Call for Submissions

The Daniel R. Barnes Undergraduate Prize is an annual $200 cash award for the year's best folklore paper or project by an OSU undergraduate. It honors beloved emeritus professor Daniel R. Barnes, who taught folklore and literature courses in Ohio State's Department of English from 1967 until 1995.

Eligible papers & projects:

• Must be created by a current OSU undergraduate in a folklore course, OR  an undergraduate taking the folklore minor or concentration, OR an active undergraduate member of the Folklore Student Association.
• Must have been created within the last 12 months.
• May have been created for a folklore course.
• May have been presented for conferences or publication.
• May be part of a thesis directed by a folklore faculty member.
• May be created specifically for the Barnes Prize.

Only one submission per student will be allowed, and the student must not have been a previous recipient of the Barnes Prize.

Format:

All papers will be submitted electronically. Projects and papers should be linked to in your email message or saved as .doc, .docx, .pdf, .mp4, .wav or .html and attached to your email. All submissions should include a title page (either included or as a separate file) with:

• your name
• title of the paper or project
• a sentence describing what the paper or project was originally created for
• the date it is being submitted

Do not include your name on any other materials in your submission. If submitting a paper, all pages (excluding the title page) should include a header that lists the title of the paper and the page number.

Paper & projects should be submitted to cfs@osu.edu, by 11:59 pm on April 20, 2027, with the subject line: "Barnes Prize Submission"

Awardees

2026: Wonjoo Lee, "Towards the Golden Era of KPop: KPop and Shamanism in KPop Demon Hunters"

2025: Luke Ponesse, “’We Were Best Friends After That:’ An Analysis of Pranks and Prank Stories”

2024: Blaise Reader, “'Pike County Providence:' The Enlivenment of Local History Artifacts"

2023: Casey Bartman, “Occupational Folklore: From Sundaes to Ceremonies”

2022: Maggie Lindner, "The Function of Fanfiction"

2019: Anthony Maggio, "Children of Recovery"

2018: No submissions received.

2017: Bethani Turley, "After the Spill: Environmental Justice and Disaster Relief in West Virginia"

2016: Taylor Saltsman, “Freedom through Difference: A Conscious Self Excavation of a Female, American Student in India”

2015: Marisa Wieneke, "Creating Custom Cornhole: The Formation of Community and Identity through Material Culture"