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Centre for the Study of the Renaissance

SNLS Essay Prize

Submissions for the SNLS Ann Moss Essay Prize 2023 are now invited

 

This Prize was inaugurated in 2015. In 2018 it was named after Ann Moss, the first President of the Society for Neo-Latin Studies; the prize honours her activities on behalf of the Society and especially her support for junior scholars.

Only members of SNLS may submit essays for consideration (membership obtained just prior to submission qualifies). All PhD students and post-doctoral researchers up to two full years after the date of their PhD viva by the deadline (i.e. with a viva date after 15 October 2021) are eligible to submit an essay of up to 7,000 words (e.g. part of a chapter or a draft of an article or a written version of a conference paper) by 15 October 2023 (as an email attachment to the Society’s President). The word count includes footnotes, but excludes title, bibliography and any appendixes (which, however, should not be longer than the text of the essay). Short extensions to the submission deadline may be granted in response to illness or similar reasons, if candidates get in touch before the deadline to request these.

Since submissions will be reviewed anonymously, authors should ensure that the text of the essay does not indicate their identity. At the same time, the name of the author, their affiliation and their role (e.g. final-year PhD student) as well as the word count should be provided on a separate page or in a cover email. Candidates can enter in every year in which they are eligible, but they may not submit the same essay twice.

SNLS is particularly looking for contributions discussing lesser known Neo-Latin texts and providing close reading of these and / or discussions of context at a high scholarly level in terms of both contents and presentation.

All submissions will be judged by members of the Executive Committee, who may ask other experts to join them. Candidates will be informed of the outcome by email within a month of the submission date. The winner will be announced formally at the AGM in November and will receive a certificate, a small financial award, one year’s free membership of SNLS and publication advice if required.

 

Submissions for the SNLS Undergraduate Finalist Essay Prize 2023 are now invited

 

The Society for Neo-Latin Studies promotes the study of Latin material from the early modern period and is keen to encourage people at all levels to include texts in Latin in their studies. Therefore, it intends to recognize students who do so already at undergraduate level and is looking for pieces making reference to Latin material from that period.

All undergraduate students in the final year of a BA programme in the arts and humanities broadly defined (SNLS membership not required) are eligible to submit an essay of up to 5,000 words by 1 June 2023 (as an email attachment to the Society’s President). The word count includes footnotes, but excludes title, bibliography and any appendixes (which, however, should not be longer than the text of the essay). This can be a (revised) version of a BA dissertation, of an essay written for one of the modules in the final year or an independent essay. Eligible pieces may be entirely about early modern texts in Latin, or they could just make reference to some Latin material (e.g. in an essay on a drama by Shakespeare or on the history of the Elizabethan period). Short extensions to the submission deadline may be granted in response to illness or similar reasons, if candidates get int touch before the deadline to request these.

Since submissions will be reviewed anonymously, candidates should ensure that the text of the essay does not indicate their identity. At the same time, the name of the author, their affiliation, and their degree programme as well as the word count should be provided on a separate page or in a cover email.

All submissions will be judged by members of the Executive Committee, who may ask other experts to join them. Candidates will be informed of the outcome by email within a month of the submission date. The formal award ceremony will take place at the Society’s AGM in November, and the winner will receive a certificate, a small financial award and one year’s free membership of SNLS.

    • The 2022 Ann Moss Early Career Essay Prize was awarded to Iván Parga Ornelas, ‘The Promise of Immortality in Maffeo Vegio's Supplementum Aeneidos’.
    • The 2021 Ann Moss Early Career Essay Prize was awarded to George Brocklehurst, ‘Giovanni Pontano’s Convivial Poetics: The Lepidina (1496) and the Renaissance Art of Banqueting’.
    • The 2020 Ann Moss Early Career Essay Prize was awarded to Irina Tautschnig, ‘Constructing Authority in the Paratext: The Poems to Johannes Hevelius’s Selenographia’.
    • The 2019 Ann Moss Early Career Essay Prize was awarded to Elena Spinelli. Her prize-winning essay entitled ‘Sisterhood and Citizenship in Thomas Watson’s Antigone’ has now been published as: Elena Spinelli, "Sisterhood and the law in Thomas Watson’s Antigone", Renaissance Studies 2021, 1–18
    • The 2018 SNLS Early-Career Essay Prize was awarded to Maria Giulia Genghini, for her essay, ‘ ‘Quomodo cantabimus canticum Domini in terra aliena?’ Imagining a Neo-Latin World in seventeenth-century Quito’.
    • The 2017 SNLS Early-Career Essay Prize was awarded to Bianca Facchini, for her essay, 'In Praise of a Martial Lord: Porcelio Pandone's Feltria Between Panegyric and Scepticism'.
    • The 2016 SNLS Early-Career Essay Prize was awarded to Caroline Spearing, for her essay, 'Tangled Thickets and Sacred Groves. Virgil and Lucan in Book 6 of Abraham Cowley’s Plantarum Libri Sex (1668)'.
    • The inaugural SNLS Early-Career Essay Prize (2015) was awarded to Bernhard Schirg (Freie Universität Berlin). His prize-winning essay entitled ‘The rebel residing in Cortese’s ideal palace. Splendor and magnificence in Cardinal Bernardino de Carvajal's (1456–1523) residence in the (lost) Palazzo Millini’ has now been published as:

    Bernhard Schirg, "Cortese's ideal cardinal? Art, splendour and magnificence in Cardinal Bernardino de Carvajal’s (1456–1523) Roman residenceLink opens in a new window", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 80 (2017), 61–82.