Matt Erlin, professor and chair of Germanic languages and literatures in Arts & Sciences, has won the 2016 DAAD/German Studies Association Book Prize for “Necessary Luxuries: Books, Literature, and the Culture of Consumption in Germany, 1777-1815.”
The prize recognizes “Necessary Luxuries” as the best book in “Germanistik,” or cultural studies, published in 2014 or 2015. Erlin received the honor Sept. 30 during the German Studies Association’s 40th annual conference in San Diego. The jury, led by Kristin Kopp of the University of Missouri, called “Necessary Luxuries” an “engrossing, elegantly written, and carefully argued work.”
The German Studies Association is the premier multi- and interdisciplinary association of scholars focused on German, Austrian and Swiss history, literature, culture studies, political science and economics. The DAAD/GSA book prize, which includes a $1,000 award, is funded through the North American office of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the German national agency for support of international academic cooperation.