The submission portal for nominations will open in January 2026.
The Arnold Rubin Outstanding Book Award is given for excellence in scholarship on the arts of Africa and the African Diaspora. The awards committee will assess works of original scholarship and excellence in visual presentation that makes significant contribution to our understanding of African arts and material culture. While our awards committee is made up of volunteers with varied language skills, we welcome submissions in languages other than English and we will do our best to solicit suitable ACASA members as outside readers for assistance.
Eligibility
Up to two awards are made, one from each of the following categories:
- Single authored books
- Multi-authored volumes.
Runners up may also be recognized
Eligible books must have been published (by official publication date or demonstrated public availability, if different) between September 1, 2023 and August 30, 2025. No book will be considered for more than one award cycle.
Nominees must be ACASA members in good standing. Join ACASA
Submission Materials
Please submit 3 copies of the book.
2024 Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award Recipients
Single author winners:
Jennifer Bajorek for Unfixed: Photography and Decolonial Imagination in West Africa (Duke 2020)
Delinda Collier for Media Primitivism: Technological Art in Africa (Duke 2020)
Barbara Frank for Griot Potters of the Folona: The History of an African Ceramic Tradition (Indiana 2021)
Matthew Rarey for Insignificant Things: Amulets and the Art of Survival in the Early Black Atlantic (Duke 2023)
Single author honorable mention (in no particular order):
Christa Clarke for The Activist Collector: Lida Clanton Broner’s 1938 Journey from Newark to South Africa (Newark Museum & Rutgers 2022)
Jordan Fenton for Masquerade and Money in Urban Nigeria: The Case of Calabar (U of Rochester 2022)
Ferdinand de Jong for Decolonizing Heritage: Time to Repair in Senegal (Cambridge 2022)
Okechukwu Nwafor for Aso Ebi: Dress, Fashion, Visual Culture, and Urban Cosmopolitanism in West Africa (Michigan 2021)
Multi-author winners:
Bongi Dhlomo and Pfunzo Sidogi for Mihloti Ya Ntasako: Journeys with the Bongi Dhlomo Collection (Javett Art Centre, U of Pretoria 2022)
Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu for El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture (Damiani 2022)
Perrin Lathrop (ed) for African Modernism in America (Fisk & Yale 2022)
José da Silva Horta, Carlos Almeida, and Peter Mark (eds) for African Ivories in the Atlantic World, 1400-1900 (Centre for History of the University of Lisbon 2021)
Multi-author honorable mention (in no particular order):
Bennetta Jules-Rosette & J.R. Osborn for African Art Reframed: Reflections and Dialogues on Museum Culture (Illinois 2021)
Contanstijn Petridis (ed) for The Language of Beauty in African Art (AIC & Yale 2022)
Allen Roberts, Marla Berns, Tom Joyce, Henry J. Drewal, William Dewey, and Candace Goucher (eds) for Striking Iron: The Art of the African Blacksmith (Fowler Museum UCLA 2019)
Ray Silverman and Neal Sobania for Ethiopian Church Art: Painters, Patrons, and Purveyors (Tsehai 2022)
››› View Past Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award Winners ‹‹‹