Linfield University student Emma Bare ’25 earned international recognition from the Sigma Tau Delta international English honor society for a critical essay she submitted for publication.
The English major from Camas, Washington, is the recipient of the Frederic Fadner Critical Essay Award. Her winning entry – “Interrogating Torture and Surveillance in J.M. Coetzee’s ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’ in a Post-9/11 Space” – applies a post-structural lens to the portrayl of torture and surveillance in the novel.
The Frederic Fadner Critical Essay Award honors the best critical essays submitted to the Sigma Tau Delta Review. As the award winner, Bare received a $500 prize. In addition, her essay will be published in the 2025 edition of the annual journal.
“I woke up and I looked at my phone and I saw something from them, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh,’” she said. “And I looked at the first word it said, congratulations. I reread it, I think, like, five times. Even still, I’ll look at it again, just to make sure I’m not losing my mind.”
Originally, Bare wrote the essay for an assignment in her postcolonial literature class during her sophomore year. The following year, she took a critical methods class, in which students had to revise an old paper they were proud of and apply a critical lens to it. This is where the award-winning paper was born.
Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, professor of English and director of critical ethnic studies, taught both classes and worked with Bare to refine her essay.
“There is a sort of a labor of love,” Dutt-Ballerstadt said. “I feel like her labor of love was for the writing, and my labor of love is the student-faculty relationship. If you have students who are really bright students, you want to see them take that leap.”
Bare submitted the essay to the Sigma Tau Delta Review in April and learned of the award in August.
Sigma Tau Delta is an international English honors society with over 770 chapters internationally. The organization focuses on high achievement in literature on college campuses. Students can submit original works to The Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle, which focuses on creative writing, or the Sigma Tau Delta Review, which Bare submitted to that focuses on critical essays.
Linfield hosts a chapter of Sigma Tau Delta on its McMinnville campus. In fact, Bare currently serves as president of the chapter.
Overall, Bare says she feels honored to have received the award and is grateful for Dutt-Ballerstadt’s help.
“I’m using this time wisely,” Bare said of her college experience. “I’m working with professors, I’m doing the writing and I’m doing the revision. I’m putting myself and my work out there to be evaluated. And I think that’ll help me (for the future).”
