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PBK_final_H_Primary

The Phi Beta Kappa Society has announced the 2021 Book Awards Short List

           


The ΦΒΚ Book Awards are administered in the following three, non-fiction categories:

The Christian Gauss Award:  Celebrates outstanding books in the field of literary scholarship or criticism.
The Phi Beta Kappa Award for Science:  Recognizes superior books by scientists written to illuminate aspects of science for a broad readership.
The Ralph Waldo Emerson Award:  Honors scholarly studies that contribute significantly to interpretations of the intellectual and cultural condition of humanity.

Finalists and award-winning authors are selected by a panel of experts in each category. Award-winning authors will each receive a $10,000 prize. For more information please email Aurora Sherman.
The Christian Gauss Award

 
 

Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man

By Joshua Bennett (ϕBK, University of Pennsylvania), 
Belknap Press of HarvardBelknap Press of Harvard

My Autobiography of Carson McCullers: A Memoir

By Jenn Shapland,
Tin House Books

Shakespeare

Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell us About our Past and Future

By James Shapiro, 
Penguin Press

Stranger-Faces

Stranger Faces

By Namwali Serpell, 
Transit Books

Ngai-Theory_of_Gimmick-Jacket

Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

By Sianne Ngai (ϕBK, Brown University),
Belknap Press of Harvard

The Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science

 
 
CLEAN-ppbk-cover-image

Clean: The New Science of Skin

strong>By James Hamblin,
Riverhead Books

Galileo

Galileo and the Science Deniers

By Mario Livio,
Simon & Schuster

Su_CVR_2

Mathematics for Human Flourishing

By Francis Su (ϕBK, University of Texas at Austin),
Yale University Press

Sirens

The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World

By Sarah Steward Johnson (ϕBK, Washington University in St. Louis),
Crown

x-y_300dpi

x + y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender

By Eugenia Cheng,
Basic Books

The Ralph Waldo Emerson Award

 
 

Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and its Urgent Lessons for our Own

By Eddie S. Glaude Jr.,
Crown

Baumgartner-South-to_300dpi

South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War

By Alice Baumgartner (ϕBK, Yale College),
Basic Books

Brown-Tacky-s_Revolt-jacket

Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War

By Vincent Brown,
Belknap Press of Harvard

The-Broken_Heart

The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States

By Walter Johnson (ϕBK, Amherst College),
Basic Books

Unworthy-Republic

Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory

By Claudio Saunt (ϕBK, Columbia College),
W. W. Norton

Staff Contact


Please email Aurora Sherman at asherman@pbk.org with any inquiries or call (202) 745-3287. 

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