Awards

English Department Allen Grossman Award for Outstanding Honors Thesis 

  • Paige Mandia, 2024 - "'I often wonder who I am and where do I belong': Naming, Social Power, and Crises of Identity in the Novels of Jean Rhys"
  • Ethan Miller, 2022 - "Manhood in the Wake of Trauma: Hypermasculinity and Healing in The Things They Carried, Beloved, and The Sorrow of War"
  • Quinn Weiner, 2021- "The Polysemy of "Gender Identity" in Recent Sociological, Psychological, and Feminist Theory Journals"
  • Esther Bley, 2020- "Calamity Jane: Ain’t No Buckin’ Around, the Woman Who Wore Buckskin. A Thesis on the Adaptations that Mythologized and Developed a Character’s Queerness"

English Department Award for Outstanding English Essay

  • Rebecca Perlmutter, 2024 - "AITA for Watching The Bachelor? How Reality Television Reinforces Social Imbalances in the Name of Entertainment"
  • Max Wolff, 2022 - "Striking through the Pasteboard Mask: The Perils of Metaphysical Truth in the Gothic Tradition"
  • Siena DeBenedittis, 2021- "What if I’m in Charge of My Own Light Switch? What if I’m Not?: Maslow’s Theory of Self-Actualization in Stories of Twins Coming of Age"
  • Prue Ross, 2020- "'From thy State Mine never shall be parted': Divorce in Paradise Lost"

American Poets Honorary Prize

  • Rebecca Shpuntoff, 2024
  • Cayenn Landau, 2020
  • Sarah Terrazano, 2019, 2018
  • Imogen Rosenbluth, 2017
  • Jackson Holbert, 2016

Andrew Grossbardt '72 Memorial Poetry Prize

  • Riley Byers, 2024 - "in which illness is a dull red thing with feathers"
  • Jingyi Wang, 2023 - "Sour-Sweet Sonnet"
  • Armando Hazaveh Salazar, 2022 - "So It Goes: Circles"
  • Lissa Sangree-Calabrese, 2021- "Knight in the Rear-View Mirror"
  • Linfei Yang, 2020
  • Sarah Terrazano, 2019
  • Rachael Hershon, 2018
  • Margot Farnet, 2017
  • Ashley Simmons, 2017
  • Anna Massefski, 2017
  • Arielle Ballard, 2016

Andrew Grossbardt '72 Memorial Prize for Best Poem Published in a Brandeis Literary Journal

  • Rebecca Perlmutter, 2024 - "Walgreens"
  • Grace Danqing Yang, 2023 - "Unit 731"
  • Lila Goldstein, 2022 - "Good Mother"
  • Caroline O, 2021
  • Nico Léger, 2020 
  • Rebecca Kahn, 2018
  • Clayre Benzadon, 2017
  • Arielle Gordon, 2016

Andrew Grossbardt '72 Memorial Prize for Senior Thesis in Fiction

  • Emma Matthews, 2024 - "Little Miss Dysfunctionality and Other Unpretty Thoughts"
  • Lindsey Odorizzi, 2023 - "Tell Me What This Is"
  • Lily Darling, 2022 - "Not Forgiveness, but Something Close"
  • Isaac Haber, 2021- “Broken Seas”
  • Tafara Gava, 2020- "The Philosopher's Widow"
  • Hannah Sussman, 2019
  • Raphael Stigliano, 2018
  • Gwenyth Fraser, 2017
  • Ryan Molloy, 2016

Bernard H. Herman '08 Endowed Prize in Creative Writing

  • AJ Pesaro, 2024
  • Autumn Bellan, 2023
  • Sam Wachman, 2022
  • Nico Léger, 2021- identified patient 
  • Tafara Gava, 2020, 2018
  •  Kevin Costa, 2020
  • Otis Fuqua, 2019
  • Matthew Manning, 2017
  • Elaine Mancini, 2016

Boston Intercollegiate Poetry Showcase

  • Vivi Infante, 2024 - "The Cast of Grief"
  • Lindsey Odorizzi, 2023 - "Monotony"

Dafna Zamarripa-Gesundheit Fiction Award (Fiction, Laurel Moon)

  • Kenyatta David, 2024 - "Blueberry"
  • Lindsey Odorizzi, 2023 - "Lady's Home"
  • Katy Tanzer, 2022 - "Fade"
  • Isaac Haber, 2021- “Broken Seas”
  • Violet Fearon, 2020
  • Otis Fuqua, 2018
  • Santiago Montoya, 2017
  • Gwenyth Fraser, 2016

Dafna Zamarripa-Gesundheit Memorial Prize for a Senior Thesis

  • Cyrenity Augustin, 2024 - "New Horizons"
  • Linnea Pejcha, 2022 - "Some Other Young Girl"
  • Emi Cohen, 2021- “I Novel, You Novella: an Autobiography of Three People”
  • Abby Berkower, 2020- "Kainan na! (Time to Eat)"
  • Morgan Mayback, 2019
  • Sarah Duffett, 2017
  • Sam Yoo, 2016

Doris Brewer Cohen Award in the Humanities for Best Senior Thesis/Senior Essay

  • Irina Znamirowski, 2024 - "Beyond the Character: An Examination of Dissimulation and Metatheatre in Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Hamlet"

Dorothy Blumenfeld Moyer Memorial Award 

  • Autumn Bellan, 2023 - "What is Not Mine to Name"
  • Emily Riordan, 2022 - "What You Will and What you Cannot: Transgressions, Carnival, and Twelfth Night"

Ramon Feliciano Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets

  • Rachel Shpuntoff, 2024 - “Twelve years since the kidnap and murder that shook the country: the second trial begins”
  • Autumn Bellan, 2023 - "the barbary dove pays me a visit"
  • Lily Darling, 2022 - "skinny dipping in mid-june, there are nightfishers on the beach"
  • Lily Darling, 2021
  • Haley Brown, 2020
  • Rebecca Kahn, 2019
  • Sarah Terrazano, 2018
  • Jackson Holbert, 2017
  • Arielle Ballard, 2016

Renee B. Lang Prize in Literature, given yearly to recognize an outstanding senior honors project in a literature major

  • Amy Jarkow, 2023 - "The Black Bard Raps as Gaeilge: Analyzing the Irish language in Irish rap by Black artists"
  • Cassie Schifman, 2022 - "The Picture Isn't Dorian Gray: Cultural Uptake and Intertextuality in Oscar Wilde Adaptations"
  • Caroline Greaney, 2021- "Invisible Enemy, Visible Harm: Unearthing Traces of the 1918 Flu Pandemic in Tolkien’s Middle-earth"
  • Nyomi White, 2020- "50 Shades of Copyright: The Legality of Fanfiction in Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey"

Susan Mae Green Award for Creativity in Poetry and Photography

  • Autumn Bellan, 2023
  • Uma Jagwani, 2021- "Light Enters The Body As Questions"
  • Christine-Carolyn Calimlim, 2019
  • Jackson Holbert, 2017

Yakas Senior Thesis Award

  • Zach Katz, 2022 - "Legacy"
  • Arianna Arguetty, 2021- "Wonderland"
  • Nicole Zador, 2020- "The Family Myth"
  • Salena Deane, 2019
  • Dylan Hoffman, 2018
  • Rachel Dillon, 2017
  • Clayre Benzadon, 2017