The Sidney Prize is given to a Phi Beta Kappa scholar who has achieved national distinction in scholarship, undergraduate teaching and leadership in the cause of liberal arts education. The award honors the memory of Sidney Hook (1902-1989), who distinguished himself in all three endeavors. Winners are honored at the Society’s Triennial Council Meeting. Nominations for the prize are open to all members of Phi Beta Kappa and are due a year and a half prior to each meeting. The call for nominations is advertised in the Key Reporter and the General Newsletter, as well as on our website.
The Overland Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize, which was established in 2007, is a prize for outstanding original short fiction themed around travel. The judges – Patrick Lenton, Alice Bishop and Sara Saleh – selected a shortlist of eight pieces from more than 500 entries. Their selections were made in a blind judging process. The shortlist was published in Overland in November 2014. You can read the winning short story, “A Suitable Place” by Lisa Moore.
A new category this year, the Sydney Film Festival Prize, awarded by a panel of experts to an Australian-made film that is “audacious, cutting-edge and courageous,” was won by The Mother of All Lies, directed by Asmae El Moudir. The film also won the Event Cinemas Rising Talent Award for a screen practitioner under 40, which came with a $16,000 cash prize.
The Sydney Film Festival’s other illustrious awards include the AFTRS Craft Award for Best Practitioner, which was won by Chloe Kemp, the screenwriter of Say. It was a record-breaking year for the festival, with its prize pool of $160,000, which is one of the richest prizes offered by any film festival in the world.
At the Archibald Prize for painting in 1943, the trustees of the prize were divided over William Dobell’s choice. Its depiction of Joshua Smith looked like a rubber-like caricature, and was considered by some to be deviating from the established norm. In fact, the sitter’s attenuated neck and tentacle-like arms were meant to be provocative, as were many of Dobell’s other works.
Each year, the University of Sydney offers a range of literary prizes for writing, typically essay-based, on selected topics. Applicants for these prizes are expected to write work on the chosen topic under a pseudonym (in most cases), which will be reviewed by a committee. This is a good opportunity for students to develop their writing skills and demonstrate their interest in a particular subject area.
Each year, the University of Sydney also sponsors two academic prizes for research on Asian issues. The Mikiso Hane Prize and the Sidney DeVere Brown Prize are both awarded to undergraduate students who have submitted papers that contribute significantly to scholarship in the field of Asian studies. These prizes are awarded in conjunction with the Wittenberg Asia-Center Undergraduate Paper Prize and are published in the journal Wittenberg East Asian Studies.