2019 Student Prize Recipients

2019 STUDENT PRIZE RECIPIENTS

CHLOE CHAN
Graphic Novel Panel for Postapocalypse Now
Chloe Chan giving a speech at the 2019 AC Student Prize CeremonyComparative Literature N60AC, “Postapocalypse Now”
Instructor: Caitlin Scholl

Chloe’s graphic novel panel is based on her analysis of literary texts and films that are intertwined with and working through, specific American histories of genocide, racism, and misogyny. The panel represents how, in some respects, we are already living in a post-apocalyptic world. Drawing inspiration from Chang-Rae Lee’s dystopic novel “On Such a Full Sea,” Chloe’s spatial arrangement creates an interaction between the agents of “history from above” and “history from below” within their various environmentally and historically determined constraints. The genius of her panel captures how one’s socioeconomic position—always-already buoyed to one’s race, gender, and class—can dramatically transform one’s path through, and perception of, the same moment of American history.

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ERIK PHILLIP 
“The Bay’s Team”
Ethnic Studies 122AC and Ethnic Studies 180
Instructor: Raymond Telles

Erik Phillip giving a speech at the 2019 AC Student Prize Ceremony

During 2001-2012, UC Berkeley increased recruitment of local Black football players to strengthen the Cal football team. The presence of local Black football players like Marshawn Lynch at UC Berkeley has not only become heroes to Erik and people from his community in Oakland, CA, they inspire him and others to see themselves as students and athletes on campus. However, once here, Erik found himself on a campus disconnected from his community, with an embarrassingly low percentage of Black students, and lacking in resources to support local Black athletes. During his senior year, Erik left the Cal football team so that he could develop “The Bay’s Team,” a documentary centered on the experiences of black football players at UC Berkeley from 2001-2012. This complex documentary explores the disconnect between the athletic and academic community. Read More.
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2019 HONORABLE MENTIONS

CHELLAM NAYAR
The Inclusion of Native Voices in Outdoor Recreation Culture
College Writing Programs 50AC, “Researching Water in the West: Its Presence, Its
Absence, and Its Consequences for the Peoples of California”
Instructor: Patricia Steenland

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HAROLD SURH
“The Violence of Reading”
Rhetoric 152AC, “Race and Order in the New Republic”
Instructor: Nadesan Permaul

American Cultures Student Prize

AC Awards & Undergraduate Library Prize Ceremony - 2019