2025 Award-Winning Books by Ideas on Fire Authors

by Cathy Hannabach | Dec 2, 2025

Gold trophy with gold stars spilling out of it

Join us in congratulating these fantastic Ideas on Fire authors whose books won awards this year. Writing and publishing groundbreaking interdisciplinary scholarship is no small feat, and we couldn't be more proud of these scholars.

Want to see your book here next year? Check out our services to see how our global team of developmental editors, copyeditors, indexers, and researchers can help you go from draft to published.

Cover of When Monsters Speak, with Susan Stryker wearing a Transgender Nation tshirt and leather jacket leaning against a chain-link fence

When Monsters Speak: A Susan Stryker Reader

Susan Stryker, edited by McKenzie Wark

Duke University Press

Winner, Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Studies

Cover of Sin Padres, No Papeles with 4 young people walking toward the Los Angeles skyline

Sin Padres, Ni Papeles: The Life and Labor of Unaccompanied Youth in the US

Stephanie L. Canizales

University of California Press

Winner, William M. LeoGrande Prize, presented by the American University Center for Latin American & Latino Studies

Honorable mention, Latina/o Sociology Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award, presented by the American Sociological Association, Latina/o Sociology Section

Honorable mention, William Goode Book Award Honorable Mention, presented by the American Sociological Association, Section on Sociology of the Family

Finalist, Foreward INDIES Book Award in Family & Relationships

Finalist, C. Wright Mills Award, presented by the Society for the Study of Social Problems

Cover of Scattered and Fugitive Things with a black and white drawing of a person wearing a hat and coat and carrying books

Scattered and Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History

Laura Helton

Columbia University Press

Winner, Merle Curti Intellectual History Award, Organization of American Historians

Winner, Arline Custer Memorial Book Award, Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference

Winner, Eliza Atkins Gleason Book Award, Library History Round Table of The American Library Association

Honorable mention, Lawrence W. Levine Award, Organization of American Historians

Honorable mention, S-USIH Annual Book Prize, Society for US Intellectual History

Finalist, ASALH Book Prize for Best New Book in African American History and Culture, Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)

Shortlisted, Modernist Studies Association First Book Prize

Cover of Mujeres de Maiz en Movimiento, with a person in corn husks in front of a full moon

Mujeres de Maiz en Movimiento: Spiritual Artivism, Healing Justice, and Feminist Praxis

Amber Rose González, Felicia "Fe" Montes, and Nadia Zepeda

University of Arizona Press

Winner, International Latino Book Award, Best Women’s Issues Book

Winner, International Latino Book Award, Best Academic Themed Book, College Level

Winner, International Latino Book Award, Best Latina Themed Book

Cover of Atmospheres of Violence with goats moving through a mountain pass

Atmospheric Violence: Disaster and Repair in Kashmir

Omer Aijazi

University of Pennsylvania Press

Winner, Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize, presented by the National Women’s Studies Association

Winner, Nautilus Social Justice Book Award

Winner, James Fisher Prize for First Books on the Himalayan Region

Honorable mention, American Institute of Pakistan Studies Book Prize

Short list, Muslim World Book Award, presented by the Muslim World Book Review

Cover of Master Plans and Minor Acts, with a busy urban street

Master Plans and Minor Acts: Repairing the City in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Shakira E. Hudani

University of Chicago Press

Winner, PEACE Best Global South Scholar Book Award, presented by the International Studies Association, Peace Studies Section

Finalist, Metropolis: Pattis Family Foundation Global Cities Book Award

Cover of Performing the Greek Crisis with a dancer on stage at a regional dance festival

Performing the Greek Crisis: Navigating National Identity in the Age of Austerity

Natalie Zervou

University of Michigan Press

Winner, de la Torre Bueno Book Prize, presented by the Dance Studies Association

Cover of Fraught Balance, with groups of men dancing

Fraught Balance: The Embodied Politics of Dabke Dance Music in Syria

Shayna Silverstein

Wesleyan University Press

Winner, de la Torre Bueno First Book Award, presented by the Dance Studies Association

Winner, Book Prize, presented by the Association of Middle East Women's Studies

Winner, Dance, Movement, and Gesture Kealiinohomoku Award, presented by the Society for Ethnomusicology

Honorable mention, ICTMD Book Prize, presented by the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance

Honorable mention, Ruth Stone Prize, presented by the Society for Ethnomusicology

Cover of Postconflict Utopias with Black women sitting in boats on a river and a woman rising from the water

Postconflict Utopias: Everyday Survival in Choco, Colombia

Tania Lizarazo

University of Illinois Press

Winner, Best Book Prize, presented by the Asociación de Colombianistas

Cover of Experimental Times, with bright multicolored shapes and textures

Experimental Times: Startup Capitalism and Feminist Futures in India

Hemangini Gupta

University of California Press

Winner, Sara A. Whaley Prize, presented by the National Women's Studies Association

Honorable mention, Book Prize, presented by the Society for the Anthropology of Work

Cover of Indigenous Science and Technology, with codex illustrations of trees, plants, and a scientist reading a book

Indigenous Science and Technology: Nahuas and the World around Them

Kelly S. McDonough

University of Arizona Press

Winner, Bryce Wood Book Award, presented by the Latin American Studies Association

Cover of Affective Bordering with abstract blue and red swirling shapes

Affective Bordering: Race, Deservingness and the Emotional Politics of Migration Control

Billy Holzberg

Manchester University Press

Winner, Philip Abrams Memorial Prize, presented by the British Sociological Association

Cover of Kinethic California with colorful digital collage art of dancers

Kinethic California: Dancing Funk and Disco Era Kinships

Naomi Macalalad Bragin

University of Michigan Press

Winner, Erroll Hill Award, presented by the American Society for Theatre Research

Cover of Unsettled Labors with a red outline of Israel and Palestine

Unsettled Labors: Migrant Caregivers in Palestine/Israel

Rachel H. Brown

Duke University Press

Honorable mention, Best Book Award in Middle East and North African Politics, presented by the MENA section of the American Political Science Association

Honorable mention, Foundations of Political Theory First Book Prize, presented by the Foundations of Political Theory section of the American Political Science Association.

Honorable mention, 2025 Michael Harrington Award, presented by the Critical Political Science Section of the American Political Science Association

Cover of Postcolonial Configurations: Dictatorship, the Racial Cold War, and Filipino America, with bright pink and teal abstract artwork

Postcolonial Configurations: Dictatorship, the Racial Cold War, and Filipino America

Josen Masangkay Diaz

Duke University Press

Winner, Interdisciplinary/Multidisciplinary Book Award, presented by the Association for Asian American Studies

Cover of Deepwater Alchemy, with a robotic arm reaching toward the sea floor

Deepwater Alchemy: Extractive Mediation and the Taming of the Sea

Lisa Yin Han

University of Minnesota Press

Winner, Ludwik Fleck Prize, presented by 4s: Society for Social Studies of Science

Cover of Menace to the Future with a full moon and plants over a sandy landscape

Menace to the Future: A Disability and Queer History of Carceral Eugenics

Jess Whatcott

Duke University Press

Honorable mention, Alison Piepmeier Book Prize, presented by the National Women’s Studies Association

Cover of The Politics of Collecting with a hand reaching over skin

The Politics of Collecting: Race and the Aestheticization of Property

Eunsong Kim

Duke University Press

Honorable mention, Cultural Studies Association First Book Award

Cover of Technoskepticism with shadowy shapes on a blue background

Technoskepticism: Between Possibility and Refusal

DISCO Network: David Adelman, André Brock, Jr., Aaron Dial Stephanie Dinkins, Rayvon Fouché, Huan He, Jeff Nagy, Lisa Nakamura, Catherine Knight Steele, Rianna Walcott, Josie Williams, Kevin Winstead, M. Remi Yergeau, and Lida Zeitlin-Wu

Stanford University Press

Honorable Mention, Ángel David Nieves Book Award, presented by the American Studies Association

Cover of Persuasion after Rhetoric in the Eighteenth Century and Romanticism, with a silhouette of a person delivering a speech while holding a pair of eyeglasses

Persuasion after Rhetoric in the Eighteenth Century and Romanticism

Yasmin Solomonescu and Stefan H. Uhlig

Oxford University Press

Winner, Jean-Pierre Barricelli Book Prize, presented by the International Conference on Romanticism

Cover of Dancing the Politics of Pleasure at the New Orleans Second Line, with musicians and dancers playing instruments and dancing in a city street.

Dancing the Politics of Pleasure at the New Orleans Second Line

Rachel Carrico

University of Illinois Press

Honorable mention, de la Torre Bueno® First Book Award, presented by the Dance Studies Association

Cover of Asian American Players, with a silhouette of a man in a suit and tie sitting in an arm chair

Asian American Players: Masculinity, Literature, and the Anxieties of War

Audrey Wu Clark

Ohio State University Press

Honorable mention, Literary Studies Book Award, presented by the Association for Asian American Studies

 

Cover of Trafficking Rhetoric, with a sword-wielding and justice-scales-holding statue on top of a neo-colonial style building

Trafficking Rhetoric: Race, Migration, and the Making of Modern-Day Slavery

Annie Hill

Ohio State University Press

Honorable mention, Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award, presented by the National Communication Association’s Public Address Division

Cover of Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism, with a darkened hallway looking out onto a parking lot with shipping containers and trucks

Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century

Mingwei Huang

Duke University Press

Honorable mention, Best Book Prize, awarded by the African Studies Association

Cover of Oxford Handbook of Media and Social Justice, with a crowd of people organized into a fist

The Oxford Handbook of Media and Social Justice

Srividya Ramasubramanian and Omotayo O. Banjo

Oxford University Press

Winner, Distinguished Scholarship Award: Best Book, presented by the National Communication Association's International and Intercultural Communication Division

Cover of The Taste of Water, with 4 photos of a person drinking from a fountain

The Taste of Water: Sensory Perception and the Making of an Industrialized Beverage

Christy Spackman

University of California Press

Winner, ASU Humanities Institute Book Award

Author: Cathy Hannabach

Dr. Cathy Hannabach is the founder and CEO of Ideas on Fire where she helps interdisciplinary academics transform vibrant ideas into powerful books and public projects that can spark meaningful social change.

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