Two prizes of £200 for the best Undergraduate and Postgraduate essays are awarded annually. The BA submission should be a dissertation or long-essay on a subject relating to Jewish Studies. The MA submission should be an essay on the theme of the forthcoming BAJS conference. The submission (two hard-copies, one electronic copy, 5000 word limit for postgraduates, 12,000 words for undergraduates) should be marked clearly as Undergraduate or Postgraduate and should include the student’s full contact details. Submissions by post-graduate research students are not considered.
Deadline for submission: 1 July 2009. Submissions, which are the responsibility of the student, should be sent to:
BAJS Student Prize, c/o Prof. Seth Kunin, Dean’s Office, South Lodge, Science Laboratories, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE. Email: s.d.kunin@durham.ac.uk
The theme of the forthcoming conference is food and the use of food in Jewish texts and cultures, addressing such issues as commensality, cooking, creation of boundaries, identity, symbolism, sacrifice and material cultural objects related to or symbolic of eating, etc. The term ‘culinary’ is interpreted broadly and as suggested extends to sacrifice and other symbolic uses of food or food related objects.
Past Prize Winners
2008
Joint 1st (postgraduate) – Simon Mayers (Manchester), ‘An Examination of the Judaism-Jewishness Dialectic within Jewish Studies’
Joint 1st (postgraduate) – Zoe Jacob, ‘Which theory of secular domestic law best helps underpin the Orthodox Jewish feminist approach to halakhah, and does this theoretical underpinning strengthen Orthodox Jewish feminist position?’ (UCL)
2007
1st – Thomas Sharrard, ‘Representations of London’s East End through literature: Israel Zangwill’s Children of the Ghetto and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane’ (Southampton)
2006
1st – Charlotte Alfred, ‘Should Palestinian attitudes to Israeli Jews be explained primarily in terms of religion or modern nationalism?’ (Edinburgh)
2nd – Felicity Griffiths, ‘The Blood Libel and the Papacy’ (UCL)
2005
1st – Helen Bartos, ‘Compare and Contrast the Experiences of Jewish Immigrants in the US, England and One Other English-Speaking Land Around 1900′ (UCL)
2nd - Hannah Ewence, ‘How Can national Socialist Attitudes Toward Motherhood Be Interpreted?’ (Southampton)
3rd – Hannah Judd, ‘With Reference to the Work of Melissa Raphael, Discuss Whether there Is a Need for a Jewish Feminist Response to the Holocaust’ (Birmingham)
2004
1st – Zubin Mistry, ‘Jewish Greek literature: apologetic or assertive?’ (Cambridge)
2nd – Fiona Eatwell ‘Popular Conceptions of the Jew in the Medieval Period’ (Manchester)
3rd – Steven Winter ‘Revisiting the 1948 War’ (UCL)
2003
1st – Helene Bartos ‘The Zionist Movement and Jewish Settlement in the Land of Israel 1881 to 1948′ (UCL)
2nd - Daniel Cowen ‘The Treatise of the Pool of Obadiah Maimonides, 1228-1265′ (Oxford)
3rd – Ophira Starr ‘Are There Modernistic or Even Post Modernistic Elements in the Hasidism?’ (UCL)
2002
1st – Sally Style (UCL)
2nd – Greg Smart (Southampton)
2001
1st - J. Cartaris, ‘Yiddish cinema: Der Dibek’ (UCL)
2nd – S. Schubert, ‘Greek and Roman perceptions of Jews’ (UCL)
3rd - Danny Burkemann, ‘R. Ruether and G. Kittel on Jews’ (Cambridge)
2000
1st – C. Belo
2nd – I. Conn
3rd – E. Krausova (UCL)
1999
1st – R. Esterson (UCL)
2nd – R. Tragen (Manchester) and L. Wicken (UCL)
