It’s a pretty specific topic: Mexican women’s periodicals at the turn of the 20th century … and it’s where some of the cash ploughed into the DRUPA city of Düsseldorf every four years is being channelled. The DRUPA prize – worth 6000 Euros (about A$11,140) – has been awarded yearly since 1978 by DRUPA organiser Messe Düsseldorf to honour outstanding academic achievement in the humanities at the local Heinrich Heine university. This year’s winner, announced yesterday, is Yasmin Temelli who focussed on women’s literature and its social relevance on the eve of the Mexican Revolution in a doctoral thesis under the lengthy title, ‘Between conformity and resistance – manifestations of feminine voices under General Porfirio Díaz. An analysis of six women’s publications’. A Düsseldorf local – she was born in nearby Mettmann, which will be known to some in the newspaper industry as the home town of Techniweb agent Rolf Felgner – she received here prize at a ceremony at the Industrie-Club from DRUPA 2012 president Martin Weickenmeier and Messe Düsseldorf chief executive Werner Dornscheidt. Through her dissertation, Temelli has tackled the advent of women’s emancipation and feminism during Mexico’s industrialisation, press freedom under a dictatorship and publishing challenges at the dawn of the 20th century. She was the first researcher to systematically investigate the literary journals published especially with female readers in mind at the archives and libraries in Mexico City, the south of the USA and the Ibero-American Institute (IAI) in Berlin. She narrowed the focus by concentrating on the over 30-year-long (1876–1910) dictatorship of General Porfirio Díaz, known in Mexico as the Porfiriato, which ushered in the Mexican revolution. Although the economy was developed under the general’s regime, there was a chipping away at liberal and democratic principles. The six women’s journals, each of which could not be more different, are examined against this social backdrop. The spectrum ranges from traditional women’s interest topics (fashion and beauty tips, society news) to approaches to emancipation and revolutionary ideas. The work which takes an analytical knife to such polarising subjects as emancipation and feminism, thus bridging research gaps in Mexican studies, is to be published in Vervuert’s MediAmericana series. The 29-year-old will be staying true to her alma mater and academic pursuits: As Erasmus coordinator, she is involved in organising study abroad while also supporting students in planning and carrying out their studies through the mentor programme. She is pictured (second from right) with university president Michael Piper, Martin Weickenmeier and Werner Dornscheidt.