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
The Society for Romanian Studies (SRS) is pleased to announce the Thirteenth Annual Graduate Student Essay Prize competition for an outstanding unpublished essay or thesis chapter. The submitted single-author work must be written in English by a graduate student in any social science or humanities discipline on a Romanian or Moldovan subject, broadly and inclusively understood.
The 2021 prize consists of $250 plus an individual, one-year membership to SRS that includes a subscription to the journal, valued at $75. The second-place award of honorable mention includes a one-year subscription to the journal.
The competition is open to current MA and doctoral students or to those who defended dissertations in the academic year 2020–2021. The submitted work should have been completed within the last two academic years and should not have been published yet. If the essay is a dissertation chapter, it should be accompanied by the dissertation abstract and table of contents. Expanded versions of conference papers are also acceptable if accompanied by a description of the panel and the candidate’s conference paper proposal. Candidates should clearly indicate the format of the essay submitted. Essays/chapters should be up to 10,000 words double-spaced, including citations.
Candidates should clearly indicate their institutional affiliation. Include as well your current e-mail and postal addresses so that you may be contacted. Questions can be directed to the chair of the committee, Narcis Tulbure, at narcis.tulbure@gmail.com. Please send a copy of the essay, any accompanying documentation (as both Word and PDF please) and an updated CV to narcis.tulbure@gmail.com
Applicants are not required to be members of SRS in order to apply.
Deadline for submissions is 15 July 2021. The winners will be announced on 1 November 2021.
SRS Essay Prize Committee Members:
Corina Doboș The Research Institute of the University of Bucharest (ICUB), University of Bucharest corina.dobos@istorie.unibuc.ro
Simona Livescu Academic Advancement Program University of California, Los Angeles slivescu@ucla.edu
Narcis Tulbure (chair) Department of Finance Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania narcis.tulbure@gmail.com
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)