The International John Bunyan Society is pleased to announce that the 2024 Roger F. Pooley Early Career Essay Prize has been award to Daniel Johnson for the essay “Isaac Watts and the Crisis of Dissenting Christology.” The winner’s certificate and cash prize of £300 has been sent to Daniel by Professor Shannon Murray, IJBS President. The selection committee was chaired by Naomi Pullin, and its members were John Coffey, Angelica Duran, and Nigel Smith.

Daniel completed his Ph.D. at the University of Leicester in 2024. He is currently a Visiting Humanities Lecturer at Birmingham Newman University and a Visiting Early Career Research Fellow at the John Ryland’s Library in Manchester, where he is undertaking a study into the role of hymns in the British Atlantic world with a particular emphasis on their place in slavery and abolition. He is also co-convenor of the British Nonconformity in the Long Eighteenth Century study group, under the auspices of the American Society of Church History, and he is co-editor of the forthcoming volume The Legacy of Isaac Watts’ Hymnody: ‘Songs Before Unknown’ (Routledge). In addition, his monograph Isaac Watts: Evangelical Dissent and the Early Enlightenment is currently under contract with Routledge.

The annual Roger F. Pooley Early Career Essay Prize is open to all international Ph.D. students and to post-doctoral researchers within the first two years after their viva. Applicants must be members of the IJBS. The prize is for outstanding scholarly work in the field of early modern religion and Dissent, including its literature, history, and reception.

Call for Papers

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

June 18-20, 2025

Plenary Speakers: Angelica Duran (Purdue University), Edward MacDonald (UPEI)

 ‘Nonconformist Teaching’ is a multi-disciplinary and international conference which investigates approaches to learning, teaching, and education generally among Puritans, Dissenters and/or Nonconformists, during the Long Reformation, 1500-1800, building on the discussions of “Reading Dissent” at the 2022 conference. Possible topics include

• limits on learning or encouragements to learn,
• ideas about what and how one should read,
• nonconformist models of teaching,
• the early history of children’s literature,
• the portrayal of occasions for learning, formal or otherwise,
• learning in visual culture,
• nonconformity and literacy,
• and in our own time, teaching the nonconformists to 21^st century college and university students across the disciplines.

In conjunction with the L. M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island, we also invite sessions on the intersection between Montgomery and Bunyan studies. Miscellaneous sessions on your own work and work in progress on any theme relating to the Society’s scope are also encouraged.

Modest travel bursaries (on request via e-mail) are available for postgraduate students whose papers are accepted. Selected papers will form a special issue in the Society’s peer-reviewed journal: Bunyan Studies: The Journal of Reformation and Nonconformist Culture.

Please send a brief biography (100 words), along with a title and brief abstract (250-words) of a 20-minute paper, or for panels (3 x 20 minute papers) – no later than October 15, 2024 – to Shannon Murray: smurray@upei.ca.

SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN

Deadline: 28 June 2024

The International John Bunyan Society’s (IJBS) annual Roger F. Pooley Early Career Essay Prize recognises the cutting-edge research of junior scholars in the field of early modern religion and dissent.

Criteria:

• The competition is open to PhD students and post-doctoral researchers up to two years after their viva.
• To be eligible, applicants MUST be members of the IJBS. Membership enquiries can be made via the Society’s UK Treasurer, Rachel Adcock, at r.c.adcock@keele.ac.uk.
• Applicants can submit an essay of up to 8,000 words (e.g. part of a chapter, a draft of an article, or a written version of a conference paper) by 28 June 2024 as an email attachment. The word count includes footnotes, but excludes the title, bibliography, and any appendixes (which, however, should not be longer than the text of the essay).
• The author’s name, affiliation, and role (e.g. final-year PhD student) as well as the word count should be indicated on the title page.
• A brief biography outlining the applicant’s current research project (150 words) should also be included.
  
  This year the IJBS welcomes contributions on any theme related to the Society’s scope. All submissions will be judged by members of the Selection Committee, and candidates will be informed of the outcome via email no later than 31 July 2024. The winner receives a certificate, a financial award of £300, one year’s free membership to the IJBS, and a year’s subscription to the Society’s peer-reviewed journal: Bunyan Studies.

Please send all submissions by 28 June 2024 to the Society’s General Secretary, Michael Arbino, via JohnBunyanSociety@outlook.com.