Be it known that Adhira Mangalagiri of the University of Chicago is the winner of the 2015 Horst Frenz Prize for the best presentation by a graduate student at the annual conference of the American Comparative Literature Association, which, in 2014, was held at the New York University in New York City, NY.

Adhira Mangalagiri is to be congratulated for her incisive essay, “Worlding Theory: Language as a New Possibility in Literary Theory,” which made a strong contribution to a new way of understanding global aesthetics without resorting to ethnocentric criteria.  Adhira treats marginalized characters in two novels (one Chinese, one Hindi) as vehicles for discussing literary theory and non-Western approaches to texts. In a compellingly argued and elegantly written essay, Mangalagiri argues that critical theory needs to be transformed from within via non-Western forms of knowledge.

The American Comparative Literature Association takes pride is making this award to Adhira Mangalagiri, and congratulates her on her outstanding achievement.

2015 Frenz Prize Committee:
Eugene Eoyang, Indiana University (Chair)
Kathleen Komar, University of California, Los Angeles
Ron Bogue, University of Georgia