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English Professor Awarded Shakespeare Association of America’s Dissertation Prize

Sarkar, DebapriyaCONWAY, Ark. (March 31, 2015) – Hendrix College Assistant Professor of English, Dr. Debapriya Sarkar was recently awarded the 2015 J. Leeds Barroll Dissertation Prize from the Shakespeare Association of America.

The award recognizes doctoral work with a significant Shakespeare component. 

Sarkar was honored for “Possible Knowledge: Forms of Literary and Scientific Thought in Early Modern England,” her Ph.D. dissertation from Rutgers University.

“I am thrilled to receive the J. Leeds Barroll Dissertation Prize. It is an honor to have the project recognized by scholars in early modern studies,” said Sarkar. “The Shakespeare Association of America has served as an invaluable space of intellectual and professional growth for me; it is very welcoming of junior scholars and graduate students, and it provides opportunities for collaboration and support at all stages of our writing lives.”

“It is particularly exciting to receive this prize because several of the dissertation chapters were originally written as seminar papers for annual meetings of the SAA,” she added. “I am grateful for all the feedback at the conference that enabled the dissertation to take its final form, and I am looking forward to many more conversations as I revise this project into a book.”

Founded in 1972, the Shakespeare Association of America is “a non-profit professional organization for the advanced academic study of William Shakespeare’s plays and poems, his cultural and theatrical contexts, and the many roles he has played in world culture.” For more information, visit www.shakespeareassociation.org.

About Hendrix

Founded in 1876, Hendrix College is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education. This year, Hendrix was named the country’s #1 “Up and Coming” liberal arts college and #8 in the nation for “Best Undergraduate Teaching” by U.S. News and World Report.  Hendrix is featured in the 2015 Fiske Guide to Colleges, Forbes magazine's list of America's Top Colleges, the 2014 Princeton Review’s The Best 378 Colleges, and the latest edition of Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think about Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit www.hendrix.edu