William H. Scheuerle Graduate Student Paper Award
Since 2011, VISAWUS has presented the William H. Scheuerle Graduate Student Paper Award for the best paper by a graduate student presented at the annual conference. Recipients receive $600. Students interested in being considered for the prize are invited to inform the selection committee; committee members make their selection at the end of the conference and winners are announced in the spring.
The award was founded by the late Dr. William Howard Scheuerle. Dr. Scheuerle was a founding board member of VISAWUS, and served the association from 1998 until his death in 2014. He was a faculty member and administrator at the University of South Florida from 1964 to 2009, and was a widely respected Victorian scholar. He served as president and board member of the Nineteenth Century Studies Association and of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, and board member of the Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States. For eight years, he was editor of the international journal Victorian Periodicals Review. On March 9, 2007, he was honored by the Nineteenth Century Studies Association by being awarded the 2007 Presidential Award for “sustained service to the association and significant contributions to nineteenth-century studies,” an award that cited his scholarship in Victorian studies and his active participation in national academic societies.
You can help us honor Dr. Scheuerle’s legacy by making a donation to the Dr. William Howard Scheuerle Graduate Student Paper Award fund.
Past Winners
2023
Francesca Colonnese, University of Washington, “Hybrid Forms Leading to Hybrid Time in Modern Love.”
2020-2022
Not awarded due to COVID-19 pandemic.
2019
Alex McCauley, University of Washington, “Swamping the World: Flood and Property in the Victorian Novel.”
Ji Eun Lee (Honorable Mention), UCLA, “Prowling in London: Canines in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”
2018
Megan Arkenberg, University of California Davis, “’It is hard to be literal’; Metaphor and Future Science in Arthur Machen’s Neurological Gothic.”
2017
Jonathan Franklin, New York University, “‘Too Feeble; Too Sickly’: Disability, Social Mobility and the Pupil-Teacher System.” The 2017 award combines VISAWUS’s William H. Scheuerle Graduate Student Paper Award with VSAWC’s Founders’ Circle Award.
2016
Petra Clark, University of Delaware, “‘A Strange Reading of the Familiar Story’: The Character of Salome in Fin De Siècle Fiction by Women.”
2015
Rebecca Ehrhardt, University of Southern California “One of Those” Characters: Descriptive Categorization in George Eliot’s Middlemarch.”
2014
Miranda Butler, University of California, Riverside –“Cartes-De-Visite: Victorian ‘Social Media.’”
2013
Paisley Mann, University of British Columbia–“Illuminating Paris: Electricity, Victorian Novels, and the City of Light.”
2012
Jennifer Scott (Simon Fraser University) and Jasper Schelstraete (Ghent University)
Deb Stein (Honorable Mention), Boston University
2011
Carolyn Tate, University of Virginia
In Memoriam, Dr. William Howard Scheuerle
“Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;”
–“Crossing the Bar,” Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Born March 12, 1930, Irwin, Pennsylvania
Died February 15, 2014, Tampa Florida
Dr. Scheuerle received his B.A from Muskingum College, Ohio in 1952, his M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1954 and his Ph.D. in Victorian Literature from Syracuse University in 1964. He taught at Westminster College, Pennsylvania 1956-1958. In 1964 he was hired as an assistant professor of English at the University of South Florida. He rose in rank to professor then professor emeritus, retiring from teaching in 2003.
During his 46 year career at USF, he served as University Marshall, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs, Acting Vice President of Academic Affairs, Acting Director of the Graduate School, and Dean of Undergraduate studies. Upon retirement as dean in 1994, he was honored with the title Dean Emeritus. On various leaves from USF, he served as Coordinator of Humanities and Fine Arts for the State University System (Board of Regents) (1969-1971), as Interim District Vice President for Academic Affairs for Hillsborough Community College (1994-1995), and taught in the Florida State University London program in the Fall semester 2002. From his first retirement from USF in May 2003, he was asked to return to become the founding director of the Humanities Institute, College of Arts and Sciences, which he directed for six years, retiring a second time from USF in August 2009.
Nationally, Dr. Scheuerle served as president and board member of the Nineteenth Century Studies Association and of the Research Society of Victorian Periodicals, and board member of the Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies of the Western United States. For eight years, he was editor of the international journal Victorian Periodicals Review. On March 9, 2007, he was honored by the Nineteenth Century Studies Association by being awarded the 2007 Presidential Award for “sustained service to the association and significant contributions to the nineteenth-century studies,” an award that cited his scholarship in Victorian studies and his active participation in national academic societies.
Locally, he was very active with the Library System of Hillsborough County, serving on the board of the Council of the Friends of the Tampa/Hillsborough County Library and on the Board of the County Commissioners’ appointed Citizen’s Library Advisory Board, where he served terms as chair and secretary, and he was a member of the Friends of the Upper Tampa Bay Library Friends and the John F. Germany Library Friends. In addition, he was previously chair and board member of the Temple Terrace Library Board, and served as a board member of SERVE. He was a member and past president of the Florida Bibliophile Society. Recently, he was appointed to the Community Advisory Board of WEDU. He also was a member of the St. Andrews Society of Tampa Bay. He served for many years on the Latino Advisory Committee to the President of the University of South Florida. In September 2010, he received from USF the “Hispanic Heritage Community Award for Outstanding Community Service for 2009-2010”.
Dr. Scheuerle is survived by his wife, Dr. Jane Frances Scheuerle (nee Walker), his daughter Angela and her husband Alan of Dallas, Texas, and his son, Ramsey and his wife Dawn, and their children Jen-Marie, Paul, Serena, Lily Anne, and Ethan of Valrico, Florida.
In lieu of flowers, donations are requested to The Humanities Institute at USF via the USF foundation, ALC100, USF, Flower Avenue, Tampa FL 33620.