The Cheryl Frank Memorial Prize 2014

The winner of the prize for 2014 is Matthew L. N. Wilkinson for his book A Fresh Look at Islam in a Multi-Faith World: A Philosophy for Success through Education. Routledge.

A Fresh Look at Islam deploys critical realist metatheory and empirical research in an original and creative way to produce an educational philosophy - Islamic critical realism - to assist Muslims meet the challenges of our times and promote a better understanding of Islam among non-Muslims.

There was a strong field. The committee was impressed in different ways by all the short-listed works (see the list below), but felt that the following (in alphabetical order) deserve special mention as runners-up:

Margaret S. Archer, ed., Late Modernity: Trajectories towards Morphogenetic Society, Springer
John Mingers, Systems Thinking, Critical Realism and Philosophy: A Confluence of Ideas. Routledge
David Pilgrim, Understanding Mental Health. A  Critical Realist Exploration. Routledge


About the Prize

The Cheryl Frank Memorial Prize is awarded annually for a book or article that constitutes, motivates or exemplifies the best and/or most innovative writing in or about the tradition of critical realism, including the philosophy of metaReality, in the previous year. The winner will be invited to give the annual Cheryl Frank Memorial Lecture at the IACR Annual Conference or some other suitable venue. If the Author wishes, the lecture will be considered for publication in Journal of Critical Realism.

The Cheryl Frank Committee consists of one nominee each from IACR, the Centre for Critical Realism and JCR. The current members are Mervyn Hartwig, Jamie Morgan and Nick Wilson. Where the work of one of its members is being considered the Committee invites a substitute nomination from the relevant organization.

Shortlist for 2014:

• Margaret Archer, ed., Late Modernity: Trajectories towards Morphogenetic Society, Springer 2014
• John Mingers, Systems Thinking, Critical Realism and Philosophy: A Confluence of Ideas. Routledge 2014
• David Pilgrim, Understanding Mental Health. A  Critical Realist Exploration. Routledge 2014
• Arne Johan Vetlesen, The Denial of Nature. Environmental Philosophy in the Era of Global Capitalism, Routledge 2014
• Matthew L. N. Wilkinson, A Fresh Look at Islam in a Multi-Faith World: A Philsophy for Success through Education. Routledge 2014
• Christopher Norris, What Strong Sociologists can Learn from Critical Realism, Journal of Critical Realism, vol 13, no 1, Febr. 2014
• Christopher Norris, What's Love Got To Do With It? Journal of Critical Realism, vol 13, no 5, Oct 2014
• MinGyu Seo, Reality and Self-Realization: Bhaskar's Metaphilosophical Journey toward Non-dual Emancipation, Routledge, 2014
• Paschalis A. Arvanitidis, The Economics of Urban Property Markets: An Institutional Economic Analysis, Routledge Studies in The European Economy, 2014

Past recipients of the Prize:

2010:
Christian Smith, What is a person? (The University of Chicago Press)
Alan Norrie, Dialectic and difference. Dialectical Critical Realism and the grounds of justice (Routledge)

2011:
Chris Sarra, Strong and Smart: Towards a Pedagogy for Emancipation (Routledge)

2012:
Ruth Groff, Ontology Revisited: Metaphysics in Social and Political Philosophy (Routledge)
Nick Hostettler, Eurocentrism: A Marxian Critical Realist Critique (Routledge)

2013:
Lena Gunnarsson, The Contradictions of Love: Towards a Feminist-Realist Ontology of Sociosexuality (Routledge)