The BACLS Monograph Prize

Ben Davies, Christina Lupton & Johanne Gormsen Schmidt, Reading Novels During the Covid-19 Pandemic (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Our judges said:

Reading Novels During the Covid-19 Pandemic is a fascinating study of contemporary reading practice. Developed from extensive studies of reading experiences during the lockdown periods of the recent Covid-19 pandemic in the UK and Denmark. It creates a dialogue between texts across time that highlights their continuities and disparities and sheds light on our contemporary moment. This work is a result of rigorous qualitative research. Being both relevant to recent events and rooted theoretically, it is of great interest to academic and non-academic audiences.

The BACLS Edited Collection Prize

Charlotte Beyer (ed.), Decolonising the Literature Curriculum (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

Our judges said:

This is a highly distinctive and vital contribution to contemporary scholarship. The volume engages with a complex political and cultural challenge in a sophisticated but lucid fashion. The range of chapters and individual contributors cumulatively represent a highly original intervention in one of the most pressing issues in contemporary literary studies, particularly in pedagogy.We appreciate its relevance to current academia, its diverse perspectives and the useful methodologies proposed in the individual chapters. This is an invaluable and highly accessible text that we would encourage our colleagues to read.

The BACLS Postgraduate Essay Prize

Ashley Barr, ‘Rescripting in the Shower: A Theory of the Shower and Creative Practice’, Oxford Research in English, 14 (2022)

Our judges said:

The panel agreed that this submission was highly innovative in both subject matter and scholarly approach. The piece was fresh, at times funny, and packed full of original research. It breathes life into the subject in a way that is creative and critical in equal measure, without loss of academic rigour. It is a shining example of the relevance of poetry, critical theory, and creative practice. This writing style and academic balance is hard to achieve, but this piece is an exceptionally good example of the benefits of getting it right. This is a pathbreaking piece of scholarship that will long be of value to scholars and creative practitioners working across contemporary literary studies.