Modern Greek Studies Association

Vasiliki Karagiannaki Prize for the Best Edited Volume in Modern Greek Studies

The Vasiliki Karagiannaki Prize for the Best Edited Volume will be awarded on a biennial basis to the best edited volume written in English with significant content in the field of Modern Greek Studies. Submissions from all disciplines within the field of Modern Greek Studies are welcomed. The category of “edited book” includes multi-authored work in a single edited volume (first editions only) in Modern Greek studies (all fields). Collected work is newly edited and may comprise scholarly writing or essays, non-fiction essays, literary work, work in other media, and correspondence or other primary source material. The editing involves the intellectual work of the editor or co-editor(s) in bringing together the multivocality into a single, coherent, harmonized, and well-edited volume. The winner of the award will be announced prior to the Symposium of the Modern Greek Studies Association and the award will be presented at the Symposium.  The prize will be $500.

Selection Committee

The committee is composed of three eligible members. The chair of the Vasiliki Karagiannaki Edited Book Prize Selection Committee is an active member of the MGSA Executive Board. For each competition, a new committee is comprised and no committee member shall serve two consecutive terms.

Appointment of the committee takes place during and after the autumn MGSA Executive Board meeting preceding a Symposium year. At that meeting, the President of the MGSA shall ask members of the Board to appoint a committee chair and to make additional nominations of committee members to the chair of the Vasiliki Karagiannaki Edited Book Prize Selection Committee. Using these nominations, it shall be the duty of the chair of the Book Prize Selection Committee to appoint the additional two members to the committee, with disciplinary representation as a basis for their selection. It is also advisable that gender and academic standing, in addition to understanding of editorial core skills be taken into consideration when making these appointments. Once a committee has been convened, members of the committee must review its procedures and establish an appropriate timetable for its work.

The committee’s service begins on April 1 of each competition year and, while the work of the committee is generally completed by the time the prize is announced at the MGSA Symposium, the committee remains operative until a subsequent committee is appointed after the autumn Executive Board meeting preceding the following competition year. The chairperson of the committee is a voting member of the committee. 

The Vasiliki Karagiannaki Edited Book Prize Selection Committee are not to consider any volumes that are edited by committee members or that contain articles by committee members.

Selection Process

Each committee member independently reads and rates the books entered in the competition and communicates the results of his/her evaluation to the chairperson of the committee via email. Criteria to be used in evaluating edited volumes include:

• scholarly rigor
• innovation
• editorial skill in bringing together the multivocality into a single, coherent, harmonized volume
• impact and importance of the book in terms of breadth of topic and appeal
• coherence of individual articles to the volume’s overarching focus
• the contribution made to the scholarly understanding of Modern Greek Studies
• the clarity of writing.

The evaluation results of each committee member should reflect a rank-ordering of the submissions.

Once a decision has been made, the chair announces the winner of the competition to the MGSA Executive Director and to the members of the Vasiliki Karagiannaki Edited Book Prize Selection Committee. The winner as well as the other authors who submitted books are notified in writing by the chair of the committee. The award is publicly made at the next scheduled MGSA Symposium and the MGSA Executive Director mails $500 award to the winner.