Assistant Professor Bethany Hughes won the Gerald Kahan Scholar's Prize for best article for 2020 from the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) for her article "Oka Apesvchi: Indigenous Feminism, Performance, and Protest" (Theatre Journal 72, no. 2,  June 2020). She also won an honorable mention from the American Theatre and Drama Society for this same article. 

Abstract of article: 
Using Chahta words—hvpia, we all are; oka ohoyo, water woman; apesvchi, to guard and care for—this essay builds an Indigenous-centered analysis of protest performances about water. A song, a dance, and a play created by three different Indigenous women and performed within a few months of one another focus the essay's analysis on the Indigenous feminist concept of radical relationality. By highlighting the relationship between water and humans, the obligations that that relationship demands, and the active care required to fulfill those obligations, it shows how Indigenous protest performances are not against something, but for something—for the water, for the future.

Read the full article here: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/759541