Monroe Kirk Spears Early Career Scholar Essay Award

SEL’s Monroe Kirk Spears Early Career Scholar Essay Award is presented annually to celebrate the best essay published in each volume authored by a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, non-tenure track faculty or staff member, or pre-tenure track faculty member. 

Essays are judged on their clarity of prose, contribution to scholarship, and originality.

Previous Award Recipients:

2025: Margaret Summerfield for "Almanac Time and Growing Older in Andrew Marvell's Mower Poems"

2025: honorable mention of Juliana Beykirch for "Libertinism, Embodiment, and Theatricality in Aphra Behn’s The Second Part of the Rover"

2024: Alexander Creighton for "Tristam Shandy’s Variations on Habit"