UCD researcher Anh-Quân Nguyen awarded First Book Prize by Oxford University Press
21 October 2025
Oxford University Press (OUP) has named UCD researcher Anh-Quân Nguyen one of the winners of the First Book Prize 2025.
A postdoctoral researcher based in the UCD School of Philosophy, Nguyen won the prize for his forthcoming book It’s Okay to Despair about Climate Change: Militant Pessimism in the Face of Climate Breakdown.
The First Book Prize is awarded to early-career researchers in the humanities and social sciences.
Each recipient will have their debut book published fully open access by OUP with all fees waived, alongside hardback publication. Ten winners in total were chosen for 2025, the prize’s inaugural year.
It’s Okay to Despair about Climate Change explores the ethics and emotional life of climate activism.
The book challenges the dominance of optimism and its insistence on hope, offering a case for what Nguyen calls “militant pessimism” – an orientation that embraces despair not as defeat but as a source of moral clarity, solidarity, and radical action.
It promises to reshape how scholars and activists alike think about what it means to persist when the future appears lost.
“Receiving the prize not only means a significant step for me in my academic career,” said Nguyen.
“It means that I am able to freely develop my writing and a perspective that is somewhat unorthodox in my discipline, to bring together philosophical thinking with my experience as a political organiser, and write philosophy for activists, thinkers, organisers, and philosophers alike.
“As the climate crisis escalates, philosophy has a crucial task to guide our thinking through one of the worst crises humanity has ever faced. I hope my book will be a small contribution towards this.”
“The research that our prize-winning authors and books engage in make explicit the continued importance of cross- and multi-disciplinary scholarship in addressing social challenges at the local, regional, and global scales,” said Professor Madhu Krishnan, Chair of the Global Prize Committee.
“At a time when higher education and scholarly research are under attack, these projects offer an unmistakable rebuttal, making plain the importance of rigorous academic inquiry for our continued wellbeing on this planet.”
Submissions for the First Book Prize 2026 will open in January 2026.
By: Rebecca Hastings, Digital Journalist, UCD University Relations
To contact the UCD News & Content Team, email: newsdesk@ucd.ie
