The 2025 Essay Prize

What is the Essay Prize? 

The Essay Prize is awarded once each academic year for a particularly well-argued, thoroughly researched, and eloquently written student paper. Students may submit their papers in the fall according to the guidelines below. (Lecturers are also encouraged to nominate students or invite them to submit their work.)

The winner will be notified by email, announced in December, and celebrated on our departmental website. The prize also includes a 30 € book voucher sponsored by buchbar Erfurt.

How to submit your paper?

Papers eligible for the award include essays written in the fields of American and/or British literatures and cultures during the academic year 2024/25 (October 2024 – September 2025). Submissions may take both traditional (textual analysis) and non-traditional forms (alternative methods or subjects). BA theses are also eligible. Each student may submit one essay under the terms described below:

• Please only submit clean copies (without instructors’ comments but also without any further revision on your part).
• Include a cover page, which states “2024 Essay Prize Competition,” the date of submission, the title of the course and name of instructor, your own name and pledge.
• For the pledge on the cover page, please write out this variation of the honor code and sign it (if submitting via email, include a digital signature): “I pledge that I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid during the completion of this work. I am submitting an identical copy of the original, with no other changes except this title page, and (if they were missing from the original) numbers on the upper right-hand top of the page, and MLA documentation of all sources in a Works Cited page.”  

To submit, please send a pdf-copy of your paper to Verena Ferda: verena.ferda@uni-erfurt.de
The deadline for submission is November 14, 2025.

We would like to thank our sponsors at buchbar Erfurt for their generous support!