Awards

To promote and support the activities of research and teaching in the area of Italian Studies in Australasian tertiary institutions, ACIS offers up to three postgraduate fieldwork scholarships each year. Worth $6000 each, these scholarships provide postgraduate students at an Australian or New Zealand university with the opportunity to work on their research project in Italy. For one of the awards, the Dino De Poli Scholarship, preference may be given to applications for research on any aspect of the culture, history, and society of north-east Italy.

Since 2001 a total of 55 students, drawn from twelve universities, have been awarded ACIS Postgraduate Fieldwork Scholarships. The range and historical span of projects supported by this scheme is striking. Music, film, history (Renaissance, modern, contemporary), literature (novels, poetry), sociology, anthropology,  intercultural education, politics, art, religion, material culture, the economy – all figure among the successful applicants’ fields of study. Given the relatively small size of the Italianist scholarly community in Australasia, this a notably diverse set of interests and disciplines brought to bear on aspects of Italy, from the mediaeval to contemporary periods. Several scholarship holders have gone on to publish their findings and embark on research and academic careers in Italian Studies; others have pursued other areas, using skills and knowledge developed by working on Italian projects. These projects are listed below.

Eligibility 

1. The scholarships are available to students who are currently enrolled, full-time or part-time, in a Masters by research or PhD degree at a university in Australia or New Zealand, and who are engaged in research projects in any of the following areas of Italian Studies: archaeology and classical antiquities, language, literature, culture, history, politics and society, cinema studies, and migration studies.
2. Applicants must be citizens or residents of Australia or New Zealand.
3. Applicants must have a knowledge of Italian adequate for their research purposes. Please note that Scholarships will not be awarded for attending Italian language courses in Italy.
4. An ACIS Postgraduate Fieldwork Scholarship may not be held concurrently with an Italian Government Scholarship.
5. Continuing and fixed-term tertiary academic staff are not eligible to apply.

The committee strongly encourages applicants to seek their supervisor’s advice and feedback in preparing the application. 

How to apply

Applications are submitted online via this form (or, to copy and paste, the web address is as follows: https://forms.office.com/r/faLwq6TYNX).

Requirements for successful applicants

1. The award must be taken up before 1 November 2024.  
2. Awardees will be expected to spend at least two months in Italy on research.
3. Prior to departure for Italy, to release the scholarship funds, awardees are required to submit: a) proof of Australian or New Zealand citizenship or residence; b) proof of enrolment at an Australian or New Zealand university in 2024; c) a detailed indication of planned expenditure.
4. Within a month of return from Italy, awardees must submit a report to the ACIS Management Committee on the activities undertaken and the use of funds.

Referee reports 

As indicated in the online form, applicants must arrange for two confidential reports from academic staff members familiar with their work to be sent by email directly to the following address: acis.org.au@gmail.com.

Applications for the current round  will  close at 5pm AEDT on Thursday 28 March 2024. 

ACIS Postgraduate Fieldwork Scholarship Awardees 2023

Brigette De Poi (PhD, University of Sydney)

Awarded the Dino De Poli Scholarship for Research on North-East Italy

The Plague of 1630 and its Impact on the Musicians of Venice

In the years preceding 1630, Venice had a thriving musical community supported by the civic and ecclesiastical institutes of the city. Claudio Monteverdi had held the prominent post of Maestro di Capella of the Basilica di San Marco for some 17 years and the basilica’s reputation for outstanding musicianship was renowned throughout Europe. Music played an important role in the civic rituals and politics of Venice and the private spaces throughout the lagoon. However, all musical rituals and performances ceased for 18 months in 1630. That year the plague swept through the northern Italian city states resulting in a devastating loss of life and economic collapse. The impact on the Venetian population was overwhelming, with an estimated one third of the population killed. This research project explores the consequences of the plague for the musical communities and institutions of Venice and investigates whether it influenced the later musical achievements of the century, particularly the commercialisation of opera. It focuses on three main areas of musicians’ lives impacted by the plague: their employment, creative output and deaths, to determine any long-term impact the plague may have had on the musical institutions of Venice.

Laura Di Blasi (PhD, University of Melbourne)

Rewriting as Discursive Authority: Laura Terracina’s Discorso on Orlando Furioso

The voices of early modern women that are tangible today, through surviving manuscripts, letters, and documents, offer a tenuous image of their former existence, and have so often been overshadowed by male contemporaries. Early modern women writers faced many obstacles on the path to print publication, and it was not uncommon for women to translate or rewrite male authored texts. This project argues that early modern women who rewrote or translated male authored texts were able to participate in and manipulate hegemonic discourses and literary traditions that they were historically excluded from. It offers a case study of Laura Terracina (c.1519-c.1577) and her Discorso (1549), a rewriting of Ludovico Ariosto’s chivalric epic Orlando Furioso (1516), and explores the textual practices employed by Terracina to assert herself into the sixteenth-century literary scene that was growing increasingly concerned with the lives of women. The project also explores the implications of Terracina’s Discorso on her putative female readership.

Previous ACIS Postgraduate Fieldwork Scholarship Awardees

ACIS inaugurated this scheme in 2020, to foster publications of the highest quality authored by scholars in Australia and New Zealand who are working in Italian Studies broadly defined (whether in Literature, Language, Translation Studies, Screen Studies, Migration Studies, History, Anthropology, Sociology, Art History, or Political Studies). 

Up to five grants of up to AU$2,000 each are offered annually to assist with publication costs. 

The grants are intended to support the current publication of monographs, edited books, and book chapters already under contract, and journal articles and journal special issues already accepted by the publisher. Funds are not available for retrospective claims for expenses associated with works already published.

Publication support is awarded on a competitive basis and is not guaranteed.  The final amount awarded will be decided by the selection committee on the basis of the quality of the publication and its publisher, and the case mounted for the grant.   

Applications for the latest round closed at 5pm AEDT on Friday 3 November 2023.

Eligibility

To be eligible for these publication grants you must be either:

• an academic in Australia or New Zealand working in the field of Italian Studies (institutional or independent); OR
• a current postgraduate student in Italian Studies. at a university in Australia or New Zealand. 
• Previous awardees are welcome to apply.

Funding may be requested for

• permission fees and costs associated with securing copyright materials;
• publishers’ subventions;
• specialised publication assistance which can include: compilation and/or annotation of bibliographies; visual materials (for instance the production of graphs or maps); image permissions; indexing of monographs or equivalent outputs.
• contribution towards Open Access fees;
• English-language editing costs for scholars for whom English is not their first language.

Please note that funding is not available for translation of author’s manuscripts. 

Selection criteria

Applicants will be considered based on the following criteria:

• merit of publication project;
• track record and/or capacity of applicant (in the case of postgraduate applicants);
• quality and ranking of the publisher or journal.

Application process

Eligible applicants must submit:

• a one-page curriculum vitae;
• confirmation from the press or journal that the work has been accepted for publication;
• a description of 300–500 words outlining: the details of the publication (lead author, publication title, description, publisher); the timeline; the significance of the publication; the quality of the press/journal; the resources needed. 
• a budget and brief justification (one page) with quotes attached.
• Postgraduate applicants should also submit a statement of support from their supervisor.

Applications are to be addressed to

The ACIS Publishing Grants Scheme selection committee and submitted online to: acis.org.au@gmail.com   

Successful applicants are notified by email soon thereafter.

Publication Grant Awardees:

2023:

Joshua Brown and Marinella Caruso (University of Western Australia), for their edited collection 'La bontà infinita ha sì gran braccia’. Essays in Honour of John J. Kinder (Franco Cesati, 2024).

Angela Viora (Monash University), for her monograph The Ecology of the Performance Art Process – Fragmentation, Union, and Reconfiguration (Routledge, 2024). 

2022:

Linetto Basilone (Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Arts, University of Auckland), for his monograph The Distance to China: Twentieth-Century Italian Travel Narratives of Patriotism, Commitment and Disillusion (1898–1985) (Peter Lang, 2022).

Francesco Ricatti (Sapienza Associate Professor, Italian Studies, College of Arts and Science, Australian National University), for his co-edited book (together with Andonis Piperoglou) Migration Studies on Indigenous Land (Springer, IMISCOE Research Series, forthcoming).

2021:

Jessica O'Leary  (Research Fellow, Gender and Women's History Research Centre, Australian Catholic University), for her monograph Women as Diplomatic Agents in Italy and Hungary: The Aragonese Dynastic Network, 1470-1510 (ARC Humanities Press, 2022).

Marco Sonzogni (Reader in Translation Studies, Victoria University of Wellington) and Michelle Elvy (founding editor of  Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction), for their edited volume, Breach of All Size: Small Stories on Ulysses, Love and Venice (Wellington: The Cuba Press, 2022). 

2020:

Marco Sonzogni (Reader in Translation Studies, Victoria University of Wellington) and Tim Smith (University of Oxford), for their edited collection, More Favourable Waters: Aotearoa Poets Respond to Dante's Purgatory (Wellington: The Cuba Press, 2021).

Natalie Tomas (Fellow, Monash University), for her translation and edited collection together with a biographical essay, Maria Salviati de’ Medici: Selected Letters 1514-1543 (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe -Toronto Series: 101) Toronto, Ontario and Tempe, Arizona: Iter Press and Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Press, 2022).

The Jo-Anne Duggan Prize for the best publication by a postgraduate student 

or an early career researcher in the field of Italian Studies

This prize is named in honour of the late Jo-Anne Duggan (1962–2011), whose early fascination with Italian art and symbolism saw her become a champion of Italian Studies in Australasia and beyond. As a scholar and photomedia artist, she focused on Italy’s historical visual and material culture. Her work made a distinguished contribution to Italian Studies as a richly rewarding context for creative practice: research and writing, thinking and making.

The Jo-Anne Duggan Prize is a biennial award for a publication by a postgraduate or early career researcher in Italian Studies broadly defined. It spotlights work published in the previous two years. The winner receives a prize of AU$2,000 and an official certificate. 

Applications for the 2023  prize (for work published between January 2021 and December 2022) closed at 5pm AEST on Friday 7 April 2023.

Eligibility and criteria:

1. Applicants must be a postgraduate student at, or an early career researcher within 5 years of the conferral of their award from, an Australian or New Zealand University at the date of application. 

2. For the 2021 Prize, the work must have been published between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2022.

3. The publication must be sole-authored. 

4. The publication must have made a significant contribution to knowledge in the field.

5. The form of publication may be a monograph, a chapter in an edited book, a refereed journal article (published electronically or in hard copy), or an academically robust creative work published in a digital medium.

6. Edited books and translations are not permitted. 

7. Only one publication per entrant is allowed.

* Please note that the selection committee reserves the right not to award the prize.

How to Apply:

Applicants must:

1. complete the attached cover sheet;

2. attach official evidence of their enrolment/graduation status at/from an Australian or New Zealand university;

3. submit evidence of the official date of publication of their nominated work;

4. submit a 500-word statement (written by themselves, or by an academic familiar with the submitted work) speaking to the nature of the publication and its contribution to knowledge in their particular field of Italian Studies;

5. submit a copy of their nominated work either in hard-copy or in electronic attachment. Where the entry is a creative online work, a link to the website is sufficient. To submit a hard-copy book (only if there is no electronic option), please mail a copy to

Andrea Rizzi

c/o School of Languages and Linguistics

University of Melbourne

Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia

6. Applications should be submitted electronically and addressed to:

The Jo-Anne Duggan Prize selection committee

acis.org.au@gmail.com

A document with the terms and conditions, including how to apply, can be downloaded here. The application cover sheet is available here. 

Jo-Anne Duggan (1962–2011) was a notable artist and a great friend to ACIS. Links to some of Jo-Anne Duggan's published research can be found here. Established in 2015 with the generous support of Kevin Bayley and The Colour Factory, the biennial Jo-Anne Duggan Prize originally promoted the artistic endeavour and engagement with Italy that were the heart of Jo-Anne Duggan's practice. Prizes were awarded to artistic works and exegesis and/or essays that engaged directly with her oeuvre and approach. 

Jo-Anne Duggan Prize Winner 2023 

Linetto Basilone (University of Auckland)

The Distance to China: Twentieth-Century Italian Travel Narratives of Patriotism, Commitment and Disillusion (1898–1985) (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2022).

Jo-Anne Duggan Prize Winner 2021 

Jennifer McFarland (University of Melbourne)

'Relics, reinvention, and reform in Renaissance Venice: Catherine of Siena’s stigmata at the Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo', Renaissance Studies, 34.2 (2020): 278-302.

Winners of the Jo-Anne Duggan Prize 2015-2019

The ACIS Publication Prize for the best publication in the field of Italian Studies 

by an established Australasian scholar

To mark the organisation's twentieth anniversary, ACIS instituted a biennial Publication Prize for an established academic in Australasia working in any field of Italian Studies. The prize is awarded biennially for peer-reviewed research published in the previous two years. The research must have made a significant contribution to knowledge in the field of Italian Studies broadly defined. 

The winner receives an award of AU$2,000 and an official certificate. 

Applications for the 2023 Prize have now closed.

Eligibility and criteria:

1. Applicants must be established researchers (more than five years post-doctorate) in Italian Studies (broadly defined) and affiliated with a university in Australia or New Zealand at the time of application. 

2. For the 2025 Prize, the work must have been published between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2024.

3. The publication must be sole-authored.

4. The publication must have made a significant contribution to knowledge in the field. 

5. The form of publication may be a monograph, a chapter in an edited book, a refereed journal article (published electronically or in hard copy), or an academically robust creative work published in a digital medium.

6. Edited books and translations are not permitted.

7. Only one publication per entrant is allowed.

* Please note that the selection committee reserves the right not to award the prize.

How to apply:

Applicants must:

1. complete the attached cover sheet;

2. submit evidence of the official date of publication of their nominated work;

3. submit a 500-word statement (written by themselves, or by an academic familiar with the submitted work) speaking to the nature of the publication and its contribution to knowledge in their particular field of Italian Studies;

4. submit a copy of their nominated work either in hard-copy or in electronic attachment. Where the entry is a creative online work, a link to the website is sufficient. To submit a hard-copy book (only if there is no electronic option), please mail a copy directly to

Andrea Rizzi

c/o School of Languages and Linguistics

University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia.

Applications are to be addressed to

The ACIS Publishing Grants Scheme selection committee, and submitted online to: 

acis.org.au@gmail.com

A document with the terms and conditions, including how to apply, can be downloaded here.

ACIS Publication Prize Winner 2023 

Dr Miles Pattenden (Australian Catholic University)

‘Papal Rome in Lockdown: Proximities, Temporalities and Emotions during the Im/mobility of the Conclave’,  I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 24.2 (2021): 291–309.

ACIS Publication Prize Winner 2021 

Professor Carolyn James (Monash University)

A Renaissance Marriage: The Political and Personal Alliance of Isabella d'Este and Francesco Gonzaga 1490–1519 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).

In 2022 ACIS inaugurates a biennial prize for outstanding contribution to Italian Studies in Australasia. Named in grateful recognition of David Moss’s long-term commitment to ACIS and its values, this prize seeks to honour individuals who likewise have made distinguished contributions to the promotion of Italian Studies within the broader community in Australia and New Zealand. 

David Moss was the founding Chair of the Management Committee of ACIS in 2000, the co-convenor of the first ACIS biennial conference held in Canberra, and a tireless, enthusiastic, and innovative champion of the cause of Italian Studies in Australasia.

The prize is worth $2,000 and will be announced at the ACIS Biennial Conferences. 

David Moss Prize Winner 2022

Emeritus Professor Nerida Newbigin