Founders’ Prize 

The Founders’ Prize is an annual award which honors the scholars who established, sustained, and advanced the Sixteenth Century Society during its initial decades. The Prize is awarded to a completed book-length manuscript, which may at the time of submission be under contract or review.  It is designed to assist early career scholars in their effort to secure the publication of their first book in the field of early modern studies (1450 - 1750). Preference will be given to applications to offset publication costs, yet the Prize may also be applied to indexing, editing, and copyright costs, and/or to provide for Open Access. The Prize will only be awarded upon confirmation of acceptance by a press.

Nominations for the prize may be made by anyone, and self-nominations are welcomed. The deadline for submission of an application is 1 April. Announcement of the awards will be made by the chair of the committee at the annual Prize & Plenary Session of the Society. An announcement of the awards will also be published in The Sixteenth Century Journal and Perspectives on History of the American Historical Association. 

Submissions Requirements and Procedures: 

Applicants must  

  1. be current members of the Society itself (not counting membership in affiliated societies), and have been a member for at least one year  

  2. have successfully defended their Ph.D. at least two years prior to the deadline 

  3. be employed at an academic institution in an untenured capacity (including part-time, adjunct, lecturer, and tenure-track statuses) 

  4. attest that their submission has not previously been published 

The application should include the following: 

  1. project abstract (no more than 750 words) 

  2. statement of how the current manuscript revises the applicant’s dissertation (no more than 500 words) 

  3. book-length manuscript in English, corresponding to the manuscript preparation guidelines which are standard in the field 

  4. a current curriculum vitae 

  5. evidence of completion of the PhD 

  6. statement of other funding sources to which the author has applied, with notice of award status 

  7. proposed budget of up to $6,000.00 (including projected costs of, for example, copyeditor, indexer, copyright permissions, design, typesetting, provision for open access, etc.) 

Entries will be judged on the following: 

  1. quality and originality of research  

  2. methodological skill and/or innovation  

  3. development of fresh and stimulating interpretations or insights  

  4. literary quality  

The Founders’ Prize will be awarded only for individually authored first books. (Multiple authored books, anthologies, and collections of essays are not eligible.  An applicant who has already published an edited collection will not be disqualified).

Funds will be awarded directly to the publisher, the author, or both, depending on the application. 

The chair of the prize committee will work with each winner to help identify potential presses for publication and the finalization of a reimbursement-based budget of up to $6,000.00.  The book’s author and its publisher must agree to acknowledge support from The Founders’ Prize of the Society in the front matter of the book (e.g.: “Publication of this book was made possible, in part, by financial support from the Founders’ Prize of the Sixteenth Century Society”). 

If you wish to help support the Founders’ Prize, please donate here.

Awardees: 

2024 - Kelly Kaelin, Women, Race, and the Moravian Church in the Early Modern Atlantic World: Convert, Migrant, Missionary

2021 - Lynneth Miller Renberg, Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300-1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith (Boydell, 2022).

2019 - Jennifer Binczewski Solitary Sparrows: Widowhood and the Catholic Community in Post-Reformation England (under consideration, Brill).

2015 - Ayesha Ramachandran, The Worldmakers: Global Imagining in Early Modern Europe (University of Chicago Press, 2015).

2014 - Mark Rosen, The Mapping of Power in Renaissance Italy: Painted Cartographic Cycles in Social and Intellectual Context (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

The Prize was revised in 2018 to better reflect current publishing and academic trends.