Call for Applications is Currently Closed
Émilie Du Châtelet Award Deadline: January 15, 2027
Award: $1500
The Émilie Du Châtelet Award is an annual prize made by the ASECS Women’s Caucus to support research in progress by an independent or adjunct scholar on a feminist or women's studies subject. Projects typically fall within the period of 1660-1820 though projects spanning a longer time period will also be considered.
The award is open to ASECS members who have earned a Ph.D and do not currently hold a tenured, tenure-track, or job-secure position in a college or university, nor any permanent position that requires or supports the pursuit of research. Faculty emeritae are not eligible.
Eligible projects must advance the understanding of women's experiences and contributions to eighteenth-century culture or offer a feminist analysis of any aspect of eighteenth-century culture and/or society. The award is meant to fund works in progress, commensurate in scope with a scholarly article or book chapter, for which some research is already under way. The award carries a prize of $1500.
The award will be publicly announced at the annual ASECS meeting Women's Caucus luncheon. Historically, the award winner has served on the award selection committee for the subsequent year.
Within a year of the award announcement the winner must submit to the caucus chairs a brief written report on the progress of the project. Then the winner will receive the prize by check or direct deposit from the ASECS office.
Applications must include a curriculum vitae, a one-to-three page research proposal outlining the project and the candidate's plans for using the funds, and evidence of progress on this project (e.g., an accepted conference paper, a related publication, an essay submitted for publication).
Please submit your application here.
Award: $1500
The Émilie Du Châtelet Award is an annual prize made by the ASECS Women’s Caucus to support research in progress by an independent or adjunct scholar on a feminist or women's studies subject. Projects typically fall within the period of 1660-1820 though projects spanning a longer time period will also be considered.
The award is open to ASECS members who have earned a Ph.D and do not currently hold a tenured, tenure-track, or job-secure position in a college or university, nor any permanent position that requires or supports the pursuit of research. Faculty emeritae are not eligible.
Eligible projects must advance the understanding of women's experiences and contributions to eighteenth-century culture or offer a feminist analysis of any aspect of eighteenth-century culture and/or society. The award is meant to fund works in progress, commensurate in scope with a scholarly article or book chapter, for which some research is already under way. The award carries a prize of $1500.
The award will be publicly announced at the annual ASECS meeting Women's Caucus luncheon. Historically, the award winner has served on the award selection committee for the subsequent year.
Within a year of the award announcement the winner must submit to the caucus chairs a brief written report on the progress of the project. Then the winner will receive the prize by check or direct deposit from the ASECS office.
Applications must include a curriculum vitae, a one-to-three page research proposal outlining the project and the candidate's plans for using the funds, and evidence of progress on this project (e.g., an accepted conference paper, a related publication, an essay submitted for publication).
Please submit your application here.
Émilie Du Châtelet Award Winner for 2026:
Karenza Sutton-Bennett, “The Female Intellect: Emerging Counter publics of Informally Educated Women Reading Periodicals in the Eighteenth Century.”
The committee is delighted to award the Emilie du Châtelet prize to Dr KarenzaSutton-Bennett for her project, “The Female Intellect: Emerging Counter publics of Informally Educated Women Reading Periodicals in the Eighteenth Century.” The committee was particularly excited by the prospect of such an important intervention and corrective to traditionally male-centered ideas about the Enlightenment and the recognition of the contribution made by largely self-taught women between the middle and end of the eighteenth century. Dr Sutton-Bennett’s clarity about the need for recognition of the role that women’s periodical literature played in this contribution as well as the importance of greater access to this periodical literature makes clear the immense value of Dr Sutton-Bennett’s body of work. The Women’s Caucus is pleased to help support the continuation of this work, and we all look forward to reading Dr Sutton-Bennett’s book when it is published in the future, as we are sure it will be.
Karenza Sutton-Bennett, “The Female Intellect: Emerging Counter publics of Informally Educated Women Reading Periodicals in the Eighteenth Century.”
The committee is delighted to award the Emilie du Châtelet prize to Dr KarenzaSutton-Bennett for her project, “The Female Intellect: Emerging Counter publics of Informally Educated Women Reading Periodicals in the Eighteenth Century.” The committee was particularly excited by the prospect of such an important intervention and corrective to traditionally male-centered ideas about the Enlightenment and the recognition of the contribution made by largely self-taught women between the middle and end of the eighteenth century. Dr Sutton-Bennett’s clarity about the need for recognition of the role that women’s periodical literature played in this contribution as well as the importance of greater access to this periodical literature makes clear the immense value of Dr Sutton-Bennett’s body of work. The Women’s Caucus is pleased to help support the continuation of this work, and we all look forward to reading Dr Sutton-Bennett’s book when it is published in the future, as we are sure it will be.
Past Winners
- 2024: Kelly Plante: "Death Writing: Consolidating Power int he Atlantic World"
- 2023: Jennifer Golightly: "Genre, Gender-Bending, and the Marriage Plot in British Fiction of the Late 18th Century
- 2022: Kimary Fick: ‘Gedanken über die Musick’: Duchess Anna Amalia (1739–1807) as
Enlightened Musikkennerin” - 2021: Sarabeth Grant, "Frightful Extravagancies: Passion, Society, and the Self in Eliza Haywood"
- 2020: Cristina Martinez, "Jane Hogarth: The Untold Story of an 18th-Century Printseller and Defender of Copyright Law"
- 2019: Freya Gowerly, "Collage before Modernism? Periodization, Gender and Eighteenth-Century Women's Collage"
- 2018: Kristin O'Rourke, Toilettes
- 2017: Nicole Garret, "'Alter'd Courses of Action': Maternal Grief and Radical Change on the Eighteenth-Century English Stage"
- 2016: No prize given.
- 2015: Dr. Anna Ezekiel, Karoline von Günderrode
- 2014: No prize given.
- 2013: No prize given.
- 2012: A. L. Gust, “Portraits of Exile: ‘civilisation’ and the conceptualization of belonging, c. 1765-1830”
- 2011: Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, “When Fashion Sets Sail: Maritime Modes in Pre-Revolutionary France”
- 2010: No prize given.
- 2009: Emily Bowles-Smith, "Mixed-gender Bodies and Mixed Genders: The Role of the 'Female Husband' in Eighteenth-Century Prose Narratives by Women"
- 2008: No prize given.
- 2007: Olga E. Glagoleva, "Women's Honor, or the Story with a Pig: Everyday Life of Noblewomen in the Eighteenth-Century Russian Provinces"
- 2006: No prize given.
- 2005: No prize given.
- 2004: Susan B. Iwanisziw, "Interracial Concubinage in the Long Eighteenth Century: Two Exemplary Women"
- 2003: Kathleen M. Oliver, "'The Intended Heroine of this Work': The Adolescent Female in Georgian Society, 1714-1830"