Kellison Wins 2023 Guittard Book Award
The Department of History is delighted to announce that Dr. Kimberly Kellison, Associate Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences and Associate Professor of History at Baylor University, has been awarded the 2023 Guittard Book Award for Historical Scholarship for her book, Forging a Christian Order: South Carolina Baptists, Race, and Slavery, 1696-1860 (University of Tennessee Press, 2023).
An independent panel of judges assessed the deep pool of contenders this year, and Dr. Kellison’s book was adjudged the winning entry. One judge praised it as a “deeply historiographically engaging and ambitious account of the emergence of a critically important denomination in the most important Southern state to the 19th-century U.S” that is “alive to contradictions” in the practices and beliefs of Lowcountry Baptists. Another judge called it “an impressive and interesting piece of scholarship that makes a strong and well-evidenced argument,” while a third praised Kellison for “engag[ing] with a wide range of secondary sources and mak[ing] an explicit and interesting intervention in the scholarly discussions by analyzing regional developments that have been unappreciated in established narratives, challenging some fundamental assumptions about the anti-establishment nature of all Baptist congregations in the 1700s and 1800s.” All three judges remarked on the depth of research, quality of close reading and analysis, and important contribution demonstrated in Dr. Kellison’s work.
Dr. Kellison will receive an award of $1,000 and be feted at a dinner with members of the Guittard family this fall.
If you are interested in hearing Dr. Kellison speak on her publication, please attend the Readers Meet the Author event featuring Dr. Kellison on November 19th. The event is presented by the Office of the President & the Office of the Provost and hosted by the Baylor Libraries. More information can be found HERE.
Congratulations, Dr. Kellison!