The Society of Dix-Neuviémistes’ Graduate Essay Prize

The Prize: the Society now offers a prize for the best graduate essay on nineteenth-century French studies. The winning essay will be strongly recommended to the referees for publication in the journal Dix-Neuf (www.sdn.ac.uk/dixneuf) and the winner will receive a year’s free membership for 2004, in addition to a book voucher for $75 (or £50).

Rules: the prize is open to graduates currently engaged in research for a higher degree, for an essay of not more than 6000 words (including footnotes but excluding bibliography), and must be unpublished material. The topic must primarily relate to the long nineteenth century (1789-1914) in France and Francophone countries, and may adopt a variety of disciplinary perspectives – linguistic, literary, historical, cultural, and philosophical – in line with the SDN’s stated aims. The essay may be in English or French. Please include a covering letter providing details of your name, institutional address, and the purpose for which you originally wrote the essay, as well as an exact word count. Please also include a brief note from your research supervisor testifying that the work is your own and from the 12-month period preceding the deadline. The essay must be word processed with numbered pages. Do not include your name or institution on the essay itself. Unfortunately we are unable to enter into any correspondence concerning individual entries.

Please email or send three copies of the essay to Miranda Gill (miranda.gill@chch.ox.ac.uk) by 31 December 2003. Further information about the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes is available on its website, www.sdn.ac.uk.

French Historical Studies

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on French Literature and History

The Editors of French Historical Studies would like to issue a second call for papers for a special edition of the journal on "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on French Literature and History." This forum responds to an increased interest in recent years among historians and literary scholars in the many ways that French literature and history intersect. Given the importance of literature and literary traditions in French history, the elevated status of writers in French public life, the global reach of French language and literature, and the historical relationship between the French state and literature, it seems fitting that FHS provide a forum for French literary scholars and historians to consider connections between literature and history from their different disciplinary perspectives. Papers on both the early modern and modern periods are welcome. For the early modern period, submissions would ideally address such themes as: the relationship of writers or savants to established institutions, such as court, academy and salon; gens de lettres and their public; the Republic of Letters as both an ideal and a reality; patrons and writers; hierarchies and status among writers and savants; the question of the literary "field"; quarrels and controversies among writers; and the like.

Themes relevant to the modern era include the following: politics and engagement in literary production; gender and the emergence of women as writers; popular literature or paralittérature and issues of methodology in the analysis of comics, detective fiction, and the like; literary representations of French and Francophone history; literature, writers, and the publishing industry; race, identity, and the status of writers in French and Francophone communities. Though it is assumed that many, if not most, contributions will focus on single writers and specific periods, articles that cross chronological boundaries and cover an assortment of writers will be welcome. Guest editors Robert Schneider (for the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries) and Whitney Walton (for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries) welcome inquiries about potential submissions. In accordance with the guidelines of French Historical Studies, articles can be in English or French. Inquiries should be address to: schneidr@cua.edu and wwalton@sla.purdue.edu. Manuscripts can be sent electronically to the editors of French Historical Studies, Jo Burr Margadant and Ted W. Margadant [jbmargadant@ucdavis.edu and twmargadant@ucdavis.edu] and to the Managing Assistant, Eteica Spencer[egspencer@ucdavis.edu]. Manuscripts can be sent by mail to Eteica
Spencer, French Historical Studies, History Department, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA 95615. The deadline for submissions is 1 November 2003.