Zumkehr Prize

2021 Zumkehr Prize Winner

The 2021 Zumkehr Prize for Scholarship in Public Memory has been awarded to Ñusta Carranza Ko, Assistant Professor of Global Affairs and Human Security in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore, USA. Professor Ko earns both a $2000 prize and an invitation to share her work in a public lecture at Ohio University during the 2021-22 academic year.

The Zumkehr Prize, supported by the Charles E. Zumkehr Professorship in Communication Studies at Ohio University, was awarded to the best article published in 2020 on a topic related to the study of public memory. Professor Ko’s article, “South Korea’s Collective Memory of Past Human Rights Abuses,” was published in the December 2020 issue of the journal Memory Studies.

Professor Ko’s research compared the findings of the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s investigation into past human rights abuses in that country and the national history textbook’s treatment of those abuses. Professor Ko concluded that the state-sponsored textbook’s “decision to emphasize one truth over another contradicts the [commission]’s efforts at straightening the distorted history of Korea’s human rights abuses. . . . In other words, recovering the dignity of victims through the production of truth commission based memory has been placed secondary to that of political interests.”

The jury for this year’s prize competition praised Professor Ko’s work because it “demonstrates the interrelationships among memory, politics, education, and reparative justice.” Moreover, her work “bears potential implications, not only theoretically, but practically, perhaps even politically, not only for Korea but for other contexts as well.”

In addition, the judges commended the work of the runners-up in this year’s competition. Erica Lehrer (Concordia University, Canada) and Roma Sendyka (Jagiellonian University, Poland) were recognized for their article, “Arts of Witness or Awkward Objects? Vernacular Art as a Source Base for ‘Bystander’ Holocaust Memory in Poland,” which was published in Holocaust Studies.

The competition for this year’s prize, offered under the auspices of the Zumkehr Professorship, reflected the international and interdisciplinary study of public memory. A total of 27 articles were nominated for the prize. Those articles were published in 19 different journals and written by authors from 10 different countries (Canada, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, United Kingdom, and United States) who work in 10 different disciplines (Communication, Culture/Media, Economics, English, Geography, History, Journalism, Political Science, Slavic and Eastern European Studies, and Social Sciences and Historiography).

Three scholars served as the jury for this year’s competition: Patricia Davis, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University, USA; Steve Hanna, Professor of Geography at University of Mary Washington, USA; and Jocelyn Martin, Assistant Professor of English at Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines.

For more information, please contact: Dr. Roger C. Aden, Charles E. Zumkehr Professor of Communication Studies, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701. aden@ohio.edu

2020 Zumkehr Prize Winners

The 2020 Zumkehr Prize for Scholarship in Public Memory has been awarded to a team of researchers from seven universities in the United States. Members of the winning team will share the $2000 prize and the team’s lead researcher, Stephen Hanna, will be invited to share the team’s work in a public lecture at Ohio University during the 2020-21 academic year.

The Zumkehr Prize, supported by the Charles E. Zumkehr Professorship in Communication Studies at Ohio University, was awarded to the best article published in 2019 on a topic related to the study of public memory. This year’s winning article, “Following the Story: Narrative Mapping as a Mobile Method for Tracking and Interrogating Spatial Narratives,” was written by Stephen P. Hanna (University of Mary Washington, USA), Perry L. Carter (Texas Tech University, USA), Amy E. Potter (Georgia Southern University, USA), Candace Forbes Bright (East Tennessee State University, USA), Derek A. Alderman (University of Tennessee, USA), E. Arnold Modlin (Norfolk State University, USA), and David L. Butler (Middle Tennessee State University, USA), and published in the Journal of Heritage Tourism.

The prize judges lauded this article’s cutting-edge methodological approach to the study of public memory places, which, according to one judge, “provides an example researchers in public history may usefully employ at other public history sites.” Added another judge, “Its innovative approach to the study of heritage sites is a model for future research.” “Narrative mapping,” noted the third judge, “will surely transform the study of public memory through its application to a variety of case studies and deep sensitivity to space, storytelling, and historical curation.”

In addition, two articles were honored with honorable mention designations. Erica Lehrer (Concordia University, Canada) and Monika Murzyn-Kupisz (Jagiellonian University, Poland) were recognized for their article, “Making Space for Jewish Culture in Polish Folk and Ethnographic Museums,” which was published in Museum Worlds and Sokol Lleshi (University of New York Tirana, Albania) was recognized for his article, “Reconstructing the Past in a State-mandated Historical Memory Institute: The Case of Albania,” which was published in European Politics and Society.

The competition for this year’s prize, the first offered under the auspices of the Zumkehr Professorship, reflected the international and interdisciplinary study of public memory. A total of 20 articles were nominated for the prize. Those articles were published in 19 different journals and written by authors from eight different countries (Albania, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, United Kingdom, and United States) who work in nine different disciplines (Anthropology, Communication, English, Geography, History, Latin American Studies, Modern Languages, Political Science, and War Studies).

Three scholars served as the jury for this year’s competition: Patrick Hagopian, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Lancaster, UK; Nicole Maurantonio, Associate Professor of Rhetoric & Communication Studies and American Studies at the University of Richmond, USA; and Kirt H. Wilson, President of the Rhetoric Society of America, Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and African American Studies, Pennsylvania State University, USA.