The Society for Comics Studies (ComFor) and the Committee for Comics Studies (AG Comicforschung) of the German Society for Media Studies (GfM) present an annual award for the best article by an early stage researcher.
In 2022, the Society for Comics Studies (ComFor) and the Committee for Comics Studies (AG Comicforschung) of the German Society for Media Studies (GfM), will award the Martin Schüwer Publication Prize for Excellence in Comics Studies for the fourth time. Since 2019, the prize has been awarded annually. It promotes the work of researchers who, regardless of their actual age, do not yet hold a permanent academic as tenured faculty. Honoring outstanding publications in the interdisciplinary field of comics studies, the Martin Schüwer Publication Prize aims to create more visibility for comics-related research, promoting and communicating its importance to a wider public.
The prize is named after the late Martin Schüwer, a scholar of English Literature and Culture who specialized in comics studies and who, very unfortunately, died at a far too early age in 2013. His dissertation Wie Comics erzählen (2006) has opened up new ground for narratological comics research and has become a standard work in German-language comics studies. With this and his other works on comics as well as on the didactics of English literature, Martin Schüwer has set valuable standards regarding the excellence, accessibility and range that publications in our fields can achieve. Both as a comics researcher and as a person, Schüwer had a distinct way of talking to people, characterized by his open-mindedness and a genuine interest in others. Talking to and with others, he aimed to advance comic studies. We dedicate the award to him and this very goal.
Submission and nominations:
Eligible for submission are published texts that do not exceed the length of an article or book chapter. They may have appeared as articles in collective volumes or journals, as chapters in longer monographs, or as essays and other text types of similar length. The submitted/nominated texts may have been written by one or more authors. Authors are only eligible for the award if, at the time of nomination, they did not yet hold a permanent job position within academia.
Papers nominated for the Martin Schüwer Prize 2022 must have been published between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2021, in either German or English. Texts that are still forthcoming or only accepted for publication cannot be considered. Papers can only be submitted once. Entire monographs as well as unpublished work from dissertational research are also excluded from submission. Editors of collective volumes or journal issues cannot be nominated; however, nomination of individual contributions to these collections/issues are very welcome.
To nominate yourself or others, please submit the nominated text and a short explanatory statement (300-500 words). Self-nominations are possible and welcome. The deadline for all submissions is March 31, 2022. Please send your nomination as a single pdf to schuewer-preis@comicgesellschaft.de.
Prize and award ceremony:
The official announcement of the award winner will take place at the annual conference of the German Society for Media Studies (GfM) (autumn 2022). The award ceremony will take place during the annual conference of the Gesellschaft für Comicforschung (autumn 2022). The awardee will be asked to give a lecture and introduce their research during the conference. They will also be invited to serve as a member of the jury in the following year and will receive a prize money of 1000.00 €. In addition, the German Society for Media Studies (GfM) will free them from any membership fee for one year and the ComFor will accept them as life-long Honorary Member.