We are pleased to open submissions for the IAMHIST- Michael Nelson Prize and IAMHIST- Christine Whittaker Prize for works in media and history.

The IAMHIST- Michael Nelson Prize is a biennial prize awarded for the book making the best contribution on the subject of media and history, which has been published in the preceding two years. The prize is dedicated to Michael Nelson, whose passion for media and journalism inspired IAMHIST throughout the years. Books submitted for consideration should display a strong grounding in archival-based research. The committee is especially interested in work focused on under-researched topics and underrepresented film and media traditions.

The IAMHIST – Christine Whittaker Prize is a biennial prize awarded for the radio or television program or series, film, website, or multimedia project making the best contribution on the subject of media and history, which has been produced and released in the preceding two years. The prize is dedicated to Christine Whittaker, the first acknowledged archive film researcher for the BBC, and IAMHIST’s most influential film and television practitioner.

Each award carries a prize of $1000 USD. Submissions for the 2023 prizes should reach the committee before November 1, 2022. The prizes will be awarded for a publication and (multi) media contribution on the subject of media and history published or produced between September 2020 – September 2022.

Award history:

The prize was awarded for the first time in 2007, at the XXII IAMHIST conference in Amsterdam. The winner was Wendy Webster, for her book Englishness and Empire, 1939-1965. Thanks to an especially strong field of entries, two winners were chosen in 2009: Reconstructing American Historical Cinema from Cimmaron to Citizen Kane, by Jennifer E. Smyth and Voices in Ruins: German Radio and National Reconstruction in the Wake of Total War, by Alexander Badenoch. Both works were cited by the prize committee as making outstanding contributions to the field, based on excellence of research, originality, accessibility, and scholarly usefulness. In 2011, the prize was awarded to It’s the Pictures that Got Small: Hollywood Film Stars on 1950s Television, by Christine Becker. In 2013, the first year of the multi-media prize, the recipients were: J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies: The FBI and the Origins of Hollywood’s Cold, by James Sbardellati (book), and The Media History Digital Library (multi-media). In 2015, the recipients were How it Feels to be Free: Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights Movement, by Ruth Feldstein (book) and Brave Little Belgium, produced by VRT (multi-media). In 2017, the sole recipient was Shelley Stamp’s Lois Weber in Early Hollywood. In 2019, the sole recipient was Susan Murray’s Bright Signals: A History of Color Television. The 2021 winner was Sarah Street and Joshua Yumibe’s Chromatic Modernity: Color, Cinema, and Media of the 1920s.

Rules of the Michael Nelson and Christine Whittaker prizes:

1. The prizes are awarded biennially.
2. Invitations for submissions and names of the winners will be published in the
   Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, on the IAMHIST website, on flyers,
   displayed in the universities of teaching members of IAMHIST, and by letters to
   appropriate bodies.
3. The prizes will be awarded (1) for the book and (2) for the radio or television program
   or series, film, website, or multimedia project making the best contribution on the subject
   of media and history to have been published in the preceding two years (which, for the
   2023 prize, will be from September 2020 – September 2022).
4. Three copies of the work must be submitted to the IAMHIST prize sub-committee by
   the designated date in the year preceding the award (in this case, November 1, 2022).
5. The submitted works must be in the form of printed text (in the case of books) or DVD
   or online link (in the case of multimedia submissions). They may be accompanied by
   supporting material, as appropriate, such as scripts and shot lists.
6. Works which are not in English must be accompanied by an English translation or an
   English synopsis.
7. The winners will be selected by a sub-committee of the Council of IAMHIST, under
   the chairmanship of IAMHIST Treasurer, Cynthia Miller.

Submissions should be sent directly to the sub-committee members. Please inquire for postal addresses – [log in to unmask]