Dr. Laura Ashe's Chaucer’s Ethical Philosophy wins the New Chaucer Society’s 2026 Publication Prize

We are delighted to announce that Dr. Laura Ashe has won the New Chaucer Society's 2026 Publication Prize for her book, Chaucer’s Ethical Philosophy! Dr Ashe's book was recognized as Best Monograph on Chaucer published in 2024 or 2025 at the Society’s biennial Congress in Freiburg, Germany on 30th July.

The committee applauded Ashe for her enormous argumentative verve, which is clearly the product of long teaching of Chaucer. They also applauded how the book’s unabashedly personal approach yields exhilarating and intense engagement with key philosophical questions that Chaucer’s poetry raises by way of two unusual interlocutors, Wittgenstein and Hegel. With its convincing arguments, delivered with force and supported by masterful close readings, the book attests to how such traditional methods of analysis, in concert with ideas that matter to us now, continue to yield groundbreaking contributions to Chaucer studies.

The New Chaucer Society, a global academic organization founded in 1977, provides a forum for teachers and scholars of Geoffrey Chaucer and his age, a period roughly defined as 1300-1500. Its biennial congresses attract hundreds of members from around the world who share the latest scholarship and pedagogical techniques with one another.

Chaucer’s Ethical Philosophy was published by Oxford University Press on 4th February 2025.