Announcements: Fellowships, Book Collecting Contests, Call for Papers on Printing History

Ransom Center at UT, Austin offers up to 50 Fellowships for 2026-2027. Two online info sessions with application details scheduled for Oct. 2 and Oct 7. Deadline for applications is Nov. 3, 2025, 5:00 PM CST (UTC-6)

The Ransom Center will award up to 50 research fellowships for its 2026–2027 program. Please view the individual residency types within the application instructions to determine the qualifications for each. The Center offers funding to graduate students, current and former academic faculty at any level of career, and independent researchers such as journalists and artists, who require archival research at the Center for their projects.

Research conducted by humanities scholars contributes to a dynamic body of knowledge that has the potential to reshape our understanding of archival collections—what is preserved and valued in our communities. The Ransom Center fosters a supportive environment so that researchers may explore, examine, critique, and better understand the cultural works in its collections. Fellowships of varying lengths (from one week to two months) are offered for research projects that require substantial on-site use of collections that span a variety of disciplines.

Ransom Center Fellowship

Application Instructions

Contact: Danica Obradovic
Fellowship Coordinator
ransomfellowships@utexas.edu

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Winners of 2025 Ruggles Book Collector Prize Announced

The winners of the fourth annual David Ruggles Prize, an international book collecting prize to support and encourage young collectors of color, was announced Sept. 8. This year's winners are:

Laurane Reine-Adelaïde took home the $1,000 grand prize for her collection on Martinique. Reflecting the everyday lives of the Caribbean island's people, her collection is particularly rich in material on cooking and fashion. Hers has not been an easy collection to assemble. Confusion and quizzical looks have been standard, for example, when asking booksellers for relevant titles. But her diligence has paid off—and perhaps, too, a sense of homesickness. While Reine-Adelaïde comes from Martinique herself, she has long been in France, and that's a distance she has felt. She has missed out on essential everyday experiences—"the small habits, the shared rhythms, the constant presence of our traditions," she wrote. "There are still many things I don’t know or haven’t experienced. But every book, every object in my collection brings me closer to my roots.”

Anushmita Mohanty won the $500 second prize for her collection documenting the diversity of children's literature in India, a subject perhaps more complex than many of us would think. The Belgian comic Tintin, for example, is a staple of many Indian childhoods. "Such transnational circulation," Mohanty wrote, "reveals how Indian childhood reading is shaped by a mix of indigenous and global narratives, popular culture, and publishing histories." From picture books to novels, through English and Hindi and Bengali, Mohanty's collection of more than 200 titles traces the evolution of this vast literary landscape through the country's post-Independence history. Bringing together overlooked ephemera, work in regional languages, and the products of small presses, the collection offers "an alternate history of Indian reading practices, one rooted not in elite English-language publishing alone but in translingual, regional, and grassroots circulations."

Kaveh Bahar was awarded the $250 third prize for his collection on death and attachment. Bahar sounds years ahead of his time—he is still a teenager—but death is of course a natural focus for anyone who has experienced the passing of someone familiar, or a pandemic that kept the subject in headlines for years. Inspired at the age of seven by the books and zines he found on his grandmother's shelves, he came to appreciate not only how collections can teach us about the past, but equally how collections represent the lives of their collectors. Beyond books and ephemera—which date back to 1530—Bahar's collection includes funerary objects, hairwork jewelry, and even a Victorian mourning bodice. There was no denying the deep curiosity and quest for knowledge Bahar conveyed in his submission, and we expect he has a bright future as a collector.

Judges were: Cairo-based book artist, papermaker, and lecturer Islam Aly; Lauren Burke, Chicago-based writer and host of the popular Bonnets at Dawn podcast; Angelina Coronado, PhD student at Columbia University researching Caribbean modernities; Sara Powell, Assistant Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts at Harvard’s Houghton Library; and Bridgett Kathryn Johnson-Pride, Director of Public Services for Archives and Special Collections at the Houghton.

The 2026 prize season will be here soont, so don’t hesitate to spread the word! In the meantime, visit our website (rugglesprize.org) to meet the jury and learn more, and please find us on social media (@rugglesprize).

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California Young Book Collector’s Prize Announced by ABAA

The California Young Book Collector's Prize will once again be offered by the Northern and Southern California Chapters of the ABAA. The purpose of the prize is to nurture the next generation of bibliophiles. The competition is open to collectors aged 35 and under who are living in California. All collections of books, manuscripts, and ephemera are welcome, no matter their monetary value or subject. The collections will be judged on their thoroughness, the approach to their subject, and the seriousness with which the collector has catalogued his or her material.

The winner of the competition will be awarded:

• A $500 gift certificate spend at the 2026 California International Antiquarian Book Fair

• An exhibition of the winner’s collection to be presented in a showcase at the book fair

• A stipend of $250 towards exhibition expenses (to help cover travel costs, showcase labels, and insurance)

• A year’s membership to the Book Club of California

• A year’s membership to the Bibliographical Society of America

• A year’s subscription to Fine Books & Collections magazine

The deadline for receipt of submissions is December 19th, 2025, and the winner will be notified by January 9th, 2026. The exhibit will be at the 57th California International Antiquarian Book Fair held in San Francisco, CA, from February 27-March 1, 2026.

For full details, see https://www.abaa.org/CAprize.

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Call for Papers for Printing History: Seditious Printing

In honor of the 250th anniversary of the printing of the Declaration of Independence, Printing History 38 will examine print as a means of provocation, agitation, and rebellion. We invite author submissions that focus on print-as-protest across borders and cultural contexts, with an emphasis on printing’s particular power to foment political and social change. We particularly welcome submissions highlighting the print production of underresearched and/or marginalized groups and individuals.

We invite interested researchers, professionals, and practitioners to share work related to the following topics:

Print production as a means of political provocation and rebellion
Print and the shaping of American (or other cultural/political) imaginaries
Print as a catalyst for social change
Activist print cultures: posters, broadsides, zines, ephemera
Printed matter as an organizing tool
Secret presses; underground printing
Interrogations of print and power

In general, Printing History follows the Chicago Manual of Style. An APHA style guide and further information for contributors can be downloaded here.

Submissions should be emailed to editor@printinghistory.org. Questions about this issue, the process, or the journal in general, do not hesitate to write. We do not solicit proposals for articles, but we are happy to discuss ideas and abstracts via email. Submission deadline: October 31, 2025