Award: If eligible, the winning books will be submitted by the CSN-RÉC to the International Council for Canadian Studies - Conseil international d'études canadiennes for consideration for the Pierre Savard Award.

Nomination: The competed application must be submitted to the CSN no later than 15 May. Nominations are to be sent to:csn.rec.ca@gmail.com. Once the nomination package has been received, the CSN will arrange for the required number of copies of the book (minimum of three) to be sent by the publisher to those on the CSN jury.

Eligibility: The author of the book must be a member in good standing of the CSN-RÉC. The book may be written by one or more authors. The book must be on a subject that deals primarily with Canada. Works comprising essentially previously published texts (such as articles or excerpts from books) and works of fiction (such as collections of poetry, novels, and plays) are not eligible, nor are works in translation. Edited collections are not eligible for this award and should be nominated instead for the CSN Prize for the Best Edited Collection.

A book may only be nominated once.

The application must include the following:
1. A two-page abstract of the book written in English or French
2. The author's curriculum vitae
3. A letter of support from the nominator (may be the author)
4. Complete information on the publisher, including full contact details

Please note that any member in good standing of the CSN-RÉC may submit a book published within the preceding two years.

Selection: Two three-member interdisciplinary juries (one for French submissions and one for English submissions) will select one winner for each English-language and French-language categories. Submissions that resonate with Truth and Reconciliation themes may be given special recognition. The selection panel reserves the right not to award the prize in any given year. The winner will normally be announced in the fall. There will be no appeals of the decision of the panel. Please note: the publisher of the winning book is permitted to mention this prize in any publicity relating to its publication.

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Previous winners of this prize

Crystal Gail Fraser, By Strength, We Are Still Here: Indigenous Peoples and Indian Residential Schooling in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, University of Manitoba Press, 2024

Anne Trépanier, De l’hydre au castor, Les éditions du Septentrion, 2024

Laura Bisaillon, Screening Out: HIV Testing and the Canadian Immigration Experience, University of British Columbia Press, 2022

Daniel Rück, The Laws and the Land, University of British Columbia Press, 2021

Jane Griffith, Words Have a Past: The English Language, Colonialism, and the Newspapers of Indian Boarding Schools, University of Toronto Press, 2019

Wendy Wickwire, At the Bridge: James Teit and An Anthropology of Belonging, University of British Columbia Press, 2019 

Valerie J. Korinek, Prairie Fairies: A History of Queer Communities and People in Western Canada, 1930-1985, University of Toronto Press, 2018

Allan Downey, The Creator’s Game: Lacrosse, Identity, and Indigenous Nationhood, University of British Columbia Press, 2018

Shiri Pasternak, Grounded Authority: The Algonquins of Barriere Lake Against the State, University of Minnesota Press, 2017

Amber Dean, Remembering Vancouver's Disappeared Women: Settler Colonialism and the Difficulty of Inheritance, University of Toronto Press, 2015

Raymond Blake, Lions or Jellyfish: Newfoundland-Ottawa Relations since 1957, University of Toronto Press, 2015

Christopher Alcantara, Negotiating the Deal: Comprehensive Land Claims Agreements in Canada University of Toronto Press, 2013

Kathryn Magee Labelle, Dispersed, But Not Destroyed: A History of the Seventeenth-Century Wendat People, University of British Columbia Press, 2014

Kirsty Johnston, Stage Turns: Canadian Disability Theatre, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012

Donica Belisle, Retail Nation: Department Stores and the Making of Canada, University of British Columbia Press, 2011

Award: The winner will receive a $200 prize and a one-year membership in the CSN-RÉC. The winners will have their dissertation submitted by the CSN-RÉC to the International Council for Canadian Studies - Conseil international d'études canadiennes for consideration for that organization's Best Doctoral Thesis in Canadian Studies Award.

Nomination: The nomination must come from an institutional member in good standing with the CSN-RÉC. A list of institutional members is available on the CSN-RÉC website. Institutional members may submit only one doctoral dissertation for consideration each year.The completed application must be submitted to the CSN-RÉC no later than 15 July. Entries must be sent to: csn.rec.ca@gmail.com.

Eligibility: The doctoral dissertation must have been written and successfully defended as part of a doctoral program at a Canadian university. Doctoral dissertations that are comparative works will be considered.

The application must include the following:
1. An electronic copy of the doctoral dissertation
2. An abstract of the doctoral dissertation written by its author
3. A copy of the curriculum vitae of the author of the doctoral dissertation
4. A letter of nomination from the director or chair of the institutional member unit.

Selection: A three-member interdisciplinary jury will select one winner in each language and when appropriate, an honourable mention. Special attention will be given to dissertations that transcend disciplinary boundaries and demonstrate innovation in thought and-or methodology. The jury reserves the right not to award the prize in any given year. The winner will normally be announced in the fall. There will be no appeals of the decision of this interdisciplinary panel.

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Previous winners of this prize

Michelle Sraha-Yeboah, From Palliative Practice to Transformative Praxis: A Black Feminist Psychology Framework on Black Canadians' Mental Healthcare Service Delivery

Nadha Hassen, Park Perceptions and Racialized Realities: Visualizing Social and Health Equity in Public Urban Greenspaces

Claire Thomson, Digging Roots and Remembering Relatives

Margaret Anne Lindsay, Especially in this Free Country: Webs of Empire, Slavery and the Fur Trade

Katrina Dunn, Empty House: Real Estate and Theatricality in Vancouver’s Downtown

Marie-Charlotte Franco, La décolonisation et l’autochtonisation au Musée McCord (1992-2019) : les rapports de collaboration avec les Premiers Peuples et de l’inclusion de l’art contemporain des Premières Nations dans les expositions

Melanie Dennis Unrau, Tend the Rusted Steel Like a Shepherd: Petropoetics of Oil Work in Canada

Warren Bernauer, Extractive Hegemony in the Arctic: Energy Resources and Political Conflict in Nunavut, 1970-2017

Erin Millions, By Education and Conduct: Educating Trans-Imperial Indigenous Fur-Trade Children in the Hudson Bay’s Company Territories and the British Empire, 1820s to 1870s

Brittany Luby, Drowned: Anishinabek Economies and Resistance to Hydroelectric Development in the Winnipeg River Drainage Basin, 1873-1975

Griffith, Jane. News from School: Language, Time and Place in the 1890s Indian Boarding Schools in Canada

Cranston- Reimer, Sharlee. Building New Worlds: Gender and Embodied Non-Conformity and Imagining Otherwise in Contemporary Canadian Literatures.

Van Huizen, Philip. Flooding the Border: Development, Politics and Environmental Controversy in the Canadian-US. Skagit Valley

Jaime Yard, Working Natures: An Ethnography of Love, Labour, and Accumulation on the British Columbian Coast

Samantha Burton, Canadian girls in London: negotiating home and away in the British World at the turn of the century

2025

When the Pine Needles Fall
Indigenous Acts of Resistance

Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel, with Sean Carleton