http://www.aarweb.org/programs/Awards/Book_Awards/rules-firstbook.asp
AAR Best First Book in the History of Religions Award
Call for Nominations
Nomination Deadline: January 10, 2013
The AAR History of Religions Jury invites nominations for Best First Book in the History of Religions Award. Established by the American Council of Learned Societies in 1891, this award is now administered by the American Academy of Religion.
This award honors exceptional scholarship and eligible books must meet four criteria:
- The nomination must be the first book published by the nominee.
- It must be in the field of "History of Religions" (in the broad sense that it raises historical and/or comparative methodological questions in the field of religion).
- It must have been published within the calendar year of 2012.
- The nominated book must be written by a single author.
The winner is honored at the AAR Annual Meeting, acknowledged in AAR publications, and is presented with a cash award. The Jury also recognizes a small number of shortlisted books for their excellence (see the AAR website). For books published in 2011, the Prize winner was Ronit Ricci, Islam Translated: Literature, Conversion, and the Arabic Cosmopolis of South and Southeast Asia (Chicago University Press, 2011).
A committee of five, appointed by the Board of the American Academy of Religion, adjudicates the books nominated for the award. The nomination process is initiated by individual presses, who send copies of the nominated book to the Chair of the committee, with a letter stating that the book meets the four criteria mentioned above. Presses may also include statements of the merits and special features of the book.
One (1) copy of the book and the letter of nomination should be sent to the Chair by January 10:
Louis A. Ruprecht, Jr.
Department of Religious Studies
Georgia State University
PO Box 4089
Atlanta, GA 30302-4089
Further copies may be requested at a later date.
The Chair will screen nominations to determine which books should be considered by the Jurors. The Chair will then contact the publishers to request shipment to the appropriate Jurors. The jurors will then evaluate the books and make their final judgments in June.
Competition for the Best First Book in the History of Religions is open to all books which meet the above eligibility requirements. An author's membership in the AAR is not a necessary condition for successful participation. The current value of the award is $1,000.
After the Awards have been announced, each winner publisher will be asked to send no later than September 2 two cloth copies of the book and two extra dust jackets to the AAR Executive Offices for use in promoting the Award. In addition, each publisher will be asked to supply a photograph of the author (preferably gif or jpg image) for use in announcing the Award ceremony in the October issue of Religious Studies News.
