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Congratulations to Professor Alexander Manshel for being awarded听The Barbara Perkins and George Perkins Prize!

2026 Perkins Prize Citation:

础濒别虫补苍诲别谤听惭补苍蝉丑别濒鈥檚听Writing Backwards: Historical Fiction and the Reshaping of the American Canon听offers a striking example of the power that cultural history can lend to narrative studies, and vice-versa.听Manshel鈥檚 truly illuminating innovation is to take an idea that has long been current in literary studies鈥攖hat the values and ideologies reflected in literature are historical phenomena鈥攁nd apply it specifically to the question of literary听form. In doing so, it helps establish a kind of historical narratology as a viable alternative to both the specificity of close reading and the abstraction of more distant or digital methods. Rather than seeing genres as more or less timeless conventions,听Manshel听shows how the question of narrative form is inevitably connected to a complex and changing interplay of historical contexts: prizes, publishers, syllabi, and academic trends and debates. At the center of听Manshel鈥檚 project is a fascinating story about how one particular type of narrative, historical fiction by minority writers, became 鈥渃ontemporary literature鈥檚 most prestigious and politically potent genre鈥� in the past five decades. But the thrill of this study is methodological, showing us how we might go about determining when and why certain narrative forms, techniques, and genres acquire cultural salience or value amidst larger historical currents. In further opening the connection between literary form and literary history听Manshel鈥檚 study offers not only innovative readings of individual texts but a brilliant account of how (and what, and why) we read now.