In Volume 2, Editor William F. Naufftus announced the inauguration of the Joiner Prize, named for the founding Secretary-Treasurer of the Philological Association of the Carolinas. From Volume 2 through Volume 8, each issue led with one Joiner Prize Essay.
With Volume 9, it was replaced with two Founders Prizes essays, one on Foreign Literatures and Languages, one on British or American Literature and Language. The new name paid tribute to three men "who were primarily responsible for the creation of the Philological Association of the Carolinas: Lawrence D. Joiner, Earl J. Wilcox, and Joseph Zdenek." This pattern continued until Volume 17, published in 2000, which had no prize essays.
In 2006 the editors reinstated the award under the title Outstanding Paper Award.
| Volume |
Author |
Title |
| 2 |
Andrea Sanders, Francis Marion College |
"Mirrors Arranged in a Circle Around One Center": The O'Connor Mystery Cycle |
| 3 |
Ina Rae Hark, University of South Carolina |
A Frontier Closes in Brooklyn: Death of a Salesman and the Turner Thesis |
| 4 |
Mary Ellis Gibson, University of North Carolina at Greensboro |
The Seraglio or Suttee: Brontë's Jane Eyre |
| 5 |
Steven Lynn, University of South Carolina |
Locke and Beccaria: Faculty Psychology and Capital Punishment |
| 6 |
Margaret B. Moore, Athens, GA |
Hawthorne and the Five-Dollar School |
| 7 |
Helen W. Robbins, Arkansas College |
Sexual and Textual Authority in Two Novels by Charlotte Brontë |
| 8 |
Nancy Lane, University of South Carolina-Columbia |
Expressing the Inexpressible: Ionesco and the Struggle with Language |
| 9 |
Judith H. Arias, East Carolina University |
Tenorio's Illusory Game |
| |
Peter T. Whelan, University of North Carolina at Greensboro |
Crossing the Boundaries in Wuthering Heights |
| 10 |
Beverly Taylor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Elizabeth Barret Browning and the Annuals: Feminist Challenges to the "Feminine" |
| |
Elba Andrade, The Citadel |
Drama y Metadrama en Retablo de Yumbel de Isidora Aguirre |
| 11 |
Deborah Baker Wyrick, North Carolina State University |
Charles Johnson's Battle of the Books |
| |
Albert E. Gurganus, The Citadel |
The Delicate Balance in Hanns Cibulka's Wegscheide |
| 12 |
Helen R. Deese, Tennessee Technological University |
Emerson from a Feminist Perspective: The Carolina H. Dall Journals |
| |
Michèle Bissièrre, University of North Carolina at Charlotte |
Graffigny, Riccoboni, et la tradition des Lettres persanes |
| 13 |
Sophie Mills, University of North Carolina at Asheville |
Euripides, Phaedra and the Sophists: Making the Weaker Argument the Stronger |
| |
James Haughey, Southern Wesleyan University |
The Great War and Irish Memory |
| 14 |
Carolyn Mthews, Wake Forest University |
Divesting the Solitary Soul: Dress and Undress in Kate Chopin's The Awakening |
| |
William Robert Brown, Jr., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Schopenhauer and Faust II |
| 15 |
Kathryn Willis Wolfe, Penn State Erie, The Behrend College |
The Woof and Warp of Authoritative Speech or the Exploitation of Costume by Molière's Pedantic Characters |
| |
Gordon N. Ross and William Rogers, Winthrop University |
Shakespeare's Rotten Fruit |
| 16 |
Katya Skow-Obenaus, The Citadel |
Representations of Families in Das Buch der Liebe (1587) |
| |
Jillian Beifuss, College of Charleston |
"Pray Make Your Love No Stranger": Incest, Agency, and the Affective Family in Thomas Middleton's Women Beware Women |
| 23 |
Peter Whelan, Francis Marion University |
Samson, Delilah, and Yahweh: Character and Prejudice |
