Craig A. Lockard Prize

Call for the 2026 Craig A. Lockard Prize for Award in 2027

The Malaysia/Singapore/Brunei (MSB) Studies Group of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is calling for submissions for the Craig A. Lockard Prize.

The Craig A. Lockard Prize is awarded for the best journal article published in a calendar year by a junior or early-career scholar addressing research on Malaysia, Singapore, or Brunei in any field of study. The prize will be awarded at the following year’s AAS Annual Conference. The Craig A. Lockard Prize carries with it a US$300.00 award.

At the 2027 AAS Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts we intend to award the prize to the best article published in a peer-reviewed journal in the 2025 calendar year. The article may be published either online in 2026 in an OnlineFirst or FirstView format without any journal issue number, or published online with a journal issue year in 2026. The committee may also give out an “Honorable Mention” award.

The Lockard Prize aims to highlight original research and/or new research methodologies by junior or early-career scholars. In addition, the committee will consider whether the paper is contributing innovative arguments in advancing an existing conversation, or even carving out a new field of inquiry.

Each junior or early-career scholar may only submit one journal article for consideration. The journal article published should showcase the scholar’s best research on any of the three countries – Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, or comparative research across two or all three countries. Journal articles submitted for consideration for the Lockard Prize cannot be also submitted for the Lent Prize.

A “junior or early-career scholar” is any scholar who is currently engaged in PhD studies, or one who is no more than 5 years from their PhD graduation. The “junior or early-career scholar” can be based in any institution around the world.

If you would like to submit your journal article for consideration for the 2027 award, please send a PDF version of the published article to the email msbstudiesgroup@gmail.com. by December 15, 2026. Please also include the "Lockard Prize Submission 2026" in the subject header and cc the Lockard Prize Chair at dw597@cornell.edu and MSB Chair at fzakaria@nus.edu.sg. The awardee will be notified by February 2026. The awardee does not have to attend the 2027 Association for Asian Studies annual conference held in March 2027 in Boston, MA, USA.

Craig A. Lockard is Ben and Joyce Rosenberg Professor of History Emeritus in the Social Change and Development Department at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. He was the second elected Chair of the AAS MSB Studies Group, serving from 1982-1984, and a member of the Executive Committee in the 1970s. From 1975 to 2010, he taught undergraduate courses on Asian, African, comparative and world history as well as popular culture. He has taught at SUNY-Buffalo, SUNY-Stony Brook, and the University of Bridgeport, and twice served as a Fulbright-Hays Professor of History at the University of Malaya in Malaysia. He has published 7 books or monographs, over 20 articles, and dozens of book reviews related to Malaysia and Singapore. Among his major books are Southeast Asia in World History (2009), Chinese Society and Politics in Sarawak: Historical Essays (2009), Chinese Immigration and Society in Sarawak, 1870-1917 (2003), Dance of Life: Popular Music and Politics in Modern Southeast Asia (1998), and From Kampung to City: A Social History of Kuching, Malaysia, 1820-1970 (1987), amongst others. He obtained his M.A. in Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii in 1967, and completed his PhD in Comparative World and Southeast Asian History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1973.

The AAS MSB Lockard Prize Committee are:

Chair: Darren Wan (Cornell) - dw597@cornell.edu 

Members:

Russell Yap (National University of Singapore) – russellyap@u.nus.edu 

Elynn Tan (Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology) –

elynn_tan95@yahoo.com 

Oleg Vasilchenko (Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg) –

oleg.vasilchenko@fau.de