The Nineteenth Century Studies Association Faculty Development Travel Award recognizes the excellent work of contingent faculty. According to the AAUP, contingent faculty are part-time and full-time faculty appointed off the tenure track (including lecturers, instructors, limited-term faculty, adjuncts, and independent scholars). This award recognizes an outstanding paper to be presented at our annual conference by a contingent faculty member. The winner will receive $500 to defray the costs of attending the conference. The award check will be presented at the conference, and the NCSA Faculty Development Travel Award recipient will be recognized at the Business Meeting and in conference literature.
Eligibility
Entrants must be NCSA members who are contingent faculty members by the above AAUP definition. They must present their paper in person at the annual conference, and submit the completed paper at the time they apply for the Faculty Development Travel Award. Entries can be from any discipline and may focus on any aspect of the long nineteenth century (the French Revolution to World War I); they must be written in English or be accompanied by an English translation, and must be by a single author. Papers that are interdisciplinary are especially encouraged. The winning paper will be selected by a committee of nineteenth-century scholars representing diverse disciplines.
Submission of a paper is considered affirmation that the applicant does not have access to institutional support that would defray all attendance costs. Our expectation is that all scholars who submit proposals agree to attend and present the paper when their proposal is accepted, regardless of whether or not a travel grant is later awarded.
Conference presenters may only apply for one conference travel award in a given year.
Deadline
March 1, 2026
To Apply
Contingent faculty with accepted proposals need to fill out a google form that will be made available, including an uploaded pdf of the completed paper.
The final decision regarding the award will be announced by March 31, 2026.
Inquiries
Elisabeth C. Davis
Chair of the Travel Awards Committee
elisabethcdavis@gmail.com
Previous Recipients
2023
Victor Monnin, Illinois Institute of Technology. “The Dinotherium and the Acropolis: Albert Gaudry’s Reconstruction of the Extinct Fauna of Attica and the Idealization of Ancient Greece (1850–1870).”
2022
Elizabeth Wells, SUNY Cortland, “Radical Loopholes: Harriet Jacobs’s Literary Genre-Stretching.”
2020
Jessica George, “The Problem of Resilience: Southern Botany and the Abolitionist Narrative.”
2019
Camilla Murgia, “Beyond the Unknown: Exploring the Foreign through Textiles and Wallpapers in Napoleonic and Restoration France.”