Skip to content

Undergraduate Essay Prize Winners 2025

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

We are thrilled to announce the winners of our Brian Darling and Douglas Johnson Memorial Prizes for 2025. Congratulations to all our winners, runners up, and highly commended entries. Thank you to all our members and colleagues who submitted their students” work – it is a pleasure to read these excellent essays. 

Brian Darling Memorial Prize

This year we received 13 very high quality submissions this year, and the decision between the top two was very close. The results are as follows: 

Winner: Sophie Starsmore (University of Leeds)

Title: ​‘Dans quelle mesure les feministes du MLF etaient-elles ​‘les filles de mai ​‘68’ (Lisa Greenwald). Expliquez et commentez.’

Nominated by: Sarah Walters

Sub-Committee Comments: This essay was engaging, well researched and very enjoyable to read. It provides a helpful overview of the argument at the outset, before offering a well substantiated and, in places helpfully nuanced, discussion of the issues leading to the creation of the MLF. The movement is neatly situated in its historical context, with a detailed appreciation of the socio-cultural complexities surrounding it. 

Runner-Up: Maisy Hicks (University of Durham) 

Title: ​‘Embodied Landscapes: Nature, Sensory Perception, and Feminist Narratives in Sophie Calle’s d’Aveugles’

Nominated by: Amaleena Damie

Sub-Committee Comments: This is a theoretically sound, strong, and very polished essay, considering embodied landscapes in photography/ visual culture. The corporeal and the sensory as constructs are well considered in the essay, and this is brought out well in the close reading. The argument is really well developed.

Highly Commended: Rebecca Pearson (University of Warwick) 

Title: ​‘To what extent and in what ways did the everyday experiences of colonial subjects and metropolitan French citizens differ under the Occupation and Vicky regime’

Nominated by: David Lees

Sub-Committee Comments: This essay is well structured, clear and coherent, making an important argument about the conflicted nature of Vichy’s relationship with its colonial subjects. The examples chosen are pertinent, and there is a wealth of research to back up the assertions of the author. The essay also highlights the lacunae in the scholarly field regarding the involvement of colonial subjects in resistance to the Vichy regime and occupation.

Douglas Johnson Memorial Essay Prize

We had 4 submissions for the Douglas Johnson Memorial Essay Prize, which this year was awarded to:

Winner: Sadie Golen (University of St Andrews) 

Title: Let Them Eat Bread? The Baguette as a Tool of Gastronomic Colonialism in Senegal’

Nominated by: Pauline Souleau 

Sub-Committee Comments: This semester-long dissertation project demonstrated some highly perceptive points on the relationship between food and colonialism. It showed a real command of the topic area, and originality of argument. This was a nuanced, convincingly argued piece, with a strong anchoring in its analysis. 

For more information on either of the prizes, please visit the links below: