Annie McClanahan, assistant professor of English, has received the 2017 Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present book prize. Dead Pledges: Debt, Crisis & Twenty-First-Century Culture (Stanford University Press, 2016) explores the ways that U.S. culture — from novels and poems to photojournalism and horror movies — has responded to the financial collapse of 2008. “I’m incredibly honored to win this prize from a professional organization at whose conferences and with whose members I’ve had so many comradely, challenging conversations,” McClanahan said. ASAP is an international nonprofit dedicated to discovering and articulating the aesthetic, cultural, ethical and political identities of contemporary arts. The prize, which includes $500, was announced Oct. 27 during the ASAP annual convention in Oakland, California.