MargaretCavendish

The Biennial
Sylvia Bowerbank Award

This award is given to the best paper presented at the bienniel meeting of the Margaret Cavendish Society, with preference given to junior scholars.

ANNOUNCEMENT:
SYLVIA BOWERBANK AWARD COMPETITION for the best paper presented at Ghent, Belgium, in 2011.

DEADLINE: 31 January 2013 Maximum length: 4000 words

We are again holding our biennial competition for the Sylvia Bowerbank Award, a cash prize of $150 USD in honor of the late Sylvia Bowerbank, offered for the best paper presented at the previous Margaret Cavendish Conference. All those who read papers at Cavendish IX, held in Ghent, Belgium in July 2011, are eligible to apply for the award. **Please note that preference will be given to the work of junior scholars. The winner will be announced and the award presented at Cavendish X, to be held at Brigham Young University and Sundance, Utah, on July 12th to 14th 2013.


Criteria for the award are as follows:

  1. Originality and significance: is what is being claimed both new and important?
  2. Structure and scholarship: does the paper make its points in a clear and convincing way? Is it logically consistent? Is the research accurate and thorough?
  3. Felicity of prose: is the paper clearly and carefully written in a way that advances the progress of the argument? Is the paper free of unnecessary jargon?

**Note: if you have already published your paper as an article, or if it is currently in the press, the published (or about-to-be-published) version of your paper is still eligible for submission for the award. Just cut the text down to 4000 words if it exceeds the word limit.

Attached files should be sent by email to all three members of the Awards Committee:
Sara Mendelson “[email protected]
James Fitzmaurice J. Fitzmaurice “[email protected]
Lisa Sarasohn "Lisa T. Sarasohn “[email protected]
France partner: rapac.org

History of Prize Winners

Past Winners of the Sylvia Bowerbank Award

Margaret Cavendish Society VI (awards presented in 2007)

First Prize:

Katherine Larson, "'For the sake of after-ages': Margaret Cavendish's Strategies of Self-Representation."

Second Prize:

Margaret Owens, "'A Hodge-Podge of Diseases Tasteth Well': Arcimboldesque Portraits in Margaret Cavendish's Poems and Fancies (1653)."

Third Prize:

Valeria Holtz, "'More than He Can Rationally Prove?': Science and Magic in Cavendish's Response to the Platonists."

Margaret Cavendish Society VII (awards presented in 2009)

First Prize:

Jacob Tootalian, " Every Beast is a Philosopher: Fancy and the Rational in The Blazing World"

Second Prize:

Lise Mae Schlosser, “Mrs. Dalloway and the Duchess: Virginia Woolf Reads and Writes Margaret Cavendish”

Margaret Cavendish Society VII (awards presented in 2009)

Amy Greenstadt, “Margaret's Beard.”