi, a PhD student in Religious Studies, has won the 2025 graduate Ibn Sina Prize for her paper The Weight of Remembrance: Affect and Power in Twelver Shi’ism. The paper argues for a deeper attention to the emotional registers of Shi'a tradition and practice. One reviewer praised it as "a piece written with real intellectual passion, which infuses its insights and draws out the urgency of its conclusions."
Kirby Sokolow, a PhD candidate in Religious Studies, has won the 2025 Khyentse Prize for her paper Buddhist Exceptionalism Behind Bars. One reviewer described the article as “extensively researched and brilliantly argued.” The article has already been accepted for publication and is forthcoming in Pacific World.
Jeremy Steinberg, a PhD candidate in Religious Studies, has won the 2025 graduate Merle Saunders Schaff Prize for his paper, A Feminist Analysis of Esther as Depicted in the Septuagint Additions, which considers avenues to deepen feminist engagement with the book of Esther by considering textual variants. A reviewer wrote "the paper is methodical, pointed, and exceptionally clear."
Recipients will formally receive their awards at the Religious Studies End of Year Celebration on May 1, 2025.
Congratulations, Sana, Kirby, and Jeremy!