OPPORTUNITIES: Announcement of a New BU Undergraduate Award: The Studies in Romanticism Undergraduate Essay Prize

Studies in Romanticism, BU’s flagship journal on the Romantic period in European, American, and world history, is pleased to announce the creation of a new undergraduate essay award.

Its purpose is to encourage interest among BU undergraduates in the period conventionally known as “Romantic,” roughly extending from 1789, the year of the outbreak of the French Revolution, to about 1830. SiR recognizes that the precursors of European Romanticism may reach back as far as the mid-eighteenth century and that its impact on various nations, both within and outside Europe, continued throughout the nineteenth. Romantic ideas, attitudes, and influences were also apparent in many fields of endeavor subsequent to 1900, up to and including the present day: in popular culture and the mass media, in the creative arts, and in public discourse about human rights, democratic representation, the class struggle, and the impact of modernity generally. Among other things, the era we now call “Romantic” spans what amounted to the first—and to this date, the longest—world war in history, the Napoleonic conflict, in which, for the first time, the idea of “total war” involving all segments of society became a horrifying reality. The Romantic period marked the start of modern feminism, the beginnings of the anti-slavery movement and, under the exacerbating impact of war, the industrial revolution, as well as the final establishment of England—and by extension, all things English—as a hegemonic commercial and military power internationally, with consequences reaching far beyond this island nation’s more recent eclipse on the world stage by superpowers like America, Russia, and China. In short, the social, political, military, artistic, and cultural forces unleashed during this turbulent period continue to reverberate around the world to the present day.

A cash prize of $200 will accompany the award.

Eligibility:

1) Only students officially enrolled in an undergraduate program of study at BU when they write their entries may compete. Undergraduates at any level from freshman to senior year are eligible.

2) All entries must be work submitted for a grade in an upper-division undergraduate or graduate level course counting toward the undergraduate degree. The course may be offered by any department, school, or program in CAS. Please note: essays submitted as part of Work for Distinction, or excerpted portions thereof, do not qualify for this award.

3) A student may submit only one paper per semester for consideration.

Requirements, procedures, and deadline for submissions:

1) Essays must be no longer than 4,500 words, including notes and bibliography, and written in .doc or .docx format. They may be revised before submission. While entries are not limited to English subjects or to English-language works, they must be written in English. The text should be free of all instructor’s comments, corrections, and grades.

2) Each entry must be submitted for consideration by the instructor who graded it, accompanied by a letter of recommendation of up to 200 words in length explaining why he or she considers the essay worthy of consideration. Instructors should email both essay and recommendation, as attachments, to Deborah Swedberg, managing editor of SiR, at debswed@bu.edu.. Entries without such a recommendation will not be accepted.

3) All materials must be submitted by 5 pm of the second day following the end of the exam period for the semester in which the essay was written. No entries will be accepted after the deadline.

Criteria and Process of Evaluation:

1) While entries may include material not directly related to Romanticism, they must engage substantially with a subject, theme, issue, or specific figure or figures relevant to the Romantic period or its cultural legacy.

2) Entries will be judged on originality, command of relevant criticism, cogency of thesis and argumentation, handling of evidence, and stylistic clarity and coherence.

3) The winner will be selected by the editorial staff of Studies in Romanticism and announced during the week before BU’s annual Commencement following the Spring semester.