This prize was created by the department in 2008 to honor the memory of Prof. Robert O. Collins, who taught African History at UCSB from 1964 until his retirement in 1994. In recognition of his own lifelong commitment to research and publication, and with the support of a generous gift from
Prof. Collins’ three children, the Robert O. Collins
Prize is awarded for the best first publication by a History graduate student.
Recipients:
2023
Alexandra Noi
2021
Xiang Li, “Exile and Return: Oblivion, Memory, and Non-Tragic Death in Tomb-quelling Texts from the Eastern Han Dynasty”
Mattie Webb, “People before profit? Ford, General Motors and
the Spirit of the Sullivan Principles in Apartheid South Africa”
2021
Not awarded
2020
Nicole de Silva “Fashioning Chinese America: Alice Fong Yu and the Transpacific Boycott of Japanese Silk Stockings, 1931-1941”
2019
Kali Yamboliev, “Italian narratives of Oppositional identity”
2018
Mariel Aquino, “A Panther Among Lions: Iñaki Williams, Race and Basque Identity at Athletic Club Bilbao”
2017
Fang He, “‘Golden Lilies’ across the Pacific: Footbinding and the American Enforcement of Chinese Exclusion Laws”
2016
Cody Stephens, “The Accidental Marxist: Andre Gunder Frank and the ‘Neo-Marxist’ Theory of Underdevelopment, 1958-1967”
2012
Rachel Winslow, “Immigration Law and Improvised Policy in the Making of International
Adoption, 1948-1961.” Journal of Policy History 24:2 (April 2012), 288-318.
2011
Jill Briggs, “’As fool-proof as possible’: Overpopulation, Colonial Demography, and the Jamaica Birth
Control League,” Global South, Fall 2010.
Jill Jensen, “From Geneva to the Americas: the International Labor Organization and Inter-American Social
Security Standards, 1936-1948,” International Labor and Working Class History, Fall 2011.
2010
Scarlett Aldebot-Green, “Changelings: Transformative Perceptions of San Jose’s Street Children,
l965-l981,” Journal of Urban History 37 (July 2011), 479-496.
2009
Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, “Origins of the Conservative Ascendancy: Barry Goldwater’s Early Senate
Career and the De-legitimization of Organized Labor,” Journal of
American History 95 (December 2008): 678-709.