The GHS is proud to announce the winner and joint runners up of the 2025 Undergraduate Essay Prize:

Winner:

Aidan Woo  (University of Oxford), ‘Picturing Socialism: Industrial Work in East German Photography, 1949-1990’

Runners Up:

Megan Handy (University of Manchester), ‘Staging Survival: Theatre as an Experimental Tool for the Reconstruction of Jewish Identity in Post-War German Displaced Persons Camps’

Sophie Rebiero (University of Manchester), ‘From Enemy to Friend Bodies: Burying and Exhuming German Servicemen and Civilian Internees in the United Kingdom, 1914-1967’

The awarding committee commented:

The judging panel were highly impressed with the quality and range of submissions for the essay prize this year. The prize winners demonstrated commendable historical thinking, analysing a diverse body of sources with nuance and sensitivity. The panel were struck by the well-defined objectives of the winners’ research projects, as well as the coherence of their argument, underpinned by a conceptual clarity and thorough historiographical understanding of their fields. Aidan Woo’s essay on ‘Picturing Socialism: Industrial Work in East German Photography, 1949-1990’ impressed the panel in particular due to its sophisticated use of visual and textual sources and the original framing he brought to the topic.

Congratulations to Aidan, Megan, and Sophie!