The Editorial Board of The Americas invites submissions for the Judith Ewell and Francisco Morales Prizes from early career post-doctoral scholars who have defended their doctorates after July 1, 2016.

The Francisco Morales Prize will be awarded for the best submission on Latin American History in the colonial period, whereas the Judith Ewell Prize will be awarded for the best submission on Latin American History in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The value of each prize is $1,000. The prize will be used to reimburse the winning early career scholar’s participation in the 2018 American Historical Association Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Each prize winner will be matched with senior scholars who serve on the editorial board of The Americas. The senior scholars will mentor the prize winner as s/he revises the prize-winning submission, turning it into a high-quality article draft in preparation for submission to The Americas. Articles will undergo rigorous peer review, in accordance with the journal’s standard procedures and practices, prior to publication.

Submissions should be between six (6) and nine (9) thousand words, including notes. They should be stand-alone essays (i.e. they should not be dissertation/book manuscript chapters) and they must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Submissions should be sent as a Word file to Americas@drexel.edu by August 15, 2018. Please be sure to indicate in the subject line the prize for which the submitted essay should be considered. The winner will be announced in October 2018.

Judith Ewell is a distinguished historian of Latin America and served as editor-in-chief of The Americas from 1998 to 2003. She oversaw the journal’s transition to on-line access through Project Muse and JSTOR. She was one of the first women to serve as editor-in-chief of a major historical journal. Under her leadership, the journal was strengthened both critically and financially. Naming this award for Professor Ewell also recognizes her teaching career at the College of William and Mary, her research and publications on Venezuelan history, notable involvement in the AHA and LASA, and service as a Fulbright scholar in Venezuela and Ecuador. Throughout her career, Ewell has mentored early career scholars and assisted them as they developed their scholarly profiles. For many years, she served as co-editor (with William Beezley) of the “Latin American Silhouettes” series, first for Scholarly Resources and later for Rowman & Littlefield (which acquired Scholarly Resources). The series now includes over 70 books, from monographs to edited volumes to collections of primary sources.

Francisco Morales Valerio was born in the Mexico City neighborhood of Tepito in 1937 into a very large family. From an early age he was attracted to the Franciscan Order. He studied Philosophy at the provincial college in Calpan (Puebla) and Theology at Roger Bacon College in San Antonio, Texas. After having made his vows of profession in the Franciscan Order, the Franciscan province of the Holy Gospel sent him to the United States to continue his graduate training at the Catholic University of America, where he received both his Masters and Doctoral degrees in History. During his graduate studies at Catholic, he lived in the residence of the Academy of American Franciscan History and was a member of the Academy 1972-87. He served as the Vice-Director of the Academy 1981-84. His doctoral dissertation was ultimately published by the Academy in 1973 as the Ethnic and Social Background of the Franciscan Friars in Seventeenth Century Mexico.  He also wrote an important book about the clergy during the Independence period in Mexico, Clero y Política en México, 1767-1834 (México, Sep-Setentas, 1975). Returning to Mexico after his doctoral training he was active in the work of the Holy Gospel Province, serving on the definitorium (1987-1990, 1990-1993, 2002-2005) and eventually as Provincial Minister (2008-2014).  He was also a scholar in residence in Rome at the Franciscan historical institute at the Collegio S. Bonaventura in Grottaferrata (1993-96). He continues to serve the Order and history as the director of the Biblioteca Franciscana, University of the Americas – Holy Gospel Province, at the monastery of San Gabriel, in Cholula, Mexico.