Society Prizes and Awards
The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies awards several annual prizes for contributions to eighteenth-century studies:
For Graduates and Early Career Scholars
- The BSECS President's Prize for best postgraduate paper at the Annual Conference
- The BSECS Visiting Fellowship,offered with The Queen Mary Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies
- The BSECS Travelling Award, offered with the Besterman Centre for the Enlightenment
- The BSECS Haydn Mason Lecture
- The BSECS Bursaries for attendance at the Annual Conference
The British Society for 18th-century Studies Research Fellowships
British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies / Bodleian Libraries Fellowships
With the Bodleian Libraries, the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies supports a one-month residence in Oxford by a member of
BSECS for research in the Special Collections of the Bodleian Libraries on any topic in the study of the long eighteenth century.
Further particulars, including eligibility criteria and details of the application process, are available from the website of the Centre for the Study of the Book, Bodleian Library, or by email : bookcentre@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or telephone +44 (0) 1865 277006
Applications open: 1 September in any year
Deadline: 17 January in any year.
The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies / The Georgian Group, Dunscombe Colt Research Fellowship at the Bodleian Library
Research Fellowship at the Bodleian Library
With The Georgian Group, the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies supports a one-month research visit by a member of
The Georgian Group to the Special Collections of the Bodleian Library in the University of Oxford. Applications will be considered from candidates seeking to research
projects relating to the architecture or material culture (for example, sculpture) of the long eighteenth century (1660-1840).
Further particulars, including eligibility criteria and details of the application process, are available from the website of the Centre for the Study of the Book, Bodleian Library, or by email : bookcentre@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or telephone +44 (0) 1865 277006
Applications open: 1 September in any year
Deadline: 17 January in any year.
The BSECS Prize for Digital Resources
The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies is pleased to call for nominations for the annual prize for the best digital resource supporting eighteenth- century studies.
The prize is sponsored by Adam Matthew Digital, and is judged and awarded by BSECS.
This prize promotes the highest standards in the development, utility and presentation of digital resources that assist scholars in the field of eighteenth-century studies broadly defined. Nominated resources should meet the highest academic standards and should contribute in one or more of the following ways:
- by making available new materials, or presenting existing materials in new ways;
- by supporting teaching of the period at university level;
- by facilitating, or itself undertaking, innovative research.
The prize is intended to benefit the international research community, and the competition is open to projects from any country. Resources supporting any scholarly discipline are eligible. Websites or other resources and projects may be nominated by either creators or users. They must have been first launched on or after 1 January five years prior to the year in which the prize is awarded. The winner will be announced at the BSECS Annual Conference.
The award of £200 is made annually. The winner is announced at the annual conference in January.
Nominations open: 1 September in any year
Deadline: 13 December in any year
The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Teaching Prize
The aim of the prize is to encourage developments in teaching methods and approaches to 18th-century studies. The proposals may cover any areas of the discipline, be an entirely new course, a unit within an existing course, or a course newly taught. While proposals are welcome from all disciplines within 18th-century studies, weight will be given to those which combine a number of disciplines or areas of research.
The submission should consist of:
- a consideration of the proposed course or area of study.
- a brief outline of the course.
- a syllabus for the course.
The award of £200 is made annually. The winner will be announced on 1 March.
Nominations open: 1 September in any year
Deadline: 17 January in any year
The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies President's Prize
The President's Prize is awarded to the best postgraduate paper at the Annual Conference in January, as nominated by the session chairs and adjudicated by a special panel, which assesses for evidence of originality, rigour and presentational skills.
The award of £200 is made annually. The winner is announced on 1 March.
The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Fellowship, with The Queen Mary Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies
The aim of the Fellowship is provide support for an early career researchers: any doctoral student at a British university in their second year of study and above; and any post-doctoral researcher normally resident in Britain, within five years of the award of their PhD. It will normally involve the Fellow in research in libraries and archives in London, and also in making contacts with researchers at The Queen Mary Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies
More information can be found at http://www.qmul.ac.uk/eighteenthcentury:
The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Travelling Award, with the Besterman Centre for the Enlightenment
The British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies/Besterman Centre for the Enlightenment Travelling Award is open to any postgraduate enrolled in a higher education institution in the United Kingdom for research in France on any subject.
The award of £500 is made annually.
Nominations open: 1 September in any year
Deadline: 17 January in any year
The Haydn Mason Lecture
British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
The Mason lecture was established to mark the retirement of Haydn Mason, a former President of BSECS, from the Ashley Watkins Chair of French at the University of Bristol in 1994. Taking place every two years at the Annual Conference, its focus is on the European Enlightenment, with a preference for a French perspective to honour Mason's work. The lecture is designed to promote the work of an early-career scholar, who already has a track record of distinction.
By invitation.
The BSECS Bursaries for attendance at the Annual Conference
British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies awards a number of bursaries and fee waivers for attendance at the annual conference. For further details, please follow the links below.
Past holders of Awards
Past presenters of the Haydn Mason Lecture
- 2012: Anne Lewis (Birkbeck College, University of London)
'Picturing "Nature": Landscape & Memory in Illustrations to Rousseau's Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloïse (Gravelot, Marillier, Monsiau, Schall)' - 2010: Sanja Perovic (King's College, London)
'"New Time" and the French Revolution' - 2008: Rebecca Ford (University of Nottingham)
'Cyclops and Civilisation': Visiting the Workplace in Enlightenment France.' - 2006: David McCallum (University of Sheffield)
'Exploring Volcanoes in the Late French Enlightenment: The Savant and the Sublime' - 2004: Richard Clay (Nottingham)
'The transformation of signs: Iconoclasm and spatial coding in Revolutionary Paris' - 2002: Rachel Cowgill (University of Leeds)
'"Wild, capricious, and not always pleasing": Mozart and Musical Genius in Late Eighteenth-Century England" - 2000: Kimberly Chrisman (University of Aberdeen)
'The Face of Fashion: Milliners in Eighteenth-Century Visual Culture' - 1998: Mark Ledbury (University of Portsmouth)
'Serious Parody: Jacques Louis David and Pre-Revolutionary Drama'' - 1996: Jenny Mander (University of Cambridge)
'The Pedagogic Circle: Reading and the Eighteenth-Century French Novel'
Past holders of The British Society for 18th-century Studies Research Fellowships
- 2013 Rachel M. Schneider, University of Texas at Austin (to the BSECS/Bodleian Libraries Fellowships) ‘Contesting Fragments: Print, Politics, and Graphic Design in Eighteenth-Century England.’
- 2012 Eliza O'Brien (to the BSECS/Bodleian Libraries Fellowships) for Imprisonment and the British Political Novel: Writing to Reform in the 1790s
- 2011 Simon Mills (to the BSECS/Bodleian Libraries Fellowships) for The Levant in Eighteenth-Century England
- 2010 John Stone (to the BSECS Fellowships) for Scottish merchants in late eighteenth-century Spain
- 2013 Peter Lindfield-Ott (University of St Andrews) ‘Gothic histories and buildings of the long eighteenth century’
- 2013 History of Parliament Online
- 2012 William Goldwin's Diary
- 2011 London Lives 1690-1800
- 2010 Electronic Enlightenment
- 2009 The English Broadside Ballad Project
- Adeline Mueller for ‘Reading Mozart Opera Through Literary Genre’ Download Course
- David McCallum
- Clare Brant for ' Representing the Eighteenth-Century: Ideas, Objects, Texts, Arts'. Download Course
- Sophie Coulombeau: '"Nothing the Nearest our own Hearts and Interests": The Point of the Name in Burney’s Cecilia'
- Tim McInerney: 'The Nobility and Ideas of Humanity in Eighteenth-Century Great Britain and Ireland'
- Leonie Hannan: ‘A Desire for Learning; reason and emotion in English women’s letter-writing in the eighteenth century’
- Joshua Billings: ‘The Birth of Historicism out of the Spirit of Tragedy’
- Eric Weichel: ‘Fixed by so much better a fire; wigs and masculinity in
early eighteenth-century British miniatures’ - Charlotte Roberts:‘The Marmoreal Gibbon: Autobiography as Ruin’
- Thomas Rodgers: ‘Crushing Rebellion in Transatlantic Context: The ‘45
and the Carolina Regulators’ -
2013 Joanna Wharton (University of York) for David Hartley and the philosophy of mind in dissenting academies
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2012 Charlotte Holden (Northumbria University) for Understanding Jest-books and their influence on the Eighteenth-century Novel
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2013 Not awarded.
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2012 Benjamin Darnell (University of Oxford) for work on his thesis The Navy and the Fiscal-Military State under Louis XIV
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Katy Barrett, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; Jeni Buckley, University of Southampton; Laura Carnelos, Ca'Foscary University, Venice; James Hume, University of Manchester; Serena Dyer, University of Warwick; Paul Kosmetatos, Centre for Financial History and Downing College, Cambridge; Adrian Leonard, Trinity Hall, Cambridge; Giacomo Marrinoni, University of Warwick; Ruth Mather, Queen Mary College, University of London; Tess Somervell, Trinity College, Cambridge; Sarah Watkins, Birkbeck College, University of London; Hazel Wilkinson, University College, University of London.
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Oskar Cox Jensen, University of Oxford; Eleanor Crouch, Anglia Ruskin University; J. J. Dent, Loughborough University; Carolyn Dougherty, University of York; Victoria Henshaw, University of Birmingham; Simon J. Hill, Liverpool John Moores University; Tim McInerney, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris III; Harry Smith, Trinity College, University of Oxford; Joanna Wharton, University of York.
Mary Chadwick Westminster, Aberystwyth University; Aline Gallasch Hall, Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade Técnica de Lisboa; Caroline Good, University of York and Tate Britain; Peter Hansen, The Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen; Simon Macdonald, The British School at Rome/University of Cambridge; James Smith, University of Manchester;Gunda Windmueller, University of Bonn; Adam White, University of Manchester; Caroline Watkinson, Queen Mary College, University of London.
Past winners of The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Prize for Digital Resources
Past winners of The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Teaching Prize
2013 Jointly to:
2012 Not awarded
2011 to:
Past winners of The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies President's Prize
2012 Jointly to:
2011 to:
2010 Jointly to:
2009 Jointly to:
The BSECS Bursaries for attendance at the Annual Conference since 2011
2013 to:
2012 to:
2011 to:
