The 26^TH MGSA SYMPOSIUM

The Edmund Keeley Book Prize for 2019

On behalf of the MGSA Edmund Keeley Book Prize Committee, I am writing to announce the results of this year’s competition. The committee, consisting of Foteini Dimirouli (University of Oxford), Nicolas Prevelakis (Harvard University), and myself as Chair, reviewed 16 books and reached its decision after careful consideration. 

The 2019 Edmund Keeley Book Prize is awarded to Konstantina Zanou's Transnational Patriotism in the Mediterranean, 1800-1850: Stammering the Nation (Oxford University Press, 2018). The monograph traces the process of transition from empires to nation-states, with particular attention to the emergent vocabularies that struggled to account for this new reality. By highlighting the porousness of a liminal intellectual moment, Zanou expertly recovers a crucial time in the history of the Mediterranean and sheds new light on seminal literary and political figures whose complex stories had to be posthumously reworked in order to fit into national narratives. Moving between microhistory and macrohistory, Transnational Patriotism carves out a space where individual histories, political landscapes, and their inscription upon language serve to interrogate the content of patriotism in the long 19th century.

Professor Zanou will be presented with the Edmund Keeley Book Prize at the Award Ceremony of the 26th MGSA Symposium on Thursday, November 7, 2019, in Sacramento, CA. The committee takes this opportunity to congratulate her and extend its gratitude to all those who submitted their excellent work. 

The Edmund Keeley Book Prize is awarded to an academic book dealing with modern Greece or a Hellenic theme published originally in the English language. Through this award the Modern Greek Studies Association celebrates the contributions of Professor Edmund Keeley, who has served as president of our association, authored or translated over 30 books, taught Hellenic Studies for 40 years, and been a mentor and a source of inspiration for generations of scholars. 

Respectfully,

Dimitris Antoniou