2017 DOVE AWARD

David Schmid, Ph.D. received the 2017 George N. Dove Award for Contributions to the Study of Mystery and Crime Fiction. David Schmid, Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University at Buffalo (State University of New York), was selected to receive the 2017 Dove Award. The honor is bestowed for outstanding contributions to the serious study of mystery, detective, and crime fiction by the Mystery and Detective Fiction Area of the Popular Culture Association. The award is named for George N. Dove, one of the area’s early members, a past president of the Popular Culture Association, and author of outstanding presentations, articles, and books on detective fiction, especially the police procedural.

The 2017 award recognizes Schmid’s contributions to many different areas of crime fiction studies, including publications, presentations, and course offerings. The author of Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture (2005) and The Secrets of Great Mystery and Suspense Fiction (2016), as well as the co-editor of Globalization and the State in Contemporary Crime fiction: A World of Crime (2016), Schmid has also published numerous essays and book chapters on topics ranging from Dexter and Hannibal to issues of masculinity in the works of David Goodis. He has a variety of reference and review articles to his credit as well, and his works in progress focus on the uses of space in crime fiction and violence in American popular culture. His many public speaking engagements and conference presentations also cover a wide range of topics, and he has taught courses in crime fiction and mystery fiction at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

Not least of Schmid’s many accomplishments are his online activities: he writes a blog; posts regularly on Facebook about wide-ranging topics, including detective fiction; and manages a listserv on crime and detective fiction open to anyone interested in joining, whether academics or not. As his nominator says, David Schmid is “the type of scholar we’d like to recognize as someone who joins together interests in crime and detection as well as traditional and digital scholarship.” 

The 2017 Dove Award was announced at the Mystery and Detective Fiction Area meeting on April 14 during the PCA/ACA annual conference in San Diego.