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@bodley.ox.ac.uk or telephone +44 (0) 1865 277006
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 funded by Adam Matthew Digital, and GALE Cengage Learning. It 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. Nominations close on 13 December in any year. The winner is announced at the annual conference in January.
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. Nominations close on 17 January in any year. The winner will be announced on 1 March.
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, 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 close on 13 December in any year. The winner is announced at the annual conference in January.
To be awarded in 2011 for the first time.
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.
Past holders of Awards
Past presenters of the Haydn Mason Lecture
- 1996: Jenny Mander (University of Cambridge)
'The Pedagogic Circle: Reading and the Eighteenth-Century French Novel' - 1998: Mark Ledbury (University of Portsmouth)
'Serious Parody: Jacques Louis David and Pre-Revolutionary Drama'' - 2000: Kimberly Chrisman (University of Aberdeen)
'The Face of Fashion: Milliners in Eighteenth-Century Visual Culture' - 2002: Rachel Cowgill (University of Leeds)
'"Wild, capricious, and not always pleasing": Mozart and Musical Genius in Late Eighteenth-Century England" - 2004: Richard Clay (Nottingham)
'The transformation of signs: Iconoclasm and spatial coding in Revolutionary Paris' - 2006: David McCallum (University of Sheffield)
'Exploring Volcanoes in the Late French Enlightenment: The Savant and the Sublime' - 2008: Rebecca Ford (University of Nottingham)
'Cyclops and Civilisation': Visiting the Workplace in Enlightenment France.' - 2010: Sanja Perovic (King's College, London)
'"New Time" and the French Revolution'
The British Society for 18th-century Studies Research Fellowships
- 2010 John Stone (to the BSECS Fellowships) for Scottish merchants in late eighteenth-century Spain
- 2011 Simon Mills (to the BSECS/Bodleian Libraries Fellowships) for The Levant in Eighteenth-Century England
The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Prize for Digital Resources
British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Teaching Prize
2011 Clare Brant for ' Representing the Eighteenth-Century: Ideas, Objects, Texts, Arts'.
British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies President's Prize
2009 Jointly to:
- Charlotte Roberts:‘The Marmoreal Gibbon: Autobiography as Ruin’
- Thomas Rodgers: ‘Crushing Rebellion in Transatlantic Context: The ‘45
and the Carolina Regulators’
2010 Jointly to:
- 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’
2011 to:
- Leonie Hannan: ‘A Desire for Learning; reason and emotion in English women’s letter-writing in the eighteenth century’
The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, with The Queen Mary Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies
- To be awarded for the first time in 2012.
The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Travelling Award, with the Besterman Centre for the Enlightenment
- To be awarded for the first time in 2012.
