Awards & Prizes
The George C. Casey Prize
The George C. Casey Prize awards $300 for the best undergraduate essay on any topic relating to the situation of gender and society. Papers written in any course, in any department or program within the university are eligible. Papers may not exceed 4,000 words, excluding notes and bibliography, and must be accompanied by a memo from the instructor of the course for which the paper was written attesting to the student's enrollment.
George C. Casey Prize recipients include:
2024 - Hannah Nemeth - "A History of Hormone Therapy and Its Controversy"
2023 - Finn Hurley - "Trans Friendship Exhibition"
2022 - Morgan Frost - "'I Am Equal to Anybody': White Feminism at Home & in the Workforce in the Mid- to Late-1900s"
2022 - Max Lubber - "No More Gender Trinary: The Danger of a 'Non-Binary Aesthetic'"
2021 - Lydia Weir - "Reasonable Accommodations: Biopolitics and Disclosure of AccessibleNU at Northwestern University"
2020 - Hannah Green - "Embodying Racism: How Radical Disparities in Infant Mortality Demand an Expanded Understanding of Reproduction"
2019 - Emma McDonnell - "Building an Affective Repertoire around the Abortion Task Force"
2018 - Kira Nutter and Emma Flanders - "Gendered Pitch: A Study of Habitual and Optimum Pitch in Relation to Gender"
2017 - Wesley Levers - "Capitalist Imperatives XXX: Genre Hybridity and Music in Pornographic Films."
2016 - Rebecca Ehrmann
2014 - Karen Chen
2014 - Paige Rotondo
2013 - Elyssa Cherney
2012 - D'Laney Gielow
2011 - Caitlin Johnson
2010 - Brittany Smith
2009 - Elizabeth Coffin-Karlin
2008 - Cora Leech
2007 - Poornima Yechoor
2006 - Corey Robinson
The Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs Prize
The Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs Prize is given to an outstanding senior thesis written in the Gender & Sexuality Studies Program.
Dobbs Thesis Award recipients include:
2024 - Henry Roach - "The Trans YA Boom 2016-2014"
2023 - Lucy Harrington - "The Good Lesbian: Media Representations of Queer Women’s Soccer Players in the United States"
2023 - Max Lubbers - "Butch ‘Resistance’ is ‘Persistence’: Butch Identity, Affect, and Temporality"
2022 - Sarah Eisenman - "'I still kinda don’t feel like enough': Trans*normativity, whiteness, and the diversity genderqueer & non-binary identities"
2020 - Maya Glenn - "Black Queer Women's Articulations of Masculinity and Femininity on YouTube"
2019 - Mattlyn Cordova - "Walking the Borderlands: A Framework of Trans* Latinx World-Making in Film"
2017 - Molly Benedict - "Formation of Gay Identities in Amman: Inclusive Spaces for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Individuals."
2016 - Sarah Moss - "Recuperating Monique Wittig through the 'Site of Action'."
2015 - Bea Sullivan-Knoff, for her thesis: "Shaping Bodies, Shaping Society: German Trans Law, the Effects of Socialization and Sex-Amending Legislation on Body Image and Health in the Trans Community."
2014 - Elyssa Cherney, for her thesis: "Kumari Worship in a Global World: Transnational Feminism and Nepal's Living Goddess."
2012 - Maggie Birkel, for her thesis: "Sin City South: Women's Sexuality in Unexamined Social Histories of New Orleans, 1965-1975" and Jennifer Piemonte, for her thesis: "Competing Norms: An Investigation of Sexual Scripts and the Double Standard in the College Campus Hookup Culture."
2011 - Samantha Turner, for her thesis: "Can't Get No Satisfaction: Feminist Responses to the Biomedicalization of Female Sexual Dysfunction."
2010 - Margaret Pke, for her thesis entitled "Something To Get Off My Chest: Bras & Binders in the Construction of Genders."
2009 - Ashley Keyser, for her thesis entitled "Songs of Exceeding the Self: Mark Doty's Queer Visionary Poetics"
2008 - Katherine Gorringe, for her thesis entitled “When She Sings, I Hear Revolution: Radical Feminist Demands on Women in Popular Music, 1969-1973.”
2007 - Jessica Mathiason, for her thesis entitled "Trans Hollywood Blockbusters and the Genital Reveal."
2006 - Abigail Rogosheske, for her thesis entitled "Pineapples and Politics: Ugandan Women and the Road to Empowerment."
2005 - Thanh Nguyen, a senior History/Gender Studies Major, won both the 2005 George C. Casey Prize for best undergraduate essay and the 2005 Dobbs Prize her thesis, entitled "Beyond Borders: Brides, Grooms, & Brokers in Viet-Dai Marriages."
The Rae Arlene Moses Leadership Award
In honor of her career-long dedication to women at Northwestern, the Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, along with its affiliates and friends, established the Rae Arlene Moses Leadership Award in Gender & Sexuality Studies. The award is presented each spring to a graduating senior who has fostered initiatives and demonstrated leadership, both within the classroom and in co-curricular activities sponsored by the Gender & Sexuality Studies program.
Moses Leadership Award recipients include:
2024 - Isabel Funk and Julie Monteleone
2023 - Harriet Fardon
2022 - Pamela Chen
2021 - Kenny Allen and Amy Prochaska
2020 - Adam Davies
2019 - Brock Colyar and Neil Dixit
2018 - Sophie Spears and Yamari Lewis
2017 - Jenna Perlstein
2016 - Tristan Chiruvolu
2015 - Elizabeth Bohl
2014 - Tessa Owens
2013 - Camille Beredjick and Tristan Powell
2012 - Cat Hammond
2011 - Jodi Savitz
2010 - Chistine Stiehl and Margaret Pike
2008 - Sharlyn Grace
2007 - Julie Keller and Jessica Mathiason
2006 - Corey Robinson
2005 - Annie Lee
Honors in Gender Studies
Gender & Sexuality Studies majors can choose to write a thesis in their senior year. Outstanding theses are awarded honors by the Gender & Sexuality Studies Honors Committee.
2022 honors thesis included:
- Sarah Eisenman's "'I still kinda don’t feel like enough': Trans*normativity, whiteness, and the diversity genderqueer & non-binary identities"
2020 honors theses included:
- Maya Glenn's "Black Queer Women's Articulations of Masculinity and Femininity on YouTube"
- Eliza Levy's "The Ethics of State-Sanctioned Monitoring: How Gender, Sexuality, & Class Shape the Citizenship of Welfare Mothers"
2019 honors thesis included:
- Mattlyn Cordova's "Walking the Borderlands: A Framework of Trans* Latinx World-Making in Film"
2018 honors theses included:
- Ying Han’s “Creating New Spaces of Being: How Gender, Sexuality, and Love are Deconstructed in the Shojo Manga Hanakimi”
- Sylvia Regan’s “Young, Gay & Proud"
2017 honors thesis included:
- Molly Benedict, "Formation of Gay Identities in Amman: Inclusive Spaces for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Individuals."
- Beatrice Hagney, "From Virtue to Beauty: Shifting Images of Ideal Womanhood in Popular Medical Advice Texts and Women's Magazines in Victorian England"
2016 honors thesis included:
- Sarah Moss, "Recuperating Monique Wittig throug the 'Site of Action'."
2015 honors theses included:
- Elizabeth Bohl, "Problematizing Victimhood: The failure of the state and the commercial sexual exploitation of minors"
- Emily Karpinski, "The Apatow Bromance as a Rearticulation of Masculinity"
- Jennifer Katz, "Hook Up and Rape ‘Cultures’: Recovering Power Relations in the Discourse of Sexual Assault on College Campuses"
- Emily Mannheimer, "From Wishes to Princes: Disney’s Response to Popular Notions of Feminism in the Production of Princess Films"
- Bea Sullivan-Knoff, "Shaping Bodies, Shaping Society: German Trans Law, the Effects of Socialization and Sex-Amending Legislation on Body Image and Health in the Trans Community"
2014 honors theses included:
- Elyssa Cherney, "Kumari Worship in a Global World: Transnational Feminism and Nepal's Living Goddess"
- Samantha Sainsbury, "Fulfillment, Regulation, and Moderation: Defining the sex-positive community on edenfantasys.com"
- Riley Smith, "Navigating Healthcare from the Margins: Healthcare experiences of lesbian and bisexual women in Cape Town, South Africa"
2013 honors theses included:
- Camille Beredjick, "Pride and Politics:The Sociopolitical Implications of Gay Pride Parades"
- Jeff Cattel, "Seeing Ellen in Frank Ocean: Assessing the Legibliity of Celebrity Comings Out"
- Zach Wichter, "Gay YouTube: Gay Appropriation of Queer Identity on Campus"
2012 honors theses included:
- Maggie Birkel, "Sin City South: Women’s Sexuality in Unexamined Social Histories of New Orleans, 1965-1975"
- Jennifer Piemonte, "Competing Norms: An Investigation of Sexual Scripts and the Double Standard in the College Campus Hookup Culture"
2011 honors theses included:
- Jodi Savitz, "A 'Haute' Shade of Lipstick: Locating a Femme-Centric Community of Latina Lesbians in Miami, Florida"
- Samantha Turner, "Can't Get No Satisfaction: Feminist Responses to the Biomedicalization of Female Sexual Dysfunction"
2010 honors theses included:
- Samuel Levy, "The Post-capitalist Turn: Feminist Materialism and Subcultural Politics"
- Keith Miller, "Krumping and Voguing As A Means to an End: A New Outlook on Dance, Identity Politics, the Creation of Safe Space, and the Transformative Politics of Spirituality"
- Margaret Pike, "Something To Get Off My Chest: Bras and Binders in the Construction of Genders"
- Rachel Rys, "The Category "Queer": or How do we Construct Infidel Heteroglossias in the Globalized Genderscape?"
2009 honors thesis was:
- Ashley Keyser, "Songs of Exceeding the Self: Mark Doty's Queer Visionary Poetics."
2008 honors theses included:
- Katherine Gorringe, “When She Sings, I Hear Revolution: Radical Feminist Demands on Women in Popular Music, 1969-1973.”
2007 honors theses included:
- Jessica Mathiason, "Trans Hollywood Blockbusters and the Genital Reveal"
- Rupali Sharma, "Colonial Myths, Gendered Realities and Hyphenated Identities: An Analysis of Muslim-American Women's Veiling Practices after 9/11"
- Poornima Yechoor, "Can the HIV-postive Hindu Woman Speak?: Sex, Tradition, and AIDS in Contemporary Bollywood Cinema"
All of these excellent theses are available for reading in the Gender & Sexuality Studies library.