The Annual R. L. Shep Ethnic Textiles
Book Award

The R. L. Shep award is given annually to the publication judged to be the best book of the year in the field of ethnic textile studies. The purpose of the award is to encourage the study and understanding of ethnic textile traditions by recognizing and rewarding exceptional scholarship in the field. The award consists of a cash prize, funded by an endowment established by R. L. Shep in 2000. The endowment is administered by the Textile Society of America, through an Award Committee appointed by the Board of Directors.

Nominations are open to English language books (including bi- or multilingual publications in which all essential information appears in English). For the purpose of the award, "ethnic" textiles are defined as the non-industrial textiles of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Native and Latin America, as well as those of identifiable cultural groups in Europe and North America. Books of a variety of formats, including monographs, anthologies, and exhibition catalogs may be nominated. The main criteria for the prize-winning book are high quality research and scholarship, presented in an accessible, engaging manner.

Winners of the Annual R. L. Shep Ethic Textiles Award for Books Published in the Year 2006

Chosen from a field of nominated titles, The Kashmiri Shawl, from Jamavar to Paisley by Sherry Rehman and Naheed Jafri published by Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd. exemplifies the goal of the award to recognize exceptional scholarship in the field of ethnic textile studies.

“The Kashmiri Shawl is a very comprehensive and beautifully illustrated book. It clearly presents the Kashmir shawl within the sphere of many regional variations, which may not have been explained in previous publications. There are many images of old photographs and courtly paintings depicting people wearing shawls "in situ", often with captions analyzing the origins of the particular shawl. The book is also extremely comprehensive on the many types of shawls woven in Kashmir and specifies the cultural group or religious community for which it might have been made. The authors take a personal stance on the subject of Kashmir as a "disputed region", by pushing the Pakistani use of Kashmiri shawls to the forefront. This is a voice that we have not heard before on the subject. What is best about the book is that this is more than a presentation on the shawl as a European fashion accessory, plus that there is also a chapter on the human face of the shawl weaving, dealing with labor conditions workshops, a section not seen to our knowledge in any of other shawl books.”

Given annually to a publication judged to be the best book of the year in the field of ethnic textile studies, the award consists of a cash prize, funded by an endowment established by R. L. Shep in 2000. The endowment is administered by the Textile Society of America, through an Award Committee comprised of members Mattibelle Gittinger, Victoria Rivers and chair, Margot Schevill.

A formal presentation of this award, along with the announcement of next year’s R.L. Shep Ethnic Textiles Book Award winner, will take place at the TSA Biennial Symposium in Honolulu, Hawaii in September 2008.

Previous winners of the R. L. Shep Award:

2005 David W. Fraser and Barbara G. Fraser, Mantles of Merit: Chin Textiles from Myanmar, India and Bangladesh. Bangkok, Thailand: River Books, and

J. C. H. King, Birgit Pauksztat and Robert Storrie, eds. Arctic Clothing of North America – Alaska, Canada, Greenland. Montreal & Kingston, Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press

2004 Patricia Marks Greenfield, Weaving Generations Together: Evolving Creativity in the Maya of Chiapas, Santa Fe: School of American Research Press

2003 Gillian Green, Traditional Textiles of Cambodia – Cultural Threads and Material Heritage, Buppha Press, Chicago

2003 Janet Catherine Berlo and Patricia Cox Crews, Wild by Design: Two Hundred Years of Innovation and Artistry in American Quilts, University of Washington Press

2002 Monisha Ahmed, Living Fabric: Weaving Among the Nomads of Ladakh Himalaya, Orchid Press of Bangkok, Thailand

2001 Katharine Larson, The Woven Coverlets of Norway, University of Washington Press

2000 Nurhan Atasoy, Otag-I Humayun: The Ottoman Imperial Tent Complex, MEPA (Medya Pazarlama Taskin ve Ticaret, A.S.), Istanbul