The Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies offers a prize for the best dissertation on a Canadian topic each year. This award is offered in memory of a former colleague who made substantial contributions to the study of Canada. The criteria are as follows:
This prize is awarded to the doctoral dissertation on a Canadian topic defended at York University in the course of the calendar year that best advances our knowledge of Canada. Special attention will be given to dissertations that transcend disciplinary boundaries and demonstrate innovation in thought and/or methodology.
The wording of the criteria is not intended to exclude comparative studies.
The award is accompanied by a prize of $500. The winner of the Godard Prize will also be nominated for the dissertation prize of the Canadian Studies Network – Réseau d’études canadiennes.
We welcome one nomination from the graduate programme director of each graduate programme at York University.
2026 Calendar Year
We will compile the pool of outstanding dissertations defended in the 2026 calendar year. Graduate Programme Directors please submit your nomination with:
- an electronic copy of the dissertation
- CV of nominee
- nominee’s York Student number and current email
Submit applications to robarts@yorku.ca by June 4, 2027.
Nomination deadline: 4 June 2027
For any question please email robarts@yorku.ca
Barbara Godard Dissertation Prize Winners
2025: Joseph Gary Myers (History)- "I have a sense that gay is diluting significantly." Gay nostalgia in a post-gay world and the intergenerational transitions of Toronto's Church-Wellesley Village (1973-2023)
2024: Michelle Sraha-Yeboah (Social and Political Thought)- From Palliative Practice to Transformative Praxis: A Black Feminist Psychology Framework on Black Canadians' Mental Healthcare Service Delivery
2023: Nadha Hassen (Environmental Studies)- Park Perceptions and Racialized Realities: Visualizing Social and Health Equity in Public Urban Greenspaces
2022: Min Ah (Angie) Park (English)- Diversity in "the Korean Way": Transcultural Identities in Contemporary Diasporic Korean Literature and Media in North America
2021: Signy Lynch (Theatre and Performance Studies)- Intercultural Relations: Direct Audience Address in Contemporary Theatre in Canada
2020: Dr. Andrew Zealley (Environmental Studies)- Risky Beeswax: Artistic Responses to the Biopolitics of HIV/AIDS
2019: Dr. Alan Ojiig Corbiere (History)- Anishinaabe Treaty-Making in the 18th- and 19th-Century Northern Great Lakes: From Shared Meanings to Epistemological Chasms
2018: Dr. Warren Bernauer (Geography)- Extractive Hegemony in the Arctic: Energy Resources and Political Conflict in Nunavut, 1970-2017
2017: Dr. Parastou Saberi (Environmental Studies)- The 'Paris Problem' in Toronto: State, Space and the Political Fear of the Immigrant
2016: Dr. Brittany Luby (History)- Drowned: Anishinabek Economies and Resistance to Hydroelectric Development in the Winnipeg River Drainage Basin, 1873 - 1975
2015: Dr. Jane Griffith (Education)- News from School: Language, Time and Place in the Newspapers of 1890s Indian Boarding Schools in Canada
2014: Dr. Ameil Joseph (School of Social Work)- Authorities on the Subject: Deportation and the confluence of violence within forensic mental health and immigration systems
2013: Dr. Monique Giroux (Music)- Music, Power and Relations: Fiddling as Meeting Place between Re-settlers and Indigenous Nations in Manitoba
Honourable Mention: Nelson Ferguson (Social Anthropology)- From Coal Pits to Tar Sands: Examining Labour Migration between the Athabasca Oil Sands and the Atlantic Canada Region
2012: Dr. Jaime Yard (Social Anthropology)- Working Natures: An Ethnography of Love, Labour and Accumulation on the British Columbia Coast