The CCLA Esther Cheung Award goes to the best paper presented at the annual Congress by a graduate student, underemployed and early career (non-tenure-track) academic.

The Award was introduced in 2015 in honour of Dr Esther M. K. Cheung, who passed away on February 9, 2015, in Hong Kong. Dr Cheung was a pioneering figure in the field of Hong Kong studies and an important force in research on Hong Kong film, literature, and cultural studies. A respected poet and essayist, Dr. Cheung was also a “public intellectual,” known for her poetic evocations of Hong Kong as well as her insights into contemporary cultural phenomena. She chaired the Department of Comparative Literature for many eventful years and was active in professional circles in Hong Kong and internationally, including the Centre for the Study of Globalization and Cultures, which she headed. For more information on Dr. Cheung’s legacy, see http://arts.hku.hk/news/remembering-esther-cheung. A biography written by her husband, Thomas Au, can be found here. The award is valued at $250.

Past winners are:

2023 MARGOT MELLET (Université de Montréal) for “What Lies Under the Petites Mains: Reconsidering the Traditional Model of the Humanities.”

2022 SHLOMO GLEIBMAN (York University), for “Polyglot Desires in Classical and Modern Jewish Texts.”

2021 FLORA ROUSSEL (Université de Montréal), for “Affective In-between-ness: Dis/orienting Narrative Selves in Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater and Kanehara Hitomi’s AMEBIC.”

2020 LEE CAMPBELL (York University), for “‘It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing’: Jazz, Para-Audible Cadence, and Deep Listening in Cortázar’s Hopscotch”

2019 MATTHEW TÉTREAULT (University of Alberta), for “Literary Resistance? Situating a Métis National Literature”

2018 SOPHIE-CLAUDINE DESROCHES (Université de Montréal), for “‘This is Your Fourth Shore’: The Return of the Colonial Past in Antonio Tabucchi’s Piazza d’Italia”

2017 JEANNE MATHIEU-LESSARD (University of Toronto), for “The Eye, the Leg, the Moustache: Dismembering Humour”

2016 KATHRYN FRANKLIN (York University), for “Local Glamour? Engaging the Spaces, Challenges and Language of Glamour in Phyllis Brett Young’s The Torontonians”

2015 LOUIS-THOMAS LEGUERRIER (Université de Montréal), for “Ulysse au XXe siècle : un conflit entre deux capitals”