BIAJS Annual Dissertation and Article Prizes

BIAJS Dissertation and Article Prizes

 

Here you will find information for the annual BIAJS essay prizes: now the dissertation (UG) and article prizes (one PG and one ECR). The 2027 prize round is not yet accepting submissions. Read below and watch this space!

 

Quick reference:

• Undergraduate Dissertation Essay Prize 2027: call opens in late May, closes in mid-June – entrants nominated by their supervisor or department rather than self-entry.
• Postgraduate and ECR Article Prizes 2027: call opens in January, closes in February – one prize for each category: postgraduate (PGT or PGR, e.g. MA, MPhil, PhD/DPhil) and ECR.
• Winners and honourable mentions are announced at the summer AGM and in all communications in the following months.
• All dissertation supervisors submitting student UG dissertations should be BIAJS members themselves but their undergraduate students are not required to be members. All entrants for Postgraduate and ECR article prizes should already be or become for that year BIAJS members.

 

 

Congratulations to the 2026 round winners!

• Undergraduate Dissertation Prize – Dov Forman, UCL: “Understanding Israel Zangwill’s Turn to Zionism”
• Postgraduate Essay Prize – Abigail Glickman, Cambridge: “Reinterpreting reuse: a holistic approach to T-S 20.47”

 

About the Undergraduate Dissertation Prize

Description of the UG dissertation prize:

Each year BIAJS is proud to open calls for an annual undergraduate final dissertation prize in Jewish studies, open to period and discipline. One prize of £300, ordinarily for one outstanding undergraduate final-year dissertation by a student based at institutions in the UK and Ireland, is awarded annually.

Undergraduate submissions should be a final-year UG dissertation from the current academic year on a subject relating to Jewish studies in any discipline or subject, broadly speaking of any period ancient through modern. Disciplines and/or subjects may include but not be limited to history, theology and religious studies, law, sociology, archaeology, art history, music, cultural studies, linguistics, ancient history and Classics, anthropology, literature, and other areas which may tackle Jewish subjects.

Successful student winners are then kindly invited, but not required, to gain experience serving as judges alongside senior academics for at least one and up to three future prize rounds (i.e. each summer during the prize round), in order to gain valuable insight and experiences in this integral and rewarding part of academia.

 

Process of submission:

Only one submission per candidate is allowed, although supervisors may submit as many prize-worthy candidates as they wish.

Submission can be made either by the supervisor of the essay or the department head where the student is affiliated (not by students themselves), and all submissions should be normally sent to the secretary Dr Lindsey Davidson (secretarybiajs@gmail.com), acting on behalf of the judging panel.

We also request that supervisors should obtain with permission not just the student’s university email but also one active personal email for communicating with them if they do win, just in case their university email is deactivated by July when winners are announced.

 

Eligibility:

Submissions to the essay prizes are restricted to students at UK and Ireland higher education institutions; we are unfortunately not in a position to accept worldwide submissions. (We do, however, accept worldwide submissions for the book prize, each year, from BIAJS members, as long as the majority of the book is undertaken in a UK/Ireland setting.)

Student candidates are not required themselves to be active members of BIAJS, but we require that their dissertation supervisors or department head, whoever is submitting student entries, should be a BIAJS member. Student winners of the essay prize will be welcome (but not required) to attend the BIAJS summer conference where the prizes will be conferred to receive their prize certificates. Registration fees can be waived (and in some circumstances travel costs can be reimbursed) to allow and encourage students prize winners to attend the conference.

 

Timeline:

This annual prize normally opens a call in May since UG dissertations are usually submitted in April or May, with a final deadline for all submissions in early to mid-June.

The prize winner and their supervisor will be informed of the outcome in the weeks before the conference to allow time to organise their attendance at the conference. Public announcement of the prizes happens at the BIAJS annual conference, usually at the AGM. The announcement is then updated on our website and social media outlets as well as membership mailing list. A special announcement with photos is also included in the annual BIAJS Bulletin (released in the autumn).

 

The UG dissertation prize is not currently accepting submissions at this time. The call will reopen for the 2027 prize round with a call in May 2027.

 

 

 

The Postgraduate and ECR Article Prizes (newly updated for 2027)

 

Description of the two (PG and ECR) article prizes:

Each year BIAJS is proud to open calls for an annual article prize in Jewish studies with two distinct categories (one for postgraduate and one for ECR), which is open to period and discipline. Two prizes of £300 (one for each of the two categories), each ordinarily for one outstanding published article or essay. The postgraduate category of the prize (£300) is for any published article or published essay (if in an edited volume) by a candidate who is either a postgraduate-taught student or postgraduate research (MPhil, PhD/DPhil) student, full-time or part-time. The ECR category prize (£300) is for any published article or published essay (if in an edited volume) by a candidate who is an early-career researcher (ECR is self-defined) who is based at an institution in the UK or Ireland.

This prize replaces the previous, singular prize for a taught postgraduate essay. It is hoped that this new article prize (with two distinct categories, allowing one postgraduate winner and one ECR winner) will help close the gap between the dissertation prize and the book prize by recognising the published achievements of postgraduates and ECRs.

Article submissions should be article or essay published in the last two years of the prize deadline (more details of submission and eligibility below) on a subject relating to Jewish studies in any discipline or subject, broadly speaking of any period ancient through modern. Disciplines and/or subjects may include but not be limited to history, theology and religious studies, law, sociology, archaeology, art history, music, cultural studies, linguistics, ancient history and Classics, anthropology, literature, and other areas which may tackle Jewish subjects. Submissions should be already published and not in pre-print or proof stage.

Successful winners are then kindly invited, but not required, to gain experience serving as judges alongside senior academics for at least one and up to three future prize rounds (i.e. around Jan-March during the prize round), in order to gain valuable insight and experiences in this integral and rewarding part of academia.

Process of submission:

Only one submission per candidate is allowed per year.

Articles must have been already published within the last two years. For the 2027 round, this means that articles would have a publication date of 2026 or 2025. Special exemptions may be made for journals that list a previous year but have an actual, real date of release late (such as a journal whose issue/date is listed as 2024 to keep in line with the journal’s sequencing, but was not actually released until 2025).

What qualifies as an article for this prize:

• An independent, self-contained journal article or essay which is already published, usually somewhere between 4,000 to 10,000 words.
• Articles may be published in academic journals.
• We will also accept essays which have been published in edited volumes, owing to length being similar to articles, and because we recognise that this is often a common first publication for postgraduate students and ECRs.
• An article or essay should be published in a self-standing or standalone format, i.e. a chapter within a dissertation or monograph is NOT acceptable. A section or part of a larger dissertation is NOT accepted. (Transforming a chapter of a dissertation into a published article is fine since the final publication would become a standalone article.)

Submission can be made either by the author(s) themselves or on their behalf by their publisher, mentor, supervisor, or colleague. All submissions should be normally sent to the secretary Dr Lindsey Davidson (secretarybiajs@gmail.com), acting on behalf of the judging panel.

Because postgraduate students and ECRs may change emails over shorter periods, we request that submissions include for contact information not just a university email but also one active personal email for communicating with the author(s) if they do win, just in case their affiliation changes by July when winners are announced formally.

 

Eligibility:

 

Submissions to the article prize is restricted to those affiliated with UK and Ireland higher education institutions; we are unfortunately not in a position to accept worldwide submissions. (We do, however, accept worldwide submissions for the book prize, each year.)

Membership requirement: We kindly request that all candidates who submit for the postgraduate or ECR article prizes should themselves be current BIAJS members for the current year.

Postgraduate taught, postgraduate research, PhD/DPhil students, and self-defined early-career researchers are all eligible to submit to this prize. Postgraduates will be ranked against their peers, and ECRs against other ECRs, rather than mixing together into one ranking system, ensuring there are two prize winners, one in each category. The category of early-career researcher (ECR) does not have a strict cap but is self-defined as to length of years since doctorate (allowing for interim breaks) and career stage.

 

Timeline:

The annual PG and ECR article prizes opens a call in January, with a final deadline for all submissions sometime in February. The earlier timing compared to the dissertation prize is so that judging responsibilities do not overlap, nor cluster around the busier period of April through June in the run up to the annual conference. Publications that are due to come out after January or February, but not yet ready for the current year’s deadline, are eligible for the following year.

The prize winners will be informed of the outcome in the spring to allow time to organise their attendance at the conference. Public announcement of the prizes happens at the BIAJS annual conference, usually at the AGM. The announcement is then updated on our website and social media outlets as well as membership mailing list. A special announcement with photos is also included in the annual BIAJS Bulletin (released in the autumn).

 

The PG and ECR article prizes are not currently accepting submissions at this time. The call will reopen for the 2027 prize round with a call in January 2027.

 

 

 

Postgraduate winner:

Pia Regensburger from University of Oxford for “On the Theme of Theosis in 4 Maccabees and other Jewish Greek Texts.”

Max Benster from University of Oxford for “A Study of the Motif of Celestial Book Erasure in Ancient Judaism.”

Undergraduate winners (split):

• Hannah Buluwela from the University of Edinburgh, for “An Investigation into the Framing of the Holocaust in the New Imperial War Museum Holocaust Exhibition: Space, Objects, Text and the Shaping of Visitors’ Understanding”
• Cora Morris from the University of Cambridge, for “‘This, too, is Torah’ (Berachot 62a): Radical Jewish Subjecthood, Belonging, and the Question of Authenticity at a Queer Yeshiva School in East London”

Postgraduate winner:

• Yael Tischler from Leo Baeck College, for “He Had Her at ‘Shalom’: The Midrashic Portrait of Shelomit bat Dibri”

Undergraduate:

Phoebe Brandon (University of Oxford) for the essay ‘Challenging the “Plight” of the Agunah: An Exploration of Feminist Orthodox Responses to the Problem of Chained Women in Israel’.

Postgraduate:

Martin Lindner (University of Cambridge) for the essay ‘“Wer ‘ihr’? Wen meinst du mit ‘ihr’?”’[‘“Who ‘you’? Whom do you mean by ‘you’?”’]: Questions of Jewish Belonging in Anna Mitgutsch’s Haus der Kindheit [House of Childhood] (2000) and Doron Rabinovici’s Ohnehin [Anyway]’ (2004)’.

Honourable mention:

Ellie Birkett (University of Manchester) for the essay ‘Voices of the Past: Narrating Red Army Rape in Post-War Eastern Europe’.

Fergus Selsdon Games,  ‘Soviet Nationality Policy and the Movement for Soviet-Jewish Emigration During the Brezhnev Era’ (University of Manchester)

Anna Mullins, ‘A Gendered Analysis of Prisoner-Physicians in KL Auschwitz, with a focus on Dr Gisella Perl’ (University of Birmingham).