Comparative and world literature professor Eric Calderwood has received the 2026 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies for his book, "On Earth or in Poems: The Many Lives of al-Andalus."
The prize comes from the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, part of the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.
According to the institute, the Laura Shannon Prize is "a preeminent prize within the field of European studies." It's awarded each year to the book that "best transcends a focus on any one country, state or people, stimulating new ways of thinking about contemporary Europe as a whole."
This year’s award cycle considered books in the humanities published in 2024 and 2025.
The final jury for the prize said Calderwood set a “new standard for interpreting the ongoing relevance of our foundational political and cultural histories.”
"Alongside its eloquent historiographical achievement for a range of fields, “On Earth or in Poems” is strikingly relevant to our current historical crossroads. It represents the very best of the critical perspectives from the peripheries of Europe: a story emerging from the Western edge of Europe, traveling around the Mediterranean, only to rearticulate its cultural and political challenges in the space-in-between Europe and its essentially migrant history. In this, it amply offers, in the words of the Shannon Prize, “new ways of thinking about contemporary Europe as a whole,” decentering the continent as the provenance of any single cultural, aesthetic or religious tradition…. At a moment when powerful voices are agitating in favor of univocal, hierarchical and ultimately fictional “shared traditions” of Europe, Calderwood provides a response of literal and material shared histories whose contemporary expressions demonstrate multiplicity and defy any neat historical or geographical unities."
“In short, it is European Studies at its best in that it aligns effortlessly and traces in admirable depth cultural, political and religious histories, while at the same time examining their relevance for a wider Europe," they said.