NORTH AMERICAN CONFERENCE
ON BRITISH STUDIES
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| The official publication of the North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS), the Journal of British Studies, has positioned itself as the critical resource for scholars of British culture from the Middle Ages through the present. Drawing on both established and emerging approaches, JBS presents scholarly articles and books reviews from renowned international authors who share their ideas on British society, politics, law, economics, and the arts. In 2005 (Vol. 44), the journal merged with the NACBS publication Albion, creating one journal for NACBS membership. |
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John Ben Snow Prize |
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The JOHN BEN SNOW FOUNDATION PRIZE is a $500 prize awarded annually by the North American Conference on British Studies for the best book by a North American scholar in any field of British Studies dealing with the period from the Middle Ages through the eighteenth century. The author must be a citizen or permanent resident of the United States or Canada and be living in either country at the time of the award. Nominations may be made by the author or by the publisher of the book nominated. A publisher may nominate more than one title each year but should use discretion and not overburden the Prize Committee. The 2010 competition covers books published in 2009. Separate copies of the letter of nomination and of the book nominated should be sent by April 1, 2010 to each member of the Prize Committee (only books sent to every committee member can be considered). For prompt attention, mark packages "NACBS Prize Committee." Send all relevant materials to: Professor Ken MacMillan Professor Linda Mitchell Professor Sara Butler, Chair
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RECENT AWARD WINNERS
John Ben Snow Prize (2009)
Jennifer Summit (Stanford), Memory's Library: Medieval Books in Early Modern England (University of Chicago Press)
In Memory's Library: Medieval Books in Early Modern England, Jennifer Summit shows us the subtle yet powerful ways in which libraries of the past continue to construct our own perceptions of English history. She reminds us that reading was and is an embodied activity: where and how texts are stored and used shapes how they might be read and how the ideas they contain might be marshaled to serve particular ends. Her riveting book traces the transformation of the library from a collection into a place. She follows manuscripts as they were removed from the chests and choir stalls in which monks once hoarded them and placed in rooms designed for a wider readership. Medieval texts that survived the end of monasticism thus played new roles as the choices of collectors like Bodley, Parker, and Cotton created a medieval past designed to serve contemporary political purposes. Memory itself was reconstituted by an active, if sometimes contemptuous, Renaissance interest in monastic works and modes of reading. In this way, libraries generated new forms of collective identity, and laid the foundations for the archives on which modern scholarship now depends. As Summit concludes, our libraries—and the reading we and our forebears have always done in them—are “one part preservation, one part invention, and one part disavowal.
PREVIOUS AWARD WINNERS
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
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