SRS awards two prizes: the biennial Book Award and the annual Graduate Student Essay Prize. Please scroll down for the winners of the two prizes. We are also establishing a new dissertation prize named in honour of Professor Keith Hitchins. Please consider making a donation towards this prize.
Seeking Contributions towards a Keith Hitchins Dissertation Prize
The Society Romanian Studies (SRS) would like to introduce a biennial prize awarded to the best PhD dissertation in any discipline related to Romanian Studies (broadly conceived) successfully defended in the previous two years. The named prize will be awarded in honor of the late Professor Keith Hitchins, who served as an advisor, encouragement and inspiration for numerous graduate students throughout his long career. Winners will receive $250 plus a year’s membership of the SRS which includes a subscription to the Journal of Romanian Studies. The prize competition will begin in 2022.
In order to make this prize viable for many years to come, the SRS is seeking donations from friends, families, colleagues and others who would be willing to help endow the prize in honour of Professor Hitchins. This can be in the form of one-off donations or regular annual or biennial contributions. Please note that unfortunately the SRS does not have non-profit status, so donations are not tax deductible.
The SRS is an international interdisciplinary academic organization dedicated to promoting the professional study, criticism, and research of all aspects of Romanian culture and civilization, particularly concerning the countries of Romania and Moldova. It awards an annual prize for the best essay by an MA or PhD student in Romanian Studies and a biennial prize for the best book published on Romanian Studies over a two year period. As the largest international organisation dedicated to Romanian Studies, the SRS also publishes the Journal of Romanian Studies, oversees the SRS/Polirom Book Series and the H-Romania listserv, runs a major international conference every three years, has its own mentoring program and an active social media presence.
Donations can be made using this PayPal link: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=NJBYHJZFL4SBC
Or by mailing a check to the SRS Treasurer, Vladimir Solonari at the address below:
Department of History
University of Central Florida
Trevor Colbourn Hall 319
12796 Aquarius Agora Dr.
Orlando, FL 32816-1350
United States of America
Winner: Roxana-Talida Roman, The Edge of Europe – Heritage, Landscape and Conflict Archaeology: First World War Material Culture in Romanian Conflictual Landscapes (Oxford: Bar Publishing, 2020).
Honorable Mentions: Péter Berta, Materializing Difference: Consumer Culture, Politics, and Ethnicity among Romanian Roma (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019), and Călin Cotoi, Inventing the Social in Romania, 1848–1914: Networks and Laboratories of Knowledge (Paderborn, Germany: Ferdinand Schoeningh, 2020).
2021 Graduate Student Essay Prize
Winner: Alexandra Ciocănel (University of Manchester)
Honorable Mention: Iemima Ploscariu (Dublin City University)
2020 Graduate Student Essay Prize
Winner: Cosmin Koszor Codrea (Oxford Brookes University)
Honorable Mention: Cosmin Tudor Minea (University of Birmingham)
Winner: Bruce O’Neill, The Space of Boredom: Homelessness in the Slowing Global Order (Duke University Press, 2017).
Honorable Mention: Irina Marin, Peasant Violence and Antisemitism in Early Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
2019 Graduate Student Essay Prize
Winner: Adela Hîncu (Central European University)
Honorable Mention: Elena Radu
2018 Graduate Student Essay Prize
Winner: Alexandra Chiriac (University of St. Andrews)
Honorable Mentions: Nicoleta Simonia Minciu, Iemima Ploscariu (Dublin City University), and Matthew Signer (Stanford University)
Winner: Roland Clark, Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist Activism in Interwar Romania (Cornell University Press, 2015).
Honorable Mentions: Virginia Hill and Gabriela Alboiu, Verb Movement and Clause Structure in Old Romanian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), Dennis Deletant, British Clandestine Activities in Romania During the Second World War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), and Ştefan Ionescu, Jewish Resistance to Romanianization (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
2017 Graduate Student Essay Prize
Winner: Dana Mureşan
Special Mentions: Kathryn Grow Allen (University of Buffalo), Alin Rus (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) and Karin Steinbrueck (Northwestern University)
2016 Graduate Student Essay Prize
No prize awarded.
Winner: Sean Cotter, Literary Translation and the Idea of a Minor Romania (Rochester, 2014).
Honorable Mention: Moshe Idel, Mircea Eliade: From Magic to Myth (Peter Lang, 2013).
2015 Graduate Student Essay Prize
Winner: Matei Costinescu (University of Bucharest)
Honorable Mentions: Madalina Vereş (University of Pittsburgh) and Zsuzsanna Magdo (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
2014 Graduate Student Essay Prize
Winner: Roxana Cazan (Indiana University, Bloomington)
Winner: Gail Kligman and Katherine Verdery, Peasants under Siege: the Collectivization of Romanian Agriculture, 1949-1962 (Princeton University Press, 2011).
2013 Graduate Student Essay Prize
Winner: Florin Poenaru (Central European University)
2012 Graduate Student Essay Prize
Winner: Jonathan Stillo (City University of New York)
Winner: Tom Gallagher, Romania and the European Union: How the Weak Vanquished the Strong (Manchester University Press, 2009)
2011 Graduate Student Essay Prize
Winner: Cristina Onose (University of Toronto)
2010 Graduate Student Essay Prize
Winner: Anca Mandru (University of Illinois)
2009 Graduate Student Essay Prize
Winner: Roland Clark (University of Pittsburgh)