The Society offers two prizes, both intended for outstanding work by junior academics.
Charles Schmitt Prize
As the result of generous donations from an anonymous donor and our publisher (Taylor & Francis), the International Society for Intellectual History is offering, on an annual basis, a prize to honour the contribution of Charles B. Schmitt (1933-1986) to intellectual history.
The prize is £250, plus £100 worth of Routledge books, and a year’s free membership of the ISIH with a subscription to the Society’s quarterly journal Intellectual History Review. The paper awarded the prize will also be published in the Intellectual History Review.
Submissions will be accepted in any area of intellectual history, broadly construed, 1500 to the present, including the historiography of intellectual history. Because it is a condition of the award that the paper awarded the prize will be published by IHR, submissions should not have been accepted for publication elsewhere, or exceed 9,000 words (including footnotes). Eligibility is restricted to doctoral students and those who have submitted their PhD within two years of the closing date for the prize.
The paper should be forwarded as an e-mail attachment in Microsoft Word format to Thomas.Ahnert@ed.ac.uk and to j.lancaster@uq.edu.au. The e-mail itself should state that the paper is being entered for the prize, and should confirm eligibility at the time of submission, as well as availability of the paper for publication.
The winner of the 2023 Charles Schmitt Prize was announced in May 2023. Submissions for the 2024 prize will open in late 2023.
Constance Blackwell Prize
The ISIH Constance Blackwell Prize is awarded biennially to the best first monograph in intellectual history (broadly construed) published in the previous two years. The prize was established in memory of the Society’s founder, Constance Blackwell (1934-2018).
The value of the prize is £500. The prize may, exceptionally, be divided between two recipients. There will also be an announcement about the book which is proxime accessit to the prize.
The shortlist will be announced by September of the year in which the prize is awarded. The award of the prize itself will be publicised by the ISIH by the end of December that year.
The winner of the inaugural Constance Blackwell Prize was announced in December 2022. The next prize will be awarded in 2024.