March 27, 2024
The Association of American Publishers Announces 2024 PROSE Award Winners for Excellence and the R.R. Hawkins Award
Princeton University Press, Cambridge University Press, Duke University Press, and The MIT Press Honored with Excellence Awards
Top PROSE Awards Prize, The R.R. Hawkins Award, goes to Princeton University Press’ The Voices of Nature: How and Why Animals Communicate
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) today announced the four Excellence winners of its annual PROSE Awards, which recognize best-in-class scholarly publications in four categories: Biological & Life Sciences, Humanities, Physical Sciences & Mathematics, and Social Sciences.
AAP also announced that the program’s top prize, the prestigious R.R. Hawkins Award, has been awarded to Princeton University Press for The Voices of Nature: How and Why Animals Communicate.
“We congratulate this year’s winners from Princeton University Press, Cambridge University Press, Duke University Press, and The MIT Press, who illustrate the incredible quality and innovation that is representative of PROSE Award for Excellence winners,” commented Syreeta Swann, Chief Operating Officer at the Association of American Publishers. “Taken as a whole, this year’s winners illustrate the power and importance of scholarly publishing, combining detailed research, concise prose, and inventive approaches that make these works truly compelling for both expert and lay readers. We thank our judges for their tireless work in determining our PROSE Award for Excellence Winners, and all who entered for their contributions to the field of scholarly and professional publishing.”
R.R. Hawkins Award Winner
“Princeton University Press is honored to accept the R.R. Hawkins Award, and humbled to do so for a second year in a row. We are grateful to the PROSE judges for their engaged reading—and listening!—and to our peer presses for their inspired publishing,” notes Christie Henry, Director of Princeton University Press. “Nicolas Mathevon entrusted to our team this extraordinary work, The Voices of Nature: How and Why Animals Communicate, which opens all of our senses to the ways in which sounds and communication shape culture, community and environment. It’s a thrill to amplify its impact with this award.”
“The Voices of Nature: How and Why Animals Communicate, is as inventive as it is trailblazing, combining accessible writing with a unique online audio tie-in to create a truly immersive experience,” commented PROSE Chief Judge Nigel Fletcher-Jones, PhD. “I have every confidence that this innovative approach will dramatically expand the understanding bioacoustics, and provide an invaluable tool for scholars and readers of all kinds.”
Excerpts from The Voices of Nature: How and Why Animals Communicate:
On the origins of Song:
“When we were vulnerable beings with limited weaponry, as we were until very recently, we kept predators at bay by increasing the range and diversity of our vocalizations…this type of antipredator strategy would explain the polyphonic songs sung, especially on moonless nights, in certain hunter-gatherer societies (among the Hadza and Ba Yaka of sub-Saharan Africa, for example)…if each one of us pitches in with some polyphonic variations, the predator will have the impression that these humans are particularly numerous and will not dare approach.”
On Bird-Human Collaboration:
The honeyguide is “in the habit of leading hive hunters to the object of their common lust. How does it proceed? By calling and flying from one tree to another, patiently waiting for the humans to catch up. When all have arrived at their destination, the hunters, protected from the bees by clothing and equipped with tools, open the hive to extract the honey from it, leaving the wax combs in plain sight, which their winged guide delights in as they leave.”
The Voices of Nature: How and Why Animals Communicate is accompanied by an innovative audio tie-in site that immerses readers in the world of the animals they are learning about. That site can be found here.
2024 PROSE Excellence Winners are as follows:
R.R. Hawkins Award Winner & PROSE Award for Excellence in Biological and Life Sciences
- The Voices of Nature: How and Why Animals Communicate, Nicolas Mathevon, Princeton University Press
PROSE Award for Excellence in Social Sciences
- Residual Governance: How South Africa Foretells Planetary Futures, Gabrielle Hecht, Duke University Press
PROSE Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
- Mnemonic Ecologies: Memory and Nature Conservation along the Former Iron Curtain, Sonja K. Pieck, The MIT Press
PROSE Award for Excellence in Humanities
- Giotto’s Arena Chapel and the Triumph of Humility, Henrike Christiane Lange, Cambridge University Press
About the PROSE Awards
Since 1976, the AAP’s PROSE Awards have recognized publishers who produce books, journals, and digital products of extraordinary merit that make a significant contribution to a field of study.
During the 2024 PROSE cycle our panel of 25 PROSE judges selected 118 finalists and 41 category winners. Of the 41 exceptional category winners, today’s Award for Excellence Award Winners and R.R. Hawkins Winner illustrate the extraordinary quality of scholarly publishing and contribute novel ideas to their respective areas of study.
More information about the 2024 PROSE Awards can be found here.