Michael Fellman Award for Historical Writing: No Winner

After Michael Fellman's sudden passing in 2012, this publication and the Simon Fraser University history department honoured his memory with a $1,000 annual prize for accessible historical writing. 

Twice now we've run the contest; twice now we've struggled find a selection that would honour Fellman's memory and further his legacy. Because of this, we've decided to not select a winner this year and are considering revamping the contest. 

This despite Christopher Phelp's excellent winning essay in 2013, Trayvon's Legacy: How Diversity Hides Racism, a still relevant analysis that illuminates recent conflicts in places like Baltimore and Ferguson. 

And this despite a number of very good submissions this year.

"It was a difficult decision," said Mark Leier, Fellman's former student and colleague at the university and also a Tyee contributor. "We read the submissions closely and debated the criteria at length. In the end, we agreed none quite hit the mark."

Granted, it's a high mark. 

Fellman was a provocative historian and popular teacher, a guiding spirit of The Tyee from its inception, and a regular contributor to it on American politics and the recent increasing militarization of Canada.

He was that rare historian who embraced rather than denied that essential contradiction at the heart of both historiography and journalism -- the tension between the subjective and objective voices. 

"Subjects write history, objects don't," Fellman wrote in the introduction to his collection of essay, Views from the Dark Side of American History. 

"Facts do not speak, nor do they choose to arrange themselves," he added, explaining why he often started from the personal as a way into the broader political in order to show the scholar as a filter of the facts. 

"This does not imply that anything goes," he was careful to point out. 

"One must still seek out archival and other sources, quote from them as accurately and contextually as possible, discern the central points of previous historiography, and exercise fairness and balance in selection and argument...

"Central to this ethos is that you must be as conscious as possible of your own role, your own imagination and values in the writing you do. In fact, appeal to a nonexistent code of impersonal objectivity prevents you from acknowledging the inescapable subjectivity central to writing history."

So, while many award submissions this year showed historical understanding and interpretation, and sound writing and analysis, few also embraced that easy self-reflexivity, let alone the anarchic spirit Fellman also felt key to important historical work: 

"Truly engaged historical writing is anarchic, or at least irreverent. It challenges authority: it is the assertion of freedom of thought against the constraints of received wisdom; it is the declaration that one need not be captured and neutralized by the powerful fear of being isolated and derided, that one can find one's own voice...

"Done right, this is an individual, independent, and socially critical act. Sometimes hard and lonely, it is the very place where each historian can develop her or his unique perspective."

So, thanks to all those who took the time to submit their work, to wrestle with their own fears in service of this socially critical act. There were a number of fine pieces. We regret none quite fit. But we hope the exercise helped develop your unique voices and historical perspectives. And we encourage you all to continue pursuing this important work.

We'll report back with changes to the contest for next year. We invite your suggestions in the comment section below.