Best Book in Canadian Studies (2024)

Description: This prize is awarded annually for an outstanding scholarly book on a Canadian subject and that best advances our knowledge and understanding of Canada and Canadian Studies. This award is intended to recognize work written by members of the CSN.

Award: The winner will receive a $150 prize. If eligible, the winning book will be submitted by the CSN 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:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Once the nomination package has been received, the CSN administrator 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 Selection committee. The publisher will have two weeks to arrange shipment.

Eligibility: The author of the book must be a member in good standing of the CSN.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. 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

Please note that any member in good standing of the CSN may submit a book published within the preceding two years (2022-2024).

Selection: A three-member interdisciplinary panel composed of CSN-RÉC members will select one winner and when appropriate, an honourable mention. The selection panel reserves the right not to award the prize in any given year. The winner will normally be announced by the CSN at the annual fall AGM. 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

Laura Bisaillon, Screening Out: HIV Testing and the Canadian Immigration Experience (UBC Press).

Daniel Rück, The Laws and the Land (UBC Press).

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

Wendy Wickwire, At the Bridge: James Teit and An Anthropology of Belonging (UBC Press).

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

Allan Downey, The Creator’s Game: Lacrosse, Identity, and Indigenous Nationhood (UBC Press).

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

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

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

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

Kathryn Magee Labelle, Dispersed, But Not Destroyed: A History of the Seventeenth-Century Wendat People (Vancouver: UBC Press).

Kirsty Johnston's Stage Turns: Canadian Disability Theatre (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press).

Donica Belisle, Retail Nation: Department Stores and the Making of Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press).