The European Society of Comparative Literature invites editors of academic volumes to present their application for the ESCL Excellence Award for Collaborative Research, to be awarded for an outstanding edited volume which makes an original contribution to the field of Comparative Literature.
The award encourages collaborative comparative research, in recognition of the often undervalued creative work of editor(s).
The Excellence Award consists of a single cash prize of 500 euros given to the editor(s) of the volume, and certificates attributed to both the editor(s) and the contributors. Candidates who are on the short-list will be informed in March 2024, and the winning volume will be announced at the ESCL’s next biannual congress in September 2024, where the editor(s) will receive their prize and the contributors their certificates.

Eligibility Criteria and Rules

• The award will be attributed to an edited volume in comparative literature of 80,000 words minimum: for instance, a collection of articles, of book chapters or a special issue of an academic journal. The volumes need to have already undergone a rigorous peer-review process.
• Its publication date must be comprised between Jan 1, 2021 and July 31, 2023. • The volume needs to be either originally written in English or in French (the two communication languages of ESCL), or to have been translated into one of these languages.
• This award will consider volumes with a strong connection to at least one European literature, which adopt a comparative approach and analyse texts from two or more different literary cultures, languages, mediums (painting, photography, film AND literature, for example) or disciplines (philosophy, sociology, photography AND literature for example).
• Publishers, editors and contributors are allowed to propose a volume to the award. The editor of the submitted volume must be a paying member of the ESCL at the time of submission. Membership fees are 15-25€ and the ESCL is non-profit: its revenues are used to fund the biannual congress and travel grants. For guidelines on membership fees see https://escl-selc.eu/become-a-member/. We advise the applicants to pay their membership at least a week before the submission deadline. It is not necessary that all contributors to the edited volume be paying members.

Ineligible works

• Individual articles, standard journal issues that do not meet the required comparatist approach and length, single-authored monographs, conference proceedings without significant editorial input and substantial changes to the original presentations and reference works such as encyclopaedias will not be accepted.
• Only one submission per editor is accepted.

A note on conference proceedings

Please note that conference presentations can serve as the basis of an edited volume, but the presentations need to be reworked for the purposes of scholarly publication. Additional articles solicited for the purpose of a themed volume are a particularly productive way to ensure the standards of a scholarly edited volume.

Submission Process

• Submissions must be made in electronic form (.PDF), to the following email address: escl.bookaward2024@gmail.com
• Printed submissions will not be accepted. Submissions comprise 3 documents that must be attached as pdfs to the submission email:
  1. the edited volume
  2. a letter from the editor(s) introducing the volume and explaining in 200 words how it contributes to the field of comparative literature specifically. This letter should also contain their contact information.
  3. a proof that membership fees have been paid to the ESCL at the moment of submission (this could take the form of a screenshot, a bank statement or an email from the ESCL treasurer for instance).
• The name of the files should start with the last name(s) of the candidate(s) (ex.: VARGAeditedvol.pdf, VARGAletter.pdf)

Timeline:
Deadline for submissions: October 31, 2023
Short-list announced: March 2024

Prize to be awarded at the ESCL Congress in Paris, September 2024.