George Mills Harper Graduate Student Travel Fund Award 

In honor of past president George Mills Harper, SAMLA maintains the Harper Fund to provide graduate students with travel funds to attend the annual conference.

Professor Harper’s academic career spanned over 50 years, and he provided exceptional leadership and service to the association. From his early years on the family farm in the Ozarks to his matriculation from Culver-Stockton College to UNC-Chapel Hill to his later chairmanship of the English Department at Florida State University, Harper concentrated his writing and research efforts in Irish studies, particularly focusing on W. B. Yeats. In 1981, Dr. Harper received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin in recognition for his critical work in studying Yeats and the occult.

To be eligible for nomination, graduate students must: 1) be presenting as part of a panel or session at the current year's conference and 2) establish or renew their SAMLA membership.

Winner(s) of the Harper Fund must attend the conference in order to receive funds.

The nomination form for the 2020 award will be available in the new year.

 2019 Award Winner

Sohini Banerjee
University of Massachusetts Amherst

“Uncanny Cities: Postcolonial Flânerie in Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger"

Honorable Mention

DeLisa Hawkes
University of Maryland

Honorable Mention

Jan Leonard Maramot Rodil
University of California, Irvine

"What Remains Unsaid in 'Coming Out': The Nuance and Precarity of
Queer Language in Frank Bidart's 'Queer'"