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 February 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
The 2020 round of the prize, for books published in 2019, will open soon; please watch this space for details.
2019 Recipients
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) |
Previous recipients
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 |
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| 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 |
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| Institution | St Hilda's College, Oxford |
| Publication | Boydell & Brewer, 2016 |
2016
Winner: Neil Kenny
| Project | Death and Tenses: Posthumous Presence in Early Modern France |
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| 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 |
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| 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 |
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| 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 |
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| 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 |
Professor Margaret Topping
Dean of the Graduate School,
Queen’s University Belfast,
Belfast BT7 1NN,
Northern Ireland