Student Godfree Wins Wonderland Award

Critical Studies Doctoral Student Wins Wonderland Award

School of Cinematic Arts student Ghia Godfree won the fifth-annual Wonderland Award with her inventive mash-up of Alice in Wonderland and the popular Loteria card game. Godfree is a SCA Critical Studies doctoral candidate. She stood out of a record 57 entries winning the $2000 prize. This year’s competition received more entries than the last two years combined.


Other Wonderland Award winners:

Emily Yu			Second Prize			Series of small paintings based on pieces by Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Andy Warhol and other modernist icons.
Kelly Combs			Third Prize			The Liddell Book of Letters, an illustrated, hand-made book that can only be read using a mirror.
Leah Sargent			Inaugural White Rabbit Prize			Short film Curious: My Wonderland
Keith Henkel			Dormouse Prize			Collection of dresses with animal characteristics.
Kathryn Strong			Special Recognition Award			A tiny book titled Of Deep-Fried Chicken Wings. . .
Kassandra Zuanich			Special Recognition Award			Unique Web-based logic-puzzle game based on the Alice in Wonderland universe.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Wonderland Award, a multidisciplinary competition inspired by the work of Lewis Carroll. An audience of students, faculty and library supporters joined the judges and Linda & George Cassady for the fifth-anniversary Wonderland Award ceremony recently at USC's Doheny Memorial Library.

Since 2005, USC students have created everything from poems, essays, and novels to films, paintings, and sculptures. Their entries reflect the imaginative range of Carroll himself, a polymath known for his logic puzzles, nonsense poetry, and photography, along with The Hunting of the Snark and the Alice books.

Sponsored by Friends of the USC Libraries member Linda Cassady, the Wonderland Award encourages students to explore the G. Edward Cassady, M.D. and Margaret Elizabeth Cassady, R.N., Lewis Carroll Collection held in Doheny Memorial Library’s special collections.

You can see many of their entries in our virtual Wonderland exhibition from January 30 - May 16, 2009.

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