Boothe Prize Essays

The Boothe Prize recognizes and rewards outstanding expository and argumentative writing by first-year students in the Writing and Rhetoric and Introduction to the Humanities Programs. One first-place and one honorable mention prize are awarded to outstanding essays from each academic quarter at an annual award ceremony in May.

Each first place winner receives a certificate, a copy of The Riverside Shakespeare and $350. Each honorable mention winner receives a certificate, a copy of The Riverside Shakespeare and $200. The winning essays are published annually in Boothe Prize Essays: Excellence in Writing at Stanford and are available online through this website. 

The Boothe Prizes have been made possible by the generosity of the late D. Power Boothe, Jr. and his wife Catie. Mr. Boothe was a graduate of the Stanford class of '31.

Boothe Prize essays for 2010-2011

• Boothe Prize essays for 2010-2011 (complete book - PDF)

PWR Winners for 2010-2011

• Clarice Nguyen (Winner, Spring 2010): “Advertising Antidepressants: The Rhetoric of Pharmaceutical Marketing”
• David Wu (Honorable Mention, Spring 2010): “Virtual Property or Virtual Service?”
• Patricia Ho (Winner, Fall 2010): “Citizen Journalism: Locally Grown, Community-Owned”
• Tonya Yu (Honorable Mention, Fall 2010): ”One Laptop per Child: A Need to Help Teachers Help Students"
• Gillie Collins (Winner, Winter 2011): “The Neo-Taliban’s Neo-History: Re-Cognition and Resurgence”
• Kurt Chirbas (Honorable Mention, Winter 2011): “The Social Divide: David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin as Counterpoints in the Dialogue over the Internet”

IHUM Winners for 2010-2011

• Jake Zeller (Winner, Spring 2010): “The Idol of Prescriptive Normativity"
• Lucy Richards (Honorable Mention, Spring 2010): “The Importance of Developing a More Inclusive Role for Archeology in Jerusalem and Ayodhya"
• Kristian Davis Bailey (Winner, Fall 2010): “Empathy vs. Emptiness: An Investigation of Human and Divine Responses to Pain”
• Tyler Haddow (Honorable Mention, Fall 2010): “Art as the Key to an Intellectual Conscience”
• Tiffany Dharma ( Winner, Winter 2011): “And Then There Was Money: The Godliness and Godlessness of Acquisitive Economy”
• Maya Krishnan (Winner, Winter 2011): “Launch out on the story, Muse”
• Gabriele Carotti-Sha (Honorable Mention, Winter 2011): “Caught in the Causal Net: A Reflection on Fichte’s Lecture on Man’s Vocation in Society”

Boothe Prize essays for 2009-2010

• Boothe Prize essays for 2009-2010 (complete book - PDF)

PWR Winners for 2009-2010

• Fannie Watkinson (Spring 2009 Winner): "The Role of Aesthetics: Green Skyscrapers in the 21st Century"
• Karen Shen (Fall 2009 Winner): "The Paradox of Public Support for 'Quality of Life' Policing"
• Lauren YoungSmith (Fall 2009 Honorable Mention): "Communication Beyond Loss: Lorca's Triangular Rhetoric"
• Kris Sankaran (Winter 2010 Winner): "Theater Between Borders: Navigating Cultures in an Interconnected World"
• Alex Ryan (Winter 2010 Honorable Mention): "MMORPGs: A Medium for Utopian and Experimental Genesis"

IHUM Winners for 2009-2010

• Fiona Hinze (Spring 2009 Winner): "An Encounter with Angel Island"
• Mia Newman (Spring 2009 Honorable Mention): "Under the Yoke: The Institution of Marriage in Middlemarch"
• Alex Hertz (Fall 2009 Winner): "A Challenging Invitation to Faith
• Ben Pittenger (Fall 2009 Honorable Mention): "Trains, Pains, and Automobiles: The Liminal Trek beyond Survival in The Piano Lesson and Maus I"
• Kelly Vicars (Winter 2010 Winner): "Intertwining Art
• Evan Storms (Winter 2010 Honorable Mention): "Antigone and the Social Contract Theory of the Crito"

Boothe Prize essays for 2008-2009

• Boothe Prize essays for 2008-2009 (complete book - PDF)

PWR Winners for 2008-2009

• Anna Grummon (Spring 2008 Winner):"In Defense of Human Agency: Protection of Self-Image in the Milgram Obedience Experiments"
• Kyie Tuosto (Spring 2008 Honorable Mention): "The 'Grunt Truth' of Embedded Journalism"
• Jacob Stern (Fall 2008 Winner): "If You Give an Artist an Apron"
• Katherine Disenhof (Fall 2008 Honorable Mention): "Sweet Surprise: Visual Rhetoric and the Flawed Message of the Corn Refiners Association's Sweet Surprise Campaign"
• Rachel Kolb (Winter 2009 Winner): "A Journey into the Heart of Silence: The Rhetoric of Expression, Gesture, and Thought"
• Caitlin Colgrove (Winter 2009 Honorable Mention): "Fugue in A minor for Carbon and Silicon"

IHUM Winners for 2008-2009

• Sarrah Nomanbhoy (Spring 2008 Winner): "Embracing Ambiguity in 'Bartleby the Scrivener'"
• Nicole Gordon (Spring 2008 Honorable Mention): "When a Silent Killer Confronts a Silent Society: Stanford University's Response to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic from 1980-1989"
• Adam Adler (Fall 2008 Winner): "Wisconsin v. Yoder: Maximizing Religious Choice"
• Rachel Kolb (Winter 2009 Winner): "Thought Aids Acting, Not Action: Laurence Olivier's and Franco Zeffirelli's Versions of Hamlet"
• Jacob Vandermeer (Winter 2009 Honorable Mention): "Identity Manipulation in Candide and The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano as Model for the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World"

Boothe Prize essays for 2007-2008

• Boothe Prize essays for 2007-2008 (complete book - PDF)

Boothe Prize essays for 2006-2007

• Boothe Prize essays for 2006-2007 (complete book - PDF)

PWR Winners for 2006-2007

• Leslie Georgatos (Spring 2006 Winner): "Brand America: Exploring the Appropriate Role of Marketing Strategies in Public Diplomacy"
• Christine Chung (Spring 2006 Honorable Mention): "'Hello Kitty Noodles' and Ramen Culture in the 21st Century"
• Jessica Galant (Fall 2006 Winner): "Keeping Tableaux Vivants Alive"
• Anne Datesh (Fall 2006 Honorable Mention): " The Decision to Drop the Bomb: Where Hindsight is Not 20/20"
• Jocelyn Jiao (Winter 2007 Winner): "Madama Butterfly Gave Birth to a Monster: Exploring the Internalization of Racial Stereotypes within Asian American Women" 
• Annelise Blum (Winter 2007 Honorable Mention): "Hugo Chávez’s Debut: Rhetoric and Petro–Politics in the World Theater A Dramatic Essay in Three Acts"

Boothe Prize essays for 2005-2006

• Boothe Prize essays for 2005-2006 (complete book - PDF)

PWR Winners for 2005-2006

• Kimber Lockhart (Spring 2005 Winner): "Reading Between the Lines: The Rhetoric of Literacy"
• Nick Parker (Spring 2005 Honorable Mention): "The Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell: Mistakes Worth Fixing"
• Jennifer Chin (Fall 2005 Winner): "Reaffirming, Not Redefining: A Look at Rem Koolhass' New Seattle Central Library"
• Matthew Gribble (Fall 2005 Honorable Mention): "Gender, Art, and the Nursing Shortage: The Effect of Gendered Visual Rhetoric on the American Healthcare System"
• Cecilia Yang (Winter 2006 Winner): "The Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre: Rhetoric in the Face of Tragedy"
• Aaron Quiggle (Winter 2006 Honorable Mention): "In Search of an Anorexic Rhetoric: A Theory of Language, Meaning, Society, and Mental Illness"

IHUM Winners for 2005-2006

• Jessica Lee (Spring 2005 Winner): "Death of the Faces of God"
• Julie Byren (Spring 2005 Honorable Mention): "If You're Lost Enough to Find Yourself: Unveiling Nature's Secrets in Robert Frost's 'October' and 'Directive'"
• Patrick Leahy (Fall 2005 Winner): "The Three Furies of Dublin"
• Nathan Pflueger (Fall 2005 Honorable Mention): "Hamlet's Imagined Filial Love"
• Sarah Johnson (Winter 2006 Winner): "Breaking the Watch Along With the Wedding Glass: Conceptions of Time in the Transition from Biblical to Rabbinic Judaism" 
• Jason Dunford (Winter 2006 Honorable Mention): "Empowering the Oppressed: The Role of Language in the Struggle Against Apartheid in South Africa"

Boothe Prize essays for 2004-2005

• Boothe Prize essays for 2004-2005 (complete book - PDF)

PWR Winners for 2004-2005

• Ali Batouli (Spring 2004 Winner): “The Free Internet: An Instrument of Control”
• Shannon Donahue (Spring 2004 Honorable Mention): “How Clean Are Green Ads? Evaluating Environmental Advertising in Contemporary Media.”
• Shivaram Lingamneni (Fall 2004 Winner): “Predicting the Future of Internet Advertising.”
• Emily Dalton (Fall 2004 Honorable Mention): “William Tyndale’s Biblical ‘Translation’."
• Eyal Ophir (Winter 2005 Winner): “Kick Ass Culture: Ads Mirror an Anti-Dialogue American Discourse.”
• Molly Cunningham (Honorable Mention): “Colonial Echoes in Kenyan Education: A First Person Account.”

IHUM Winners for 2004-2005

• Wendy Hagenmaier (Spring 2004 Winner): “‘To render it:’ Acts of Structural Passion in Levertov’s ‘An English Field in the Nuclear Age’.”
• Lia Hardin (Spring 2004 Honorable Mention): “Hear the Thunder: Isolation and Emotional Power in Kafka and Eliot.”
• Salvatore Bonaccorso (Fall 2004 Winner): “Self-Discovery through Language in Omeros and Walden.”
• Anne Wyman (Fall 2004 Honorable Mention): “Art Refracts Life.”
• Yun Chu (Winter 2005 Winner): “The Analysis of Rational Violence in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Goethe’s Faust across Three Mediums: Literature, Music, and Art.”
• Emily Dalton (Winter 2005 Honorable Mention): “Poetic Justice, Memory As A Moral Force."

Boothe Prize essays for 2003-2004

• Boothe Prize essays for 2003-2004 (complete book - PDF)

PWR Winners for 2003-2004

• Joshua Smith (Spring 2003 Winner), "Conflict Diamonds: Resolving Africa's Worst Resource Wars."
• Jennifer Cribbs (Spring 2003 Honorable Mention), "Darkness in the Vicious Kitchen: An Analysis of Feminist Themes and Suicidal Imagery in Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath's Poetry."
• Rui Xiong Kee (Fall 2003 Winner), "Exploring the 'Communist' in the Communist Insurrection in Malaya."
• Jasmine Hanifi (Fall 2003 Honorable Mention), "Belonging to America: Rhetoric of the Second Generation"
• Andrew Leifer (Winter 2004 Winner), "Harry Potter and the Battle of International Copyright Law."
• Hammad Ahmed (Winter 2004 Honorable Mention), "Grafting Cuba Onto the American Body Politic: The Intersection of Natural Science and Foreign Policy in the Annexationist Era."

IHUM Winners for 2003-2004

• Steph Abegg (Spring 2003 Winner), "Rome: The City of Gods."
• Gloria Nguyen (Spring 2003 Honorable Mention), "In Search of the Perfect Love."
• Anne Kalt (Fall 2003 Winner), "Perspectives on the Human Good."
• Bob Hough (Fall 2003 Honorable Mention), "Faith in Death."
• Patrick R. Callier (Winter 2004 Winner), "Matter, Systems, and Alternatives from the Americas by Borges."
• Annie Kalt (Winter 2004 Honorable Mention), "Male and Female Love Worlds: Inherently Separate Landscapes?"

Boothe Prize essays for 2002-2003

• Boothe Prize essays for 2002-2003 (complete book - PDF)

PWR Winners for 2002-2003

• Eric Yieh (Spring 2002 Winner), "Back to the Future: Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Contextualized."
• Mari Hayman (Spring 2002 Honorable Mention), “Adoption Issues in Latin America: Behind the Silence and the Secrets.” Instructor: Carolyn Ross.
• Jennifer Kong (Spring 2002 Honorable Mention), “Fulfilling Stanford's Commitment to Diversity: Eliminating Gender Bias and Increasing the Number of Tenured Women Faculty.”
• Prabhu Balasubramanian (Fall 2002 Winner), “Pharmaceutical Patents: Life Savers or Profit Makers?"
• Andre de Alencar Lyon (Fall 2002 Honorable Mention), “The Question of Textual Ideology in Changing Lanes.”
• Eric Adamson (Winter 2003 Winner), “Malleability, Misrepresentation, Manipulation: The Rhetoric of Images in Economic Forecasting.”
• David Craig (Winter 2003 Honorable Mention),“Instant Messaging: The Language of Youth Literacy.”

IHUM Winners for 2002-2003

• Heather MacKintosh Sims (Spring 2002 Winner), "Reflections of an Empire: The British Celts as Indicators of Roman Self-Perception."
• Jason Glick (Spring 2002 Honorable Mention), "Trading Land for Cultural Power: Anazaldua's and Cardenal's (Re)constructions of Mestiza Identity." 
• Andre de Alencar Lyon (Fall 2002 Winner), “Traversing the Gap Between Reality and the Individual in Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse”
• Liang Dong (Fall 2002 Honorable Mention), “State and Empire: (De)Construction of the National Identity.”
• Luke Lindley (Winter 2003 Winner), “A Heap of Broken Images: Conflicting Narratives of Nature in Milton's 'Lycidas.'”
• Brian Caliando (Winter 2003 Honorable Mention) “Don't Spazz: It's Not Rational and It's Not Moral”

Boothe Prize essays for 2001-2002

• Boothe Prize essays for 2001-2002 (complete book - PDF)

Boothe Prize essays for 2000-2001

• Boothe Prize essays for 2000-2001 (complete book - PDF)

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