Giller-Sagan WGS Senior Paper Prize

Alexandra Thomas speaks at the 2018 WGS award ceremony and commencement reception

Alexandra Thomas, co-winner of the 2018 Giller-Sagan WGS Senior Paper Prize

The Giller-Sagan Prize was established in 1982 by Frimi and Eli Saga, in honor of the grandmothers of Susannah Sagan '81. Sadie Giller and Esther Sagan left the shtetl in their teens and came to America in search of a full and complex life. The prize is awarded each year to a senior major or minor for the finest Women's, Gender and Sexuality studies class paper (including essays and theses) written in their tenure at Brandeis.

Recent Award Recipients

Prize Year Recipient Paper
2022-23 Hailey Hansen-Osborne "The Cultural Coercion and Minimization of Gender '(Micro)aggressions'"
2021-22 Eva Bohn " 'What Else Can We Do?' Casa Myrna's Sacrifices in a Carceral Climate."
2020-21 Jay Collay "Unnatural Histories: Selected Themes of English-Language Queer Histories Before 1969"
2019-20 Polina Potochevska "The Dangers of Female Reading in the 19th Century"
2018-19 Gaby Sandor, co-winner "In Pursuit of Intimate Justice(s): The Critical Implication of Rethinking Sexual Deservingness and Consent"
2018-19 Ariella Levisohn, co-winner "You Know Yourself, You're Not Gonna Do That:" How Modern Orthodox Teens Learn About and Navigate Norms of Sexual Conduct
2017-18 Yael Jaffe, co-winner "Shuley, Shulie, Shulamith: The Evolution of Shulamith Firestone"
2017-18 Alexandra Thomas, co-winner "Black Feminist Theories of Flesh: Embodiment, Biopolitics, Visual Culture"
2016-17 Kiana Nwaobia "The Right to Pleasure: Race's Queer Interruptions and Legacies of Pain in Po Man's Child"
2015-16 Cecile Afable, co-winner "Toward Normalizing Multiplicity: A Historical Analysis of the Legal Construction of Intersectional Identities in Title VII Cases”"
2015-16 Aliya Bean, co-winner "These Girlish Devotions: Women’s Colleges, the Evolution of Romantic Friendships and the Development of a Lesbian Identity (1890-1939)"