Vinson Sutlive Book Prize and Lecture

Each year the department awards the Sutlive Book Prize to the best book published in the prior year, in any discipline, that makes use of anthropological perspectives in order to examine historical contexts and/or the role of the past in the present. The author is then invited to campus to present the Sutlive Lecture.

The Department of Anthropology is pleased to announce David Divita winner of the 2026 Vinson Sutlive Prize for his book Untold Stories: Legacies of Authoritarianism Among Spanish Labour Migrants in Later Life, published by the University of Toronto Press.  We look forward to hosting Dr. Divita in Spring 2027.  

Previous honorees include:

• 2025: David Mattingly: Between Sahara and Sea: Africa in the Roman Empire and Sarah Newman: Unmaking Waste: New Histories of Old Things
• 2024: Ned Blackhawk: The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
• 2023: Lori Allen: A History of False Hope: Investigative Commissions in Palestine
• 2022: Akinwumi Ogundiran, The Yorùbá: A New History
• 2021: Mark D. Anderson, From Boas to Black Power: Racism, Liberalism, and American Anthropology
• 2020: Alireza Doostdar, The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny Watch the lecture here: https://youtu.be/KQhn9zuC8sE
• 2019: Naor Ben-Yehoyada, The Mediterranean Incarnate: Region Formation Between Sicily and Tunisia Since World War II
• 2018: Gísli Pálsson, The Man Who Stole Himself: The Slave Odyssey of Hans Jonathan
• 2017: Gillian Feeley-Harnik, Ancient Household Words: Descent from Soil to Blood in Darwin’s England
• 2016: Engseng Ho, A Moral Economy of Jihad: Pure Castes, Hybrid Law and Creole Society in Indian Ocean Malabar
• 2015: Arlene Davila, El Mall: The Spatial and Class Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin America
  

Sutlive Prize Call for Nominations  

The Department of Anthropology at William & Mary invites nominations for the annual Vinson Sutlive Book Prize, for works of historical anthropology with a 2025 copyright. The prize is awarded to the best book in English published in the prior year, in any discipline, that makes use of anthropological perspectives in order to examine historical contexts and/or the role of the past in the present. These examinations may include anthropology's struggles with its own foundations and legacies. In addition to the award, the prizewinner is invited to campus to deliver a lecture on their work. 

Deadline: November 8, 2026

We prefer hard copy submissions, and request that copies be made available for each of the three members of the jury. Please send any queries as well as nominations to Professor Jonathan Glasser at jglasser@wm.edu and Department of Anthropology, William & Mary, PO Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795. 

(*If shipping by Fed Ex or UPS, please use the "shipping address" posted on our Contact Us page.)

These annual events honor the late Dr. Vinson Sutlive, Professor Emeritus, who taught for thirty years in the Department of Anthropology. When he first arrived he was one of a group of scholars who gave form and substance to the then fledgling program. Over the years he served several times as Department Chair. He taught and mentored many students, such as Karen Prentiss Braun, ‘87, whose generous donation in honor of Dr. Sutlive helped to initiate the events honoring him. Sutlive was also a founder and long-time editor of the journal Studies in Third World Societies, one of the first scholarly vehicles dedicated specifically to the study of non-Western culture and society. He is also known for his work on a comprehensive Dictionary of Iban.