The Society for Cinema & Media Studies Queer and Trans Caucus has named PMA PhD candidate Joshua Bastian Cole as a joint recipient of the 2021 Chris Holmlund Graduate Student Writing Prize. This year's 2021 prize was a joint awarding between Joshua Bastian Cole and Sean Donovan (PhD candidate, Film, Television, and Media, University of Michigan)
Cole's essay entitled "The Prosthetic Gaze: Re-visions on the Trans Mirror Scene" will be published in the New Review of Film & Television Studies Summer 2022 issue. In 2020, Cole received an honorable mention for the same prize.
"Receiving this acknowledgment is a notable milestone,” expressed Cole. “For my submission to this award last year, I received an honorable mention, and it is thrilling to be awarded the prize this time. Both of my submissions, last year's and this, are selected material from my dissertation, and the accolades each submission received are very promising towards the overall work's future. Recognition for one's work is such a validating experience, but it is particularly meaningful that I should receive the award for this piece as it's something that has been with me, in one form or another, for decades. Concepts within certainly echo material familiar at the Schwartz, as I was experimenting with similar ideas in Two Truths and Allie—my play that I began writing in 2009, revised during my MA at Brooklyn College in 2012, and ultimately presented in the Black Box in 2017. For lack of a better word, it is substantial that this piece of scholarship, the piece I think I've always wanted to write, has gone on to receive acclaim. I am grateful to my committee and other readers for the supportive input and encouragement that expressly galvanized this achievement."
The New Review of Film and Television Studies, a Routledge publication, is a leading media studies journal that features contributions from intersectional, diverse perspectives and underrepresented groups.
Read more about the Queer and Trans Caucus Chris Holmlund Graduate Student Writing Prize:
https://nrftsjournal.org/scms-qtc-holmlund-prize/
Learn more about Joshua Bastian Cole:
https://pma.cornell.edu/joshua-bastian-cole
