Winner of the BACLS Postgraduate Essay Prize 2025
Posted by Sandro Eich on 2026-01-26
We are excited to announce that this year's winner of the BACLS Postgraduate Essay Prize is Dr Alex J Calder with his entry "‘Nothing is not connected. Nothing is not alive’: Ali Smith as Art Critic" published by The Cambridge Quarterly in February 2024. The essay can be access open access here: https://doi.org/10.1093/camqtly/bfad028
The prize judges lauded the essay:
Calder's essay illustrates substantial knowledge and opens up new understanding of Ali Smith’s writing, as well as its wider literary and artistic contexts. Smith is a major figure in contemporary literature, and this essay will help researchers and students work through many of the complex literary and aesthetic trajectories in her writing.
Critical work on Ali Smith’s writing has gathered pace in recent years, but currently remains embryonic. Bringing together analysis of Smith’s experimental prose and her engagement with visual art, this essay will contribute significantly to how this important writer is approached and understood. This essay impressively engages with both existing critical work on Smith and visual art criticism in order to think through the ‘multilogue’ between experimental writing and visual art practices.
Sincere congratulations from the BACLS Executive Committee!