We are proud to announce the recipients of this year's Reacting awards and fellowships! These were first announced at this year's Annual Institute. Submissions for these awards open at the beginning of each year, read on to learn more about this year's winners!
Brilliancy Prize - Anne Caillaud, David Eick, and Janel Pettes Guikema
The 2023 Brilliancy Prize was awarded to historians Anne Caillaud, David Eick, and Janel Pettes Guikema of Grand Valley State University for their outstanding collaboration on a variety of materials aimed at expanding Reacting to the Past to other foreign language faculty. Not only have they collaborated on translations of several games, including The Enlightenment in Crisis: Diderot's Encyclopedié in a Parisian Salon and Modernism vs. Traditionalism: Art in Paris 1888-1889, they’ve authored scholarly articles and presented their work at the The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and Modern Language Association. Moreover, they’ve created student- and faculty-facing guides for anyone interested in using Reacting to the past for language proficiency. In the words of their nominator, “they marked the way forward using rigorous and clear pedagogical principles, and supplied colleagues with the materials to make the journey.”
The Dana Johnson Gorlin Fellowship committee is thrilled to present this year’s award to Ahuva Liberles. As Director of the history teacher training program and member of the Jewish History faculty at Tel Aviv University, Dr. Liberles has expanded the reach of Reacting to the Past through her translations, her adaptation to critical questions in Israeli and Jewish history and culture, and her collaborative, international teaching. She has integrated Reacting into both interdisciplinary work at the University of Tel Aviv, and teaching at the University of Vienna. The committee was particularly impressed with Dr. Liberles’ use of Reacting in ethnically and religiously diverse classrooms to grapple with contemporary social issues in Israel, and on her use of Reacting pedagogy as a way of teaching Jewish history in a global context. In addition, she is making important contributions to Reacting by using it with diverse groups including both future secondary school teachers and senior citizens. Facilitating active engagement with histories and methods that foster engaged citizenship in the Middle East, her work also builds global ties among Reacting faculty, enabling our community to engage in the difficult conversations we need to be having.
