I won Highly Commended in Europe for the Literature category for my essay titled "Holy Capitalism, Batman! Exploring the relationship between urban capitalism and the hard-boiled genre in 20th century American literature".

This essay takes Fredric Jameson’s key theory from his essay “Detections of Totality” as an introduction into understanding the place of the hardboiled detective novel in 20th century American literature: namely, that Raymond Chandler’s novels should not be dismissed as merely “low brow” hardboiled entertainment, but instead the formal elements of the detective genre should not be dismissed when compared to that of so-called “highbrow” literary fiction.

I love classical literature, it's true, but I also love graphic novels. The relationship, or even the tension, felt between these two genres when under analysis is especially interesting to me as a scholar.