Dr. Andrew Denson. Image courtesy of UNC Press.
Savannah, Georgia, November 2, 2021 – The Georgia Historical Society has announced that Dr. Andrew Denson, professor of history at Western Carolina University, was awarded the John C. Inscoe Award for the best article in the Georgia Historical Quarterly (GHQ) in 2020 for his article, "Cherokee Ambassador: Gertrude McDaris Ruskin and the Personal Politics of Southern Commemoration." The award was presented in a private ceremony on October 28, 2021.
"We are pleased to honor Andrew Denson as the recipient of the Inscoe Award," said Dr. W. Todd Groce, President and CEO of the Georgia Historical Society. "As a student of John Inscoe’s at the University of Georgia, Denson continues the high quality of scholarship found in John’s own work and the standard that he set as the long-time editor of the GHQ. Dr. Denson is a worthy recipient of this honor."
Andrew Denson is a professor of Native American and United States history and participates in the Cherokee Studies Program at Western Carolina University. He is the author of Demanding the Cherokee Nation: Indian Autonomy and American Culture, 1830-1900, and Monuments to Absence: Cherokee Removal and the Contest over Southern Memory, which won the Georgia Historical Society’s Malcolm Bell, Jr. and Muriel Barrow Bell Award for the best book in Georgia history published in 2018. His research deals with the public memory and commemoration of the Native South.
"Dr. Denson skillfully intertwined issues of race, class, and regionalism to emphasize Gertrude McDaris Ruskin's work in memorialization," said Dr. Sarah Gardner, Distinguished Professor of History at Mercer University and Chair of the 2021 Inscoe Award committee. "By highlighting Gertrude Ruskin's efforts to tie Native history to Confederate memorials, Dr. Denson adds an interesting dimension to the study of Southern women and memorials and complicates the Black-White divide."
The Inscoe Award was established in 2018 to honor John Inscoe, the Albert B. Saye Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Georgia and editor of the Georgia Historical Quarterly from 1989 to 2000. It is given annually for the best article published in the Georgia Historical Quarterly in the previous year.
The Inscoe Award is made possible by an endowment fund created through contributions from friends and admirers of John Inscoe. The endowment honors John's life, work, and legacy and provides funds for a cash prize for the Inscoe Award recipient. Donations toward the endowment are ongoing.
Published continuously since 1917, the Georgia Historical Quarterly is one of the premier state historical journals in the United States, published by the Georgia Historical Society. The GHQ features the finest scholarly articles on Georgia history, book reviews covering all aspects of southern and Georgia history, edited primary sources, oral histories, and essays by and about contemporary history-makers.
For more information about the John C. Inscoe Award, please contact Patricia Meagher, Director of Communications, at 434.996.7085 or email at PMeagher@GeorgiaHistory.com.
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