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Shelley Stamp, Professor of Film + Digital Media received the 2017 Michael Nelson Book Prize

Shelley Stamp

Shelley Stamp, Professor of Film + Digital Media (FDM) was named the recipient of the 2017 Michael Nelson Book Prize, presented by the International Association for Media and History.  Professor Stamp travelled to Paris in July 2017 to accept the award for her latest book, Lois Weber in Early Hollywood, at the organization’s 40th anniversary conference titled “Media and History: Crime, Violence and Justice.” The Nelson prize is awarded biennially to the book “making the best contribution on the subject of media and history” that has been published in the preceding two years.

Stamp’s book on Lois Weber was previously named one of the best film books of 2015 by the Huffington Post. It was also awarded the 2015 Richard Wall Award Special Jury Prize for “an exemplary work in the field of recorded performance” from the Theatre Library Association, which annually presents awards for the best English language works of scholarship on theatre, film, and broadcasting.

One of the most prolific directors of the silent film era, Lois Weber was a writer, producer, actress, and head of her own production company, who paved the way for filmmakers who envisioned film as an opportunity to inject their own ideas and philosophies into a rapidly growing entertainment industry.

A leading expert on women and early film culture, Professor Stamp writes on the contributions women made to early Hollywood as filmmakers, moviegoers, performers, critics and theorists. She is also founding editor of Feminist Media Histories: An International Journal. Professor Stamp is currently at work on a comprehensive history titled “Women and the Silent Screen in America.”