Winners

Distinguished Editor Award

• 2022: Tina Chen, Verge: Studies in Global Asias
  
• 2021: Jean Lee Cole, American Periodicals
  
• 2020: Zong-qi Cai, editor of Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture; Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature; the Lingnan Journal of Chinese Studies
• 2019: Chon A. Noriega, editor of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 
• 2018: Susan Green, Huntington Library Quarterly
• 2017: Laura Stevens, Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 
• 2016: David Scott, Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 
• 2015: John Bryant, Leviathan
• 2013: Nicholas L. Sturgeon, Philosophical Review
• 2012: Robert L. Patten, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900
• 2011: John Serio, Wallace Stevens Journal
• 2010: Peter Holquist and Michael David-Fox, Kritika
• 2009: Ralph Cohen, New Literary History
• 2008: Ronald Bayor, Journal of American Ethnic History
• 2007: George D. Greenia, La Corónica and Holly Laird, Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature; Honorable Mention: Rick Emmerson, Speculum
• 2006: Carolyn Dinshaw and David Halperin, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies; Runner-Up: Donald G. Davis, Libraries & Culture; Honorable Mention: Marianne Hirsch, PMLA
• 2005: Joe Weixlmann, African American Review; Runner-up: Raquel Chang-Rodriguez, Colonial Latin American Review
• 2004: Eva-Marie Kröller, Canadian Literature
• 2002: Walter Cummins, Literary Review: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing
• 2000: Joseph T. Skerrett, Jr., MELUS
• 1999: Cathy N. Davidson, American Literature
• 1998: Henry W. Johnstone, Philosophy and Rhetoric
• 1997: Joseph M. Schwartz, Renascence
• 1996: Robert C. Post, Technology and Culture
• 1995: Valters Nollendorfs, Monatshefte; Runner up: John Peradotto, Arethusa
• 1994: Donald Lawler, Victorians Institute Journal; Runner-up: Joanne Dobson, Legacy
• 1993: Gary A. Olson, Journal of Advanced Composition; Runner-up: Richard J. Calhoun, South Carolina Review
• 1992: John W. Kronik, PMLA; Honorable mentions: Frank Lentricchia, SAQ; Charles Oliver, The Hemingway Review
• 1991: James Wilbur, Journal for Value Inquiry; Honorable Mention: Jim Raymond, College English
• 1990: John Stasny, Victorian Poetry
• 1989: Andrew Parkin
• 1988: Claude Rawson, Modern Language Review and The Yearbook of English Studies
• 1987: Philip Mitchell, Journal of English and Germanic Philology
• 1986: Jill Levenson, Modern Drama
• 1985: Lewis Simpson, Southern Review
• 1984: Donald Stanford, Southern Review
• 1983: Joel Conarroe, PMLA
• 1982: Blake Nevius, Nineteenth Century Fiction
• 1981: Helmut Gerber, English Literature in Transition (posthumous)

Best New Journal

• 2022: Winner: Journal of Autoethnography; Honorable Mention: Alon: Journal for Filipinx American and Diasporic Studies
• 2021: Global Perspectives; Honorable Mention: Ground Works
  
• 2020: Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture
  
• 2019: Feminist Modernist Studies and Rhetoric of Health & Medicine
• 2018: Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures
• 2017: ASAP Journal
• 2016: VERGE: Studies in Global Asias
• 2015: NAIS: Native American and Indigenous Studies
• 2014: Architecture and Culture
• 2012: History of the Present
• 2011: Interiors
• 2010: Literature in the Early American Republic; Honorable Mention: Black Camera
• 2009: Contemporary Women's Writing; Honorable Mention: Early Modern Women & Journal of Late Antiquity
• 2008: Community Literacy Journal
• 2007: Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation; Runner-Up: Studies in American Naturalism
• 2006: Literal; Runner-Up: Material Religion
• 2005: Labor; Runner-up: Latino Studies
• 2004: Partial Answers: A Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas
• 2003: American Journal of Bioethics
• 2002: Philosophia Africana
• 2001: Pedagogy
• 2000: The Hedgehog Review
• 1999: Book History
• 1998: Rhetoric and Public Affairs
• 1997: Feminist Economics
• 1996: Angelaki
• 1995: positions: east asia cultures critique; Runner-up: Modernism/modernity
• 1994: North Carolina Literary Review; Runner up: Journal of Information Ethics
• 1993: Narrative; Runner-up: American Short Fiction
• 1992: Public Culture; Honorable mentions: Colonial Latin American Literature, Joyce Studies Annual, Journal of Indigenous Culture
• 1991: Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies; Honorable mentions: Manoa, Hellas
• 1990: Journal of World History; Honorable mentions: Journal of Women's History, American Literary History
• 1989: The Yale Journal of Criticism
• 1988: The Gettysburg Review
• 1987: Portuguese Studies
• 1986: Studies in American Drama, 1945–Present
• 1985: Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies
• 1984: South Central Review
• 1983: Rhetorica

Best Special Issue

• 2022: Ground Works, “Vibrant Ecologies of Research,” guest edited by Aaron D. Knochel; Honorable Mention: biography (vol. 44, no. 2&3), "Graphic Medicine," guest edited by Erin La Cour and Anna Poletti

• 2021: American Literary History (vol. 32, no. 4), “Genealogies of Black Modernity,” edited by Gordon Hutner and Derrick Spires

• 2020: American Quarterly, vol. 71, no. 3, “Origins of Biopolitics in the Americas,” guest edited by Greta La Fleur and Kyla Schuller
  
• 2019: differences, “Sexual Politics, Sexual Panics”
• 2018: American Literature for the special issue on “Queer about Comics” and Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies for the special issue on “The Bible and English Readers;" Honorable mention: Victorian Literature and Culture for the special issue on “Keywords for Victorian Literature and Culture"
• 2017: Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, "Indigenous Conversations"
• 2016: American Quarterly, "Pacific Currents"
• 2015: positions: asia critique for the special issue on "reconsidering the 2006 MIT visualizing cultures controversy"
• 2014: Technology and Culture Architecture and Culture
• 2013: American Quarterly for the special issue on “Race, Empire and the Crisis of the Subprime” and Radical History for the special issue on “Water;" Honorable mention: New Literary History on “A New Europe?"
• 2012: Biography for the special issue on "Post Human Lives;" Honorable mentions: Symploke for the special issue on "Hunger" and Philip Roth Studies for the special issue on "Roth and Women"
• 2011: South Atlantic Quarterly; Honorable Mention: Material Religion
• 2010: GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies and positions: east asia culture critique
• 2009: American Quarterly; Honorable Mention: Radical History Review
• 2008: positions: war capital trauma
• 2007: African American Review, "The Curse of Caste;" Runner-Up: Eighteenth-Century Fiction, "War/La Guerre;" Honorable Mention: Fashion Theory, Vol.11, Issue 2/3
• 2006: College Literature, "Cognitive Shakespeare: Criticism and Theory in the Age of Neuroscience" and Representation, "Redress;" Runner-Up: Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, "Thinking through Cinema: Film as Philosophy;" Honorable Mention: Philosophia Mathematica, "Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) on Mathematics and Logic"
• 2005: Radical History Review; Runner-up: Public Culture
• 2004: Radical History Review
• 2003: GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
• 2002: Critical Inquiry
• 2001: Poetics Today
• 2000: Public Culture
• 1999: New Literary History
• 1998: American Literature
• 1997: Arizona Quarterly
• 1996: Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature
• 1995: Eighteenth-Century Life, "The South Pacific in the Eighteenth Century: Narratives and Myths;" Runner-up: Women's Studies Quarterly, "Working-Class Studies"
• 1994: American Literary History, "Curriculum and Criticism;" Runner-Up: North Dakota Quarterly, "Out of Yugoslavia"
• 1993: Social Research; Runner-up: College Literature
• 1992: Callaloo, "Haiti, The Literature and Culture;" Honorable mentions: Mosaic, Southwest Review, Strategies, Studies in Twentieth Century Literature, Romance Philology
• 1991: Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature; Honorable mentions: New Literary History, South Atlantic Quarterly, College Literature
• 1990: South Atlantic Quarterly , "The Politics of Liberal Education;" Honorable mentions: Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, "The New Philology"; New Literary History, "History and..."; Modern Fiction Studies, "Narratives of Colonial Resistance"; Exemplaria, "Reconceiving Chaucer"
• 1989: South Atlantic Quarterly, "Displacing Homophobia"
• 1988: Critical Inquiry, "The Sociology of Literature"
• 1987: New Literary History, "Studies in Historical Change"
• 1986: The Southern Quarterly, "Art and Artists: From a Southern Point of View"
• 1985: Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, "Feminist Issues in Literary Theory"
• 1984: Eighteenth Century Life
• 1983: Studies in Romanticism
• 1982: New Literary History, "On Convention: I"
• 1981: Critical Inquiry

Best Public Intellectual Special Issue

• 2022: The Hedgehog Review (Spring 2022), "Political Mythologies"
  
• 2021: Journal of Asian American Studies (24.1), #Wetoo: a Reader, guest edited by erin Khuê Ninh and Shireen Roshanravan
  
• 2020: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, vol. 63, no. 1, special issue on CRISPR, guest edited by Neal Baer
  
• 2019: Aztlan for “Gringo Injustice”
• 2018: The Hedgehog Review for the special issue on "The End of the End of History?" 
• 2014: SAQ
• 2013: Community Literacy Journal Special Issue for the special issue on “Writing Democracy;" Runners-up: Signs for the special issue on “Women, Gender and Prisons" and Journal of Women’s History for the special issue on “Human Rights, Global Conferences, and the Making of Postwar Transnational Feminisms”
• 2012: The Hedgehog Review for the special section on “Arab Spring”

Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial and/or Design Achievement

This award goes to the most improved journal, regardless of its state at the time the renovations began. A weak journal that has become excellent is eligible, but so too is an admired journal that manages to become dramatically better. Submissions must feature significant editorial change and may also feature change in design and other aspects of the journal's publication. Starting in 2020, the title and scope of this award changed to include Design achievement in addition to Editorial Achievement.

• 2022: The Hopkins Review
  
• 2021: Victorian Literature and Culture
  
• 2020: Simone de Beauvoir Studies; Honorable Mention: Voice and Speech Review
  
• 2019: Adoption & Culture
• 2018: Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
• 2017: Conradiana 
• 2016: Nineteenth Century French Studies
• 2015: Diálogo
• 2014: North Carolina Literary Review
• 2013: Public Culture and Translation Review
• 2012: Mediaevalia
• 2011: Exemplaria
• 2010: Writing Center Journal
• 2009: Revista Hispanica Moderna; Honorable Mention: Dutch Crossing
• 2008: English Language Notes
• 2007: Women's Studies Quarterly
• 2006: The Classical Outlook; Runner-up: Canadian Children's Literature; Honorable Mention: Italian Culture
• 2005: Virginia Quarterly Review; Runner-up: Modern Language Studies
• 2004: Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism
• 2003: Modernism/Modernity
• 2002: World Literature Today
• 2001: CR: The New Centennial Review
• 2000: JAC
• 1999: Composition Studies
• 1998: Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
• 1997: Connecticut Review
• 1996: The Comparatist
• 1995: Critical Matrix
• 1994: Tampa Review; Runner-up: Modern Language Quarterly
• 1993: Review: Latin American Literature and Arts; Runner-up: George Sand Review
• 1992: Arion; Honorable Mentions: Journal of Value Inquiry, Russian Review, Australian Journal of Communication, and INTI
• 1991: College Literature; Honorable Mentions: Studies in Canadian Literature Études en littérature canadienne, and Queen's Quarterly
• 1990: The Wallace Stevens Journal; Honorable Mention: Christianity and Literature
• 1989: Susquehanna University Review
• 1987: Revue André Malraux

Best Digital Feature

• 2022: The Abusable Past by Radical History Review
  
• 2021: CrossCurrents, "The Commons"
  
• 2020: Modernism/modernity Print Plus, Meridians “On the Line” (co-winners)
  

Archived Awards

Best Journal Design

This award was subsumed into the Phoenix Award for Editorial and Design Achievement in 2020.

• 2019: Bulletin of the Comediantes 
• 2018: Archives of Asian Art
• 2017: Southern Cultures
• 2016: ASAP Journal
• 2015: Journal of Mideast Women’s Studies
• 2014: Diacritics 
• 2012: German Studies Review
• 2010: North Carolina Literary Review; Honorable Mentions: La corónica and White House History
• 2008: Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy
• 2006: Southern Review; Runner-Up: Virginia Quarterly Review
• 2005: Hispanic Review; Runner-up: American Quarterly
• 2004: World Order
• 2003: Radical History Review
• 2002: Camera Obscura
• 2001: Theater
• 2000: Transition
• 1999: North Carolina Literary Review
• 1998: Signs
• 1997: Gettysburg Review
• 1996: Biblion: The Bulletin of the New York Public Library
• 1995: The Gettysburg Review; Runner-up: College Literature
• 1994: Parabola; Runner-up: Sycamore Review
• 1993: VIJ: Victorians Institute Journal; Runner-up: Critical Inquiry
• 1992: The Library Chronicle; Honorable mentions: American Literature, James Joyce Quarterly, Georgia Review, Gettysburg Review, and American Short Fiction
• 1991: Queen's Quarterly; Honorable mentions: Modern Philology, Prairie Schooner
• 1990: Women: A Cultural Review; Honorable mentions: Prairie Schooner, American Literary History
• 1989: Planet: The Welsh Internationalist
• 1988: The Gettysburg Review
• 1987: Southwest Review
• 1986: English Literary Renaissance
• 1985: Rhetoric Review
• 1984: Queens Quarterly
• 1983: Queens Quarterly
• 1982: Bulletin of Research in the Humanities
• 1981: Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Parnassus Award for Significant Editorial Achievement

In 2004, we began with the Parnassus Award for Significant Editorial Achievement and was sunset in 2020. This competition solicits a single issue, published within the previous 3 years, that constitutes an unusually high realization of the belletristic journal's mission in combination with application of the highest standards of "learned" editorial practice--understood to encompass editing for selection of high-quality content, compelling arrangement of contents, style, visual appeal and readability, etc.

• 2018: Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora
• 2017: Grist
• 2010: Interfaces
• 2007: Margaret D. Bauer, North Carolina Literary Review; Runner-Up: Richard Mathews, Tampa Review
• 2004: Virginia Quarterly Review

Codex Award

The recipient of the Codex Award is selected from journals covering the period before 1500. The journal can be in any discipline—history, literature, the arts, music, or any other field—or be interdisciplinary, and it can cover any area of that world as long as the majority of that coverage is in the 'ancient' or 'medieval' periods. The award is for distinction within this historical field, not necessarily for comprehensive coverage of it. This award was sunset after the 2019 MLA.

• 2019: The Journal of Late Antiquity  
  
• 2017: Journal of Early Christian Studies
• 2016: Arethusa
• 2015: postmedieval 
• 2014: Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
• 2013: Journal of Late Antiquity
• 2012: Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens

Voyager Award

The Voyager Award will recognize excellence in any journal covering the period between 1500 and 1800. The journal can be in any discipline—history, literature, philosophy, music, or any other field—or be interdisciplinary, and it can cover any area of that world as long as the majority of that coverage is in the early modern period. Specialized and general journals may apply; the award is for distinction within this historical period, not necessarily for comprehensive coverage of it. Journals covering, say, both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—or any version of 'the long eighteenth century' are eligible for this award. This award was sunset after the 2019 MLA.

• 2019: Eighteenth-Century Life
• 2017: Eighteenth-Century Fiction
• 2016: Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature
• 2015: Eighteenth-Century Studies
• 2014: SEL
• 2013: Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal
• 2011: Eighteenth-Century Fiction

Horizon Award

• 2010: MaComère; Honorable Mention: College Literature

Tallgrass Award

The Tallgrass Award honors the best journal in fields studying the North American continent (incl. Mexico) in all disciplines, including literature, history, politics geography, regional studies, and so on. A journal devoted to one American writer can qualify as can a journal covering a topic or subfield that is primarily addressed to north American locations. Journals publishing primarily fiction or poetry are excluded.

• 2010: MELUS