Grants and Awards

Each year, the SAA awards conference travel grants for contingent faculty and independent scholars, and for graduate students at the dissertation stage.

This year, the SAA is expanding its grants to allow other groups to apply for grants based on post-pandemic financial hardship, the reduction of departmental funding, or boycotts that prevent applications for university funding.

Awardees receive $500 in travel support and remission of the conference registration fee if attending the in-person conference, or remission of the conference registration fee only if attending the virtual Pre-Conference.

Applicants must be SAA members in good standing; must participate in the meeting program (by speaking in a panel, leading a seminar or workshop, or enrolling in a seminar or workshop); and if applying for the in-person full grant, attend the full conference.

Applicants should submit the following:

1. A brief curriculum vitae (no more than two pages).
2. A letter, not to exceed 400 words, describing the conference role the applicant will undertake and the circumstances that require grant support.

Deadline: 1 November 2021

The J. Leeds Barroll Dissertation Prize recognizes doctoral work with a significant Shakespeare component.

Dissertations submitted for the 2022 prize must have been approved between 1 September 2020 and 1 September 2021. Applicants must be SAA members in good standing.

Applications are comprised of three parts:

• A completed online form.
• An unsigned, anonymous cover letter of no more than two pages, providing an abstract of the dissertation, giving context for the submitted writing sample (see below).
• Twenty pages (maximum) from the introduction to the dissertation or from any chapter of the applicant’s choice. (The submission need not comprise a complete chapter.) Page headers must be purged of author names, and notes should not reveal author identity or affiliation.

The cover letter and writing sample should be in twelve-point Times Roman font, double-spaced, and with standard (one-inch) margins.

Submissions must be thoroughly anonymized, with no names or affiliations in the page headers and no author identities betrayed in notes or in acknowledgments. Submissions that have been incompletely anonymized will not be considered.

A short list of candidates will be asked to submit copies of their full dissertations for further review. Application materials are reviewed by a committee headed by a member of the SAA’s Board of Trustees.

The Dissertation Prize is presented at the SAA’s Annual Luncheon each year.

The deadline for applications is 1 October 2021.

This award recognizes pioneering and/or culturally significant efforts to foster, engage, support and sustain broad and diverse Shakespeare publics through teaching, scholarship, performance and/or activism.

SAA members may apply directly or nominate other members of the Association. In the case of collaborative projects, at least one of the primary collaborators must be a SAA member in good standing.

Applications are comprised of three parts:

• An online form.
• A description of the project (maximum 500 words) that includes discussion of its objectives, its significance, and the diverse publics it has engaged.
• Documentation that demonstrates the importance, impact, and reach of the nominated project in terms best suited to its domain.

The deadline for applications is 1 December 2021 for award at the 2022 SAA meeting.

Selection shall be made by an ad hoc committee of three, whose chair is chosen annually by the Trustees of the SAA.

This award recognizes an outstanding scholarly article that leads the field of Shakespeare studies in new directions through creative and innovative scholarly approaches and methods. Eligible articles must be published in an online or print journal or anthology during the calendar year two years before the SAA meeting at which the award is presented, i.e. the prize in 2022 would be awarded to an article appearing in 2020. Article author(s) must be SAA member(s) in good standing.

SAA members, including the Trustees and members of the selection committee, may nominate their own work or that of others, with the stipulation that an author may nominate no more than one work of their own and that editors of journals or collections may nominate no more than one article per volume. Nominators must complete a nomination form and submit the article to SAA.

The deadline for nominations is 1 December 2021 for award at the 2022 SAA meeting. 

The SAA is pleased to acknowledge two fellowship partners: the Huntington Library and the Folger Shakespeare Library. Applicants must be SAA members in good standing. Each short-term fellowship welcomes an inaugural SAA fellow with a $3,000 award for a one-month residency between June 2022 and June 2023.

The Annual SAA/Huntington Fellowship

Each application is comprised of three parts:

• A curriculum vitae of no more than three pages.
• The names and contact information for two referees.
• A project proposal not to exceed 1,500 words. The proposal should include, in approximately 1,000 words, a description of the project and its significance, as well as, in approximately 500 words, a description of the specific Huntington materials to be consulted and an outline of the plan of work for the fellowship period.

Application materials should be submitted to the SAA directly.

The Huntington Library offers short-term fellowships for residencies of one, two, and three months. Applicants for the SAA one-month fellowship are not prohibited from applying to the Huntington directly for additional months or for other library fellowships.

Deadline: 1 December 2021.

The Annual SAA/Folger Fellowship

Application materials should be submitted to the Folger directly. A call for 2022–23 non-residential fellowship applications will be announced in fall 2021, with a deadline set in mid-January 2022.

Check the Folger’s website for updates.