CECS director's book a finalist for the 26th Susanne M. Glasscock Book Prize

Posted on 15 October 2025

Congratulations to CECS director, Professor Chloe Wigston Smith!

Chloe's 2024 book, Novels, Needleworks, and Empire: Material Entanglements in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic World is a finalist for the 26th Susanne M. Glasscock Book Prize. The shortlisting committee offered this praise for the book: 'Novels, Needleworks, and Empire is an original and beautifully crafted study that weaves literary analysis with material culture to show how eighteenth-century global forces shaped women’s domestic lives in the Atlantic world.

Chloe Wigston Smith offers an innovative and interdisciplinary perspective on how Atlantic expansionism and empire permeated the everyday and intimate lives of women and children. By showcasing diverse projects of craftsmanship, she provides exciting insight into how empire-building inspired tangible projects and methods of agency for often underutilized historical subjects. This impressive piece of historical scholarship is both highly original and accessible, offering fresh perspectives on gender, race, and authorship while connecting a diverse array of sources, including state archives and material artifacts from museum collections'.

The prize, first awarded in 1999, was permanently endowed in December 2000 by Melbern G. Glasscock ’59 and his wife, Susanne, for whom the prize is named. This prize honors outstanding, original interdisciplinary research in the humanities that appeals to both academic and wider audiences. Shortlisting committees, comprised of Texas A&M faculty members, graduate students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences, and teachers from the local Bryan and College Station public school districts, deliberated and made the selections.