The Reimagining Performance Graduate Essay Prize

Hand with pen writing in black ink

The Reimagining Performance Graduate Essay Prize

The Reimagining Performance Network (University of Oxford) and New Theatre Quarterly (Cambridge University Press)

We are pleased to invite submissions for the Reimagining Performance Graduate Essay Prize (2022), a collaboration between the Reimagining Performance Network (University of Oxford) and New Theatre Quarterly (Cambridge University Press).

The Reimagining Performance Graduate Essay Prize aims to recognise and reward innovative graduate writing within theatre and performance scholarship. Essays can be on any subject in the field of modern and contemporary theatre and performance, broadly conceived.

Entries will be assessed on:

  • timely and original contribution to the field of theatre and performance scholarship;
  • innovative approach to the material under discussion;
  • scholarly rigour in contextualising the discussed material and in engaging with recent scholarship and/or theory in relevant fields;
  • clarity and liveliness of voice.

All scholars registered in graduate study at any Higher Education institution worldwide are eligible to enter. Scholars may not have completed their postgraduate study before 1 January 2022 (i.e. the beginning of the submission window). The essays will be judged in a blind peer review by the convenors of the Reimagining Performance Network, and the winning entry will also be assessed by New Theatre Quarterly editor Maria Shevtsova. Winners will be announced in November 2022.

Prizes

The author of the prize-winning essay will receive:

  • £250 prize money
  • Publication of their essay in New Theatre Quarterly, identified as the Reimagining Performance Prize Essay
  • A year’s print and online subscription to New Theatre Quarterly journal.

Up to three runners-up will also receive a year’s online subscription to New Theatre Quarterly journal.

In the event that the judges deem no material submitted to be of a standard suitable for publication, no prize will be awarded.

 

 

Guidelines for Submission

  • Submissions of up to 8,000 words will be accepted between 1 January 2022 and 30 April 2022. Please send all entries and accompanying cover sheets to reimaginingperformance@torch.ox.ac.uk by midnight (GMT), 30 April 2022.
  • Please include a cover sheet with your entry, including your name, contact details, brief academic bio (2-3 lines), declaring your graduate student status, and specifying that your essay is for consideration in the Reimagining Performance Graduate Essay Prize.
  • Please include a short abstract (100-200 words, included in overall word count) at the beginning of your essay.
  • Your essay must be an original piece of work; no part of it can have been previously published or under consideration with any other publishing outlet.
  • Essays must be presented according to the New Theatre Quarterly journal’s instructions for contributors.
  • Essays must be anonymised and without any identifying details, to allow blind peer review.
  • Entries not abiding by the above requirements will be disqualified.
  • Please note that submitting an entry to the Reimagining Performance Graduate Student Essay Prize is not a submission to New Theatre Quarterly by the normal channels. Your essay will be peer-reviewed by the Reimagining Performance convenors in the first instance, and only a selected shortlist will be passed to the New Theatre Quarterly journal editors to be considered for publication.

 


Re-Imagining Performance Network, TORCH Networks