An annual prize for an outstanding essay is awarded in memory of Amy Lee, a graduate student in Comparative Literature 2005-2007, who died of cancer after a short illness. These are the top essays from the Comparative Literature 1 through 4 series.
| Year | Winner | Essay | Course |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Scarlet Nakadegawa-Lee | Do No Harm No Foul: Crime and Punishment as Seen in Knives Out | COM 3 (Instructor: Sean Sell) |
| 2023 | Rishit Das | The Decomposition of the Narratological Framework in Pedro Páramo | COM 4 (Instructor: Ross Hernandez) |
| 2022 | Rachel McCune | Familiarity that is Lost in Translation | COM 3 (Instructor: Ross Hernandez) |
| 2021 | Sarkis Bouladian | Third Persons: Modulating Love's Manifestation | COM 1 (Instructor: Manasvin Rajagopalan) |
| 2020 | Eden Gabai | "Oppression Across Space and Poetry" | Com 4 (Instructor: Ross Hernandez) |
| 2020 | Crystal Phung | "The Turmoil in Our Parasitic Society" | COM 2 (Instructor: Kyle Proehl) |
| 2019 | Michael Cotter | "Jorge Luis Borges' 'Funes the Memorious'" | COM 4 (Instructor: Tianya Wang) |
| 2018 | Andrew Young | "Finding the Spectrum of Gender" | COM 2 (Instructor: Megan Ammirati) |
| 2017 | Kristen Lo | “Medea’s Ascension through the Apollonian and Dionysian Forces” | COM 1 (Instructor: Anna Einarsdottir) |
| 2016 | Christine Chung | “Trauma as Inheritance in ‘Momik’” | COM 4 (Instructor: Celine Piser) |
| 2015 | Tim Kontje | “Politics, Gender, and Gods in Antigone and The Bacchae” | COM 1 (Instructor: Cloe-Mai LeGall-Scoville) |
| 2014 | Grace Gordon | “Memoria Est Imperfectus” | COM 3 (Instructor: Shannon Hays) |
| 2013 | Jake Cannon | “The Homeric Morality of El Cid” | COM 2 (Instructor: Megan Ammirati) |
| 2012 | Shannon Marie Hoopes | “The Prostitute and the Vamp: Subordination of the Modern Woman” | COM 3 (Instructor: Anna Einarsdottir) |
| 2011 | Paulo Roque DeMorais | “Goethe’s Faust and the Enlightenment: Mephisto, Progress, and the Dialectic of Good and Evil” | COM 3 (Instructor: Kristen Bergman Waha) |
| 2010 | Stephanie Anne Tornow | “Mothers and Whores” | COM 3 (Instructor: Giovanna Montenegro) |
| 2009 | Evan Frank Loker | “Propaganda and Expansionism in the Song of Roland” | COM 2 (Instructor: Patricia MacKinnon) |
| 2008 | Kevin Douglas Peterson | “Picking the Flower of France: Natural Imagery and Divine Providence in the Song of Roland” | COM 2 (Instructor: Christina Schiesari) |