Research Committees

The award is granted to the best paper in the sociology of art authored by one or more new scholar(s) and submitted to the competition. It is intended to provide motivation and recognition to a promising new scholar in the field of sociology of art, as well as to encourage growing graduate student interest and participation in the ISA and RC37.

Eligibility

The purpose of this award is to reward a refereed journal article or original chapter in an edited book by a junior sociologist (no more than 3 years after PhD is awarded) in the field of the sociology of art. Co-authored papers are also accepted but both candidates must meet the requirements above.

The prize will be awarded every 4 years, at the ISA’s world conference. It will cover travel costs of up to $750 to attend the ISA’s World Congress. We expect the first prize to be first awarded at the next ISA’s World Congress.

Nominations

A call for nominations will be made in the RC’s newsletter, at least 12 months prior to the conference to ensure that the winner(s) will be given sufficient notice and thus be able to make arrangements to attend the conference. Self-nominations are permitted.

Requirements

Journal articles and original chapters of edited collections must have been published no more than 3 years at the time of submission. Electronic copies of the article/chapter need to be accompanied by a letter, including a description of the article/chapter, and its significance. The maximum length is 10,000 words. Only one submission per candidate will be allowed. Only RC37 members are eligible to make nominations for this award and nominees must be already members or join the RC37 prior to receiving the award. Submissions can be in in any of the ISA’s official languages, English, French and Spanish. Abstracts in the other two official languages should also be provided.

Selection process

The papers will be evaluated by an Award Subcommittee of three RC37 standing Board members who will be expected to have the necessary linguistic expertise between them to evaluate the entries. The Subcommittee will normally be selected at the RC37 business meeting scheduled at a World Congress of Sociology except in the first iteration of the award when the committee will be selected via electronic communications.

Members of the Subcommittee will also be expected to consult with other RC37 Board members as expertise demands arise.

To avoid potential conflicts of interest, members of the Award Subcommittee are not permitted to nominate papers, and must disclose any substantial personal or professional ties with submitters or nominees or potential conflicts of interest (e.g., as supervisor or committee member of the author's or co-author of authors' paper, editor of the journal or volume where the paper has been accepted for publication, etc.) to the other members of the RC’s 37 Board, its President or Secretary.

The Award Subcommittee will report its decision to the RC37 President, Secretary and Board Members, whilst the President will report to the ISA Executive Committee. The selection process will be completed at least 6 months before the next ISA’s World congress, in time for the winner(s) to undertake early registration for the conference.