THE BASEES STUDY GROUP FOR MINORITY HISTORY (SGMH) PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK PROPOSAL

The Prize for Best First Book Proposal in Minority History was launched by the BASEES Study Group for Minority History (SGMH) in September 2022 to recognise scholarly excellence among early career academics seeking to publish their original research with a major English-language academic press.

This biennial prize is currently offered by the SGMH for a book proposal of high quality dealing with any aspect of minority history (broadly defined) relating to Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe.

Proposal submissions will be scored by our expert committee against a set of criteria focusing on originality, academic rigour and historiographical significance. All nominations for consideration must be of a scholarly character and written in English; the prize will be awarded to those who can demonstrate the potential to make a major contribution to the field of minority history in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe.

Eligible nominations are singly- or jointly authored proposals for a first monograph. In order to qualify, applicants must have already defended their PhD thesis or have their defence date scheduled. Please note that proposals for edited collections with multiple authors are not eligible for this award scheme.

The expert committee pledges to provide extensive feedback and support to the winner in preparing their proposal for submission to a major academic press. The monetary value of the prize is £100 which will be awarded to the winner by the SGMH at the BASEES annual conference.

The deadline for the 2025 application cycle is Wednesday 15 January.

The current regulations are as follows:

 1. The prize is offered every two years for a first book proposal focused on an aspect of minority history in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

 2. A nomination may take the form of a book proposal, usually authored by either one or two authors. Proposals for edited collections with multiple authors are not eligible for this award scheme.

 3. Those who have yet to submit and receive confirmation for the date of their PhD defence are not eligible for this award scheme.

 4. Awards will be made by an expert committee that will work closely with the SGMH. Each member of the committee will be selected to represent the diversity, breadth and scholarly excellence of the discipline and our Study Group.

 5. All nominations should be sent to the Study Group’s official email address (sgmh.basees@gmail.com) as a single pdf file.

 6. Nomination proposals must be submitted in English and consist of:     

    1) A monograph proposal (of no more than 5 pages) outlining the following:

  • The monograph’s suggested title.

  • The rationale for the book, including a description of aims, scope, content and methodology: what is the central argument, or arguments, and what sort of contribution can this monograph make to the existing scholarship?

  • Information on the intended audience and how the work differs from other books currently available in the field.

  • A 300-word description of the book – similar to a synopsis (‘blurb’) that might appear on the back cover.

  • A table of contents, with a short paragraph outlining each proposed chapter.

  • The overall length of the projected or completed work in terms of word count, as well as the proposed number of illustrations, tables, figures and maps.

      2) Your curriculum vitae, including a full list of publications

      3) An article- or chapter-length academic writing sample, preferably from the proposed manuscript. In exceptional circumstances, the writing sample can be in a language other than English.

Please send any queries to: sgmh.basees@gmail.com

The expert committee for the 2025 cycle consists of:

Raul Cârstocea, Maynooth University

Doina Anca Cretu, University of Warwick

Samuel Foster, University of Exeter

Siobhán Hearne, University of Manchester

Olena Palko, University of Basel

Jan Rybak, Central European University

Current winner

Vita Zalar (Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana) wins the 2023 BASEES STUDY GROUP FOR MINORITY HISTORY (SGMH) PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK PROPOSAL for "The Political Economy of Antigypsyism: Habsburg and Post-Habsburg Perspectives”

 

BASEES SGMH is pleased to announce that Vita Zalar (Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana) has won the THE BASEES STUDY GROUP FOR MINORITY HISTORY (SGMH) PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK PROPOSAL for "The Political Economy of Antigypsyism: Habsburg and Post-Habsburg Perspectives”

 
Vita Zalar’s forthcoming monograph, The Political Economy of Antigypsyism: Habsburg and Post-Habsburg Perspectives, breaks new ground by offering a historical materialist reading of the imperial and post-imperial forms of structural racism against Roma and Sinti in the late Habsburg Empire and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Spanning the period between the two global economic crises of 1873 and 1929, this highly original study makes an invaluable contribution to several specialist literatures: that on Romani history, where accounts stretching back in time beyond the 20th century remain few and far between; to Habsburg historiography, where, despite the attention given to minority politics in that eminently multi-national space, the history of the Roma remains a marginal and marginalised subject; and to interpretations of Romaphobia, historical and contemporary, frequently characterised by what the author identifies as a constitutive antinomy of ‘Gypsiness’ oscillating between socio-economic and biologized understandings of the concept. The historical materialist reading informed by Koselleckian conceptual history / Begriffsgeschichte provides a fresh, insightful perspective that allows the author to unpack the nexus of criminalized poverty, (real or imagined) mobility, and labour hierarchies that operated at both micro and macro levels of governance as a mechanism of structural impoverishment of Roma populations. Grounded in impressive archival research on Habsburg, Yugoslav, Swiss, and League of Nations collections, as well as published sources in numerous languages, and giving due weight to Roma agency and self-articulations, the monograph is not only a most welcome addition to the growing and diversifying scholarship on the area of Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe, but has the potential to engage with and contribute to global debates around structural racism. Its methodology helps deconstruct essentialist notions of ‘race’, ‘class’, or ‘ethnicity’, revealing the political economy of anti-Gypsyism as always-already historically determined and rooted in specific temporal, spatial, and economic circumstances. The focus on the materiality of anti-Gypsyism as a historical phenomenon can act as a safeguard against essentialisms and perennialisms that will be useful not only to scholars of minorities, but potentially to policy makers as well.  

Honourable mention: Dr Thomas Loyd (University of Cardiff): Black in the USSR

Honourable mention: Dr Elżbieta Kwiecińska (University of Warsaw): A Civilizing Relay. The Concept of the Civilizing Mission as a Cultural Transfer in East-Central Europe, 1815-1919


Judges: Raul Cârstocea (Maynooth University), Doina Anca Cretu (Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences), Samuel Foster (University of East Anglia), Siobhán Hearne (University of Manchester), Olena Palko (University of Basel), Jan Rybak, (Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism).