The Barbara Bagilhole Memorial Award is a School-wide prize, founded by Professor Line Nyhagen in 2017 to celebrate students’ work in Equality and Diversity. It is named after Professor Barbara Bagilhole, a Professor of Social Policy and Equal Opportunities at Loughborough University. She conducted ground-breaking EDI-related research on gender inequalities in the construction industry.
The prizes are split into two categories: Best Student Paper and Best Other Academic Coursework.
The winner of the Best Student Paper is Xaver Boxhammer for ‘Pulp (2018) and LOTE (2020): Reclaiming, Rewriting, and Overcoming Literary Heritage’. The Panel were impressed by this well-written and highly readable essay, which takes the form of a hypothetical book review for an LGBTQ+ literary journal.
In this category, the Panel also commend Yanqi Chen's essay ‘Post-Feminist Era: A Critical Analysis of Femvertising and Commodifying Female Empowerment in Advertising Industry’. This is an original and wide-ranging essay on the commodification of feminism in the advertising industry.
The prize in the Best Other Academic Coursework category is awarded to Sadia Nadeem's ‘Creative Writing Portfolio’ submission for the module Driving On: Writing Towards Publication. The Panel was very impressed and moved by this portfolio which exposes everyday racism and the normalisation of Whiteness on campus.
The Panel also commend Nyasha Mukonoweshuro's submission in this second category – a ‘Pamphlet: Lessons from black anarchism’. This is an excellent and very original pamphlet that critically engages with the tenets of anarchism through the lens of ‘Black Consciousness’ analysing the contributions of Black anarchist scholarship which tends to be underrepresented in the Eurocentric literature and vision of anarchism.
The members of the Panel were impressed by the quality of the submissions received this year and the breadth of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity related topics addressed within.
Congratulations Xaver, Yanqi, Sadia and Nyasha!