R. Gapper book prize

Each year, the Society awards the prestigious R. Gapper book prize for a book in the field of French studies, published for the first time in the previous calendar year, by a scholar based in an institution of higher education in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The award commends books of critical and scholarly distinction which have a clear impact on the wider critical debate. It includes a cash prize of £2000, and expenses-paid travel to the next annual conference of the Society for French Studies. In addition, the award is publicized in French Studies, in the French Studies Bulletin, and on the Society’s website.

The award is usually made in May of each year and is presented to the winner at the annual conference of the Society for French Studies. The winner is selected by the Gapper Book Prize Jury, appointed by the SFS Executive and chaired by one of their number. Their decision is then proposed to the SFS Executive and to the R. H. Gapper Charitable Trust, who jointly award the prize. The criteria for award of the prize are, broadly, the book’s critical and scholarly distinction and its likely impact on wider critical debate. In assessing these, the following qualities will be taken into account:

  • Scope and range
  • Intellectual ambition
  • Originality
  • Coherence and persuasiveness
  • Depth of scholarship
  • Eloquence


Shortlist for the 2023 R. Gapper book prize

The Society for French Studies is delighted to announce the shortlist for this year's book prize:

Jane Hiddleston, Frantz Fanon: Literature and Invention (Legenda)

Frantz Fanon cover


Charlotte Faucher, Propaganda, Gender, and Cultural Power: Projections and Perceptions of France in Britain c1880-1944 (Oxford University Press)

Eric Robertson, Blaise Cendrars: The Invention of Life (Reaktion)

Joseph Harris, Misanthropy in the Age of Reason: Hating Humanity from Shakespeare to Schiller (Oxford University Press)

Nikolaj Lübecker, Twenty-First-Century Symbolism (Liverpool University Press)


The Society would like to acknowledge the ongoing and very generous support of the Gapper family and the hard work of the Jury in selecting these excellent books. The winner will be announced at this year's annual conference.

Listen to Maria Scott (Associate Professor of French Literature and Thought, University of Exeter) talk about her experience of winning the R. Gapper book prize:

2022 Recipients

The Society for French Studies is delighted to announce that the winner of the R. Gapper Book Prize 2022 is Maeve McCusker for Fictions of Whiteness. Imagining the Planter Caste in the French Caribbean Novel (Virginia UP). We are delighted that this outstanding, original book is the R. Gapper Prize winner for 2022.

We offer our warmest congratulations to the authors of the following shortlisted books:

Alice Blackhurst, Luxury, Sensation and the Moving Image (Legenda)

Adam Horsley, Libertines and the Law. Subversive Authors and Criminal Justice in Early Seventeenth-Century France (Oxford UP)

Edward J. Hughes, Egalitarian Strangeness. On Class Disturbance and Levelling in Modern and Contemporary French Fiction (Liverpool UP)

Shuangyi Li, Travel, Translation and Transmedia Aesthetics. Franco-Chinese Literature and Visual Arts in a Global Age (Palgrave Macmillan)

Maeve McCusker, Fictions of Whiteness. Imagining the Planter Caste in the French Caribbean Novel (Virginia UP)

Roger Pearson, The Beauty of Baudelaire (Oxford UP)

Macs Smith, Paris and the Parasite. Noise, Health, and Politics in the Media City (MIT Press)

Winner: Maeve McCusker

Project Fictions of Whiteness. Imagining the Planter Caste in the French Caribbean Novel
Institution Queen’s University Belfast

Fictions of Whiteness focuses on the literary construction of whiteness and white culture in the French Antilles through the figure of the béké, the white plantation master. Within this frame of enquiry, McCusker deftly navigates and analyses the critical issue of race and its relationship to gender, biological affiliations and the preservation of white culture. The temporal scope of the study moves from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first century and across different genres of writing. This results in a longitudinal range that makes for an impressively sustained and informed work, the first of its kind to undertake an in-depth study of the béké. The arguments are always persuasive and make a highly authoritative case for the way in which such an analysis can transform our understanding of whiteness within the French Antilles. It is a remarkable work of scholarship and McCusker accomplishes her study with wonderful critical sophistication and sensitivity throughout. The writing style engages the reader — it has wit and the eloquence on display is of an unusually economical kind: it is never showy or remotely fussy, but marvellously controlled, compelling and rich. And perhaps most importantly, to have entered the well-established terrain of postcolonial studies and emerged with something entirely new is an immense achievement deserving of recognition across the field of francophone postcolonial studies and postcolonial studies more widely.

Publication Virginia UP, 2021

Previous recipients

2021

R. Gapper Book Prize 2021 Competition Results

The Society for French Studies is delighted to announce that the R. Gapper Book Prize for the best book in French Studies published in 2020 is jointly awarded to the following outstanding books:

Colourworks. Chromatic Innovation in Modern French Poetry and Art Writing by Susan Harrow (Bloomsbury)

“This is a bold and intellectually ambitious project both in its scale but also in its agenda of bringing colour studies to the fore. Stimulating, convincing and supremely crafted, Harrow takes three key poets of French modernism — Mallarmé, Valéry and Bonnefoy — and reads their poetry and art writing on art from the Renaissance to the 20th century through the optics of colour. Harrow brings her own creativity to play in working with complex ideas, dense poetic texts and art writings. The book is beautifully produced with some quite gorgeous plates. In so many ways, it is a joy to behold and it is also a call to action. This is the culmination of many years of research and the expertise, erudition and style on display are quite breath-taking.”

The Atheist’s Bible. Diderot and the Éléments de physiologie by Caroline Warman (Open Book Publishers)

“This a very substantial book which examines the writing and reception of Diderot’s neglected Éléments de physiologie and is a pleasure to read. The study is based on exhilarating detective work and the breadth of scholarship to elucidate how Diderot was engaging with other thinkers of his time and, indeed, they with him, is simply outstanding. Early in the text Warman writes ‘As Diderot comments with a witty and virtuoso command of rhythm and onomatopeia, ‘un plat ouvrage nous endort comme le murmure monotone d’un ruisseau’. Warman’s prose and research does not produce a ‘flat piece of work’ - it jumps and marvels, it entertains and deeply enlightens.”

For the 2021 Prize, the R. Gapper Prize Jury received 47 titles — the highest number since the Prize was inaugurated — and the subject matter ranged from the medieval to the contemporary. The standard was impressive, and eight titles were short-listed for the final round. We offer our warmest congratulations to the authors of the other shortlisted books:

Medieval French Literary Culture Abroad by Jane Gilbert, Simon Gaunt, and William Burgwinkle (Oxford University Press)

Nathalie Sarraute. A Life Between by Ann Jefferson (Princeton University Press and Oxford)

Born to Write Literary Families and Social Hierarchy in Early Modern France by Neil Kenny (Oxford University Press)

Yves Bonnefoy and Jean-Luc Nancy. Ontological Performance by Emily McLaughlin (Oxford University Press)

Tragedy and nation in the age of Napoleon, Clare Siviter (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment)

The Purchase of the Past. Collecting Culture in Post-Revolutionary Paris c. 1790-1890 by Tom Stammers (Cambridge University Press)

The Society would like to acknowledge the ongoing and very generous support of the Gapper family and the hard work of the Jury.

Winner: Susan Harrow

Project Colourworks. Chromatic Innovation in Modern French Poetry and Art Writing
Institution University of Bristol
Publication Bloomsbury, 2020

Winner: Caroline Warman

Project The Atheist’s Bible. Diderot and the 'Éléments de physiologie'
Institution University of Oxford
Publication Open Book Publishers, 2020

2020

The Society for French Studies is delighted to announce that the R. Gapper Book Prize for the best book in French Studies published in 2019 is awarded to the following book:

Ethics and Aesthetics in Contemporary African Cinema. The Politics of Beauty by James S. Williams, (published by Bloomsbury).

This deeply impressive work of scholarship represents a major contribution to the study of African cinema in French. It provides both a clear contextualisation of the legacies of film-making in sub-Saharan Africa and detailed engagement with the work of a new generation of filmmakers. The book offers a compelling reworking of the role of aesthetics and configurations of beauty in contemporary African cinema. Meticulously researched and referenced, it moves between context and theory and offers close and utterly persuasive readings. The book constructs a strikingly original critical framework and provides a welcome and important new approach to African cinema in French that will have a real impact within the field and beyond.

The Jury adjudged The Powers of Sound and Song in Early Modern Paris by Nicholas Hammond (published by Penn State University Press) to be the runner up.

The members were very much impressed by its elegance of style, by the excitement generated by its topic, by its delicious unfolding of meticulous research and by the application of sonic theories to 18th-century French culture and society.

Jeff Barda’s monograph, Experimentation and the Lyric in Contemporary French Poetry (Palgrave) was highly commended as an excellent thesis successfully transformed into an outstanding book on contemporary poetry.

The Jury and Society offers warmest congratulations to the authors of the three other shortlisted books:

Thomas Baldwin, Roland Barthes: The Proust Variations (Liverpool University Press)

Ian James, The Technique of Thought. Nancy, Laruelle, Malabou, and Stiegler after Naturalism (University of Minnesota Press)

Siobhán McIlvanney, Figurations of the Feminine in the Early French Women’s Press 1758-1848 (Liverpool University Press).

The Society thanks the members of the Jury: Dr. Patrick Crowley (Chair), Prof. Julia Dobson, Prof. Susan Harrow, Prof. Catriona Seth, and Prof. Margaret Topping.

It would like to note its sincere thanks to Prof. Susan Harrow who is stepping down from the R. Gapper Book Prize jury this year. Her eye for detail, her erudition and her collegiality, were much appreciated.

Winner: James S. Williams

Project Ethics and Aesthetics in Contemporary African Cinema. The Politics of Beauty
Institution Royal Holloway, University of London

Publication Bloomsbury, 2019

Runner up: Nicholas Hammond

Project The Powers of Sound and Song in Early Modern Paris
Institution University of Cambridge
Publication Penn State University Press, 2019

2019

The Society for French Studies is delighted to announce that the R. Gapper Book Prize for the best book in French Studies published in 2018 is awarded jointly to the following two books:

Peter Dayan, The Music of Dada: A Lesson in Intermediality for our Times (London: Routledge, 2018)

Derek Offord, Vladislav Rjeoutski and Gésine Argent, The French Language in Russia: A Social, Political, Cultural and Literary History (Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press, 2018)

Peter Dayan’s study represents a world-leading contribution to Dadaist studies, to musicology, to intermedial modernism studies, and to intermedial aesthetics more generally – an adventurous interdisciplinary work of the highest order.

Derek Offord, Gésine Argent, and Vladislav Rjéoutski’s work is not only a model of co-authorship, but a ground-breaking study of immense scholarly distinction which makes a real contribution to the wider debate about what Francophonie is and was.

While we have not been able to celebrate the award of the prize at the Annual Conference which was due to take place in Bath, we hope to welcome our winners to the 2021 Annual Conference at Queen’s University Belfast.

A total of 22 books were received for the prize this year, and 7 were shortlisted. The shortlisted books were all of exceptional quality and we offer our warmest congratulations to those authors:

Sam Ferguson, Diaries Real and Fictional in Twentieth-Century French Writing (Oxford University Press)

Marine Ganofsky, Night in French Libertine Fiction (Liverpool University Press)

Charlotte Hammond, Entangled Otherness: Cross-Gender Fabrications in the Francophone Caribbean (Liverpool University Press)

Diana Holmes, Middlebrow Matters: Women's Reading and the Literary Canon in France since the Belle Époque (Liverpool University Press)

Gavin Parkinson, Enchanted Ground: André Breton, Modernism and Surrealist Appraisal of Fin-de-Siècle Painting (Bloomsbury)

Finally, the Society would also like to note its sincere thanks to Professor Jean Duffy and Professor John O’Brien, who are stepping down from the Gapper Book Prize jury this year, for their wisdom, insights and collegiality as members of the panel.

Winner: Peter Dayan

Project The Music of Dada: A Lesson in Intermediality for our Times
Publication (London: Routledge, 2018)

Winner: Derek Offord, Vladislav Rjeoutski and Gésine Argent

Project The French Language in Russia: A Social, Political, Cultural and Literary History
Publication (Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press, 2018)

2018

The Society is delighted to announce that the R. Gapper Book Prize for the best book in French Studies published in 2017 has been awarded to Professor Julian Swann of Birkbeck College, University of London, for his monograph:

Exile, Imprisonment or Death: The Politics of Disgrace in Bourbon France, 1610-1789 (Oxford University Press)

Details of the book can be found at: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/exile-imprisonment-or-death-9780198788690?cc=gb&lang=en&

We also offer our warmest congratulations to the authors of the other shortlisted books:

Conan Fischer, A Vision of Europe: Franco-German Relations during the Great Depression, 1929-1932 (OUP)

Tom Hamilton, Pierre de L'Estoile and his World in the Wars of Religion (OUP)

Shirley Jordan, Marie Ndiaye: Inhospitable Fictions (Legenda)

Winner: Julian Swann

Project Exile, Imprisonment or Death: The Politics of Disgrace in Bourbon France, 1610-1789
Institution Birkbeck College, University of London
Publication Oxford University Press

2017

Winner: Roger Pearson

Project Unacknowledged Legislators: The Poet as Lawgiver in Post-Revolutionary France
Institution The Queen's College, Oxford
Publication Oxford University Press, 2016

Runner up: Helen Swift

Project Representing the Dead: Epitaph Fictions in Late-Medieval France
Institution St Hilda's College, Oxford
Publication Boydell & Brewer, 2016

2016

Winner: Neil Kenny

Project Death and Tenses: Posthumous Presence in Early Modern France
Institution University of Oxford
Publication Oxford: OUP, 2015

Winner: Patrick McGuinness

Project Poetry and Radical Politics in fin de siècle France: From Anarchism to Action Française
Institution University of Oxford
Publication Oxford: OUP, 2015

2015

Winner: Robert Mills

Project Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages
Institution UCL
Publication University of Chicago Press, 2015

Runner up: ​Mairéad Hanrahan

Project Cixous’s Semi-Fictions
Institution UCL
Publication Edinburgh University Press, 2015

Runner up: Joseph Harris

Project Inventing the Spectator
Institution Royal Holloway
Publication Oxford University Press, 2015

Runner up: Ann Jefferson

Project Genius in France: an Idea and its Uses
Institution University of Oxford
Publication Princeton University Press, 2015

2014

Winner: Christopher Prendergast

Project Mirages and Mad Beliefs: Proust the Skeptic
Publication Princeton University Press, 2014

2013

Winner: Siân Reynolds

Project Marriage and Revolution: Monsieur & Madame Roland
Publication Oxford University Press, 2013

2012

Winner: Michael Moriarty

Project Disguised Vices: Theories of Virtue in Early Modern French Thought
Publication Oxford University Press, 2012

2011

Winner: Judith Still

Project Derrida and Hospitality: Theory and Practice
Publication Edinburgh University Press, 2011

2010

Winner: Ardis Butterfield

Project The Familiar Enemy: Chaucer, Language and Nation in the Hundred Years War
Publication Oxford University Press, 2010

2009

Winner: Alain Viala

Project La France galante
Publication Presses universitaires de France, 2009

2008

Winner: ​Mark Greengrass

Project Governing Passions. Peace and Reform in the French Kingdom, 1576-1585

: (Oxford University Press).

Publication Oxford University Press, 2008

Winner: Christopher Prendergast

Project The Classic. Sainte-Beuve and the Nineteenth-Century Culture Wars
Publication Oxford University Press, 2008

2007

Winner: Eric Robertson

Project Arp: Painter, Poet, Sculptor
Publication Yale University Press, 2007

2006

Winner: Maria C. Scott

Project Baudelaire’s ‘Le Spleen de Paris’ : Shifting Perspectives
Publication Ashgate, 2006

2005

Winner: Roger Pearson

Project Mallarmé and Circumstance: The Translation of Silence
Publication Oxford University Press, 2005

2004

Winner: Sylvia Huot

Project Madness in Medieval French Literature: Identities Lost and Found
Publication Oxford University Press, 2004

2003

Winner: Clive Scott

Project Channel Crossings: French and English Poetry in Dialogue 1550-2000
Publication Legenda, 2002

2002

Winner: Stephen Bann

Project Parallel Lines: Printmakers, Painters and Photographers in Nineteenth-Century France
Publication Yale University Press, 2001

2001

Winner: David Baguley

Project Napoléon III and his Régime: An Extravaganza
Publication Louisiana State University Press, 2000

2000

Winner: Alex Hughes

Project Heterographies: Sexual Difference in French Autobiography
Publication Berg, 1999
Contact

Professor Nina Parish

Professor Nina Parish, SFHEA (she/her)
Head of Division of Literature and Languages
Faculty of Arts and Humanities
University of Stirling
Stirling
FK9 4LA
Scotland