Gerry Wolfson-Grande, a graduate student in the Master of Liberal Studies program, was named a co-recipient of the Anthony Jung Award for the Best Graduate Student Presentation at the 2011 European Studies Conference held in October at the University of Nebraska in Omaha.

Her paper, “‘The Beste Game of Alle’: Playing Chess with Fortune in the Book of the Duchess and the Knight’s Tale,” examines the relationship between chess as a metaphor and Chaucer’s works with regard to the opposition between order and the forces of fortune and chaos.

The paper is a part of Wolfson-Grande’s thesis project, a collection of chess-themed short stories and academic scholarship exploring the game of chess as a reflection of human struggle in microcosm, which has inspired Western literary and artistic effort both as primary theme and as analogue since its introduction to Europe in the early Middle Ages.