For years, Dr. Bodo Nischan (Professor of History, East Carolina University) served the Society as secretary. Following his untimely death due to cancer, the Society decided to honor his service to SRR and the scholarly community at large through the creation of the Bodo Nischan Award for Scholarship, Civility, and Service. The award is offered every other year on even numbered years. To learn more about Dr. Nischan you may read a eulogy given at the 2002 Plenary Session of the Society at the Sixteenth Century Society Conference in San Antonio, Texas by then SRR President Dr. Robin Barnes. The next award will be made in 2012.

Nischan Award Winners
2002 -- Charles Nauert, University of Missouri-Columbia 
2004 -- Miriam Usher Chrisman, University of Massachusetts-Amherst 
2006 -- Helen Nader, University of Arizona 
2008 -- Robert M. Kingdon, University of Wisconsin-Madison
2010 -- Thomas A. and Katherine G. Brady, University of California-Berkeley

To honor a long-time member and past president of the Society for Reformation Research, the society offers the Miriam Usher Chrisman Travel Fellowship of $2000  every other year in odd-numbered years to doctoral students who need to travel abroad to do research for their dissertations. The award competition is open to all students of European studies, ca. 1450-1650, whose dissertations deal with religion or the Reformation in some significant way. All geographic and confessional concentrations are eligible, and students just beginning their archival research as well as those finishing up are encouraged to apply. The purpose of the award is to help defray the expenses of working abroad.

Applicants should provide a 3-5 pp. (double-spaced) description of their research projects, together with an explanation of when and where they plan to use the fellowship. Applicants should keep in mind that just sending in a dissertation prospectus is insufficient, as the selection committee wants to know more specifically how the fellowship will be used and how the funds will help the applicants complete their dissertations. Applicants should also provide a curriculum vitae and ask their dissertation advisers to submit a letter of recommendation. All materials should be sent directly via email as attachments (preferably in a word processing program or a pdf file) to Kathryn Edwards <edwardsk@mailbox.sc.edu>, the Recording Officer of the society. She will then forward all materials to the Chrisman selection committee appointed by the current President of the society. The deadline for submission is February 1 of the year of the competition, and the next award will be made in 2013.


2001 -- Andrew H. Weaver, "Piety, Politics, and Patronage: Motets at the Habsburg Court in Vienna During the Reign of Ferdinand III (1637-1657)," Yale University, Ellen Rosand adviser

2003 -- Thomas Ridenhour, Jr., "Reformed Method, Law, and Politics: The Legal and Political Works of Johannes Althusius in their Intellectual and Cultural Context," University of Virginia, Erik Midelfort adviser

2005 -- Jana Elizabeth Condie-Pugh, "Taming Pazzia: Madness in Early Modern Italy," Northwestern University, Edward Muir adviser

2007 -- Anne Throckmorton, "Saints, Sacred Landmarks, and the Fluid Boundaries of Faith in Post-Reformation England," University of Virginia, Paul Halliday adviser

2009 -- Bronwen McShea, "Cultivating a New World: The Jesuits' Social Vision for France and North America," Yale University, Carlos Eire adviser

2011 -- Amy Rogers Hays, "Gender, Education, and Childhood in Sixteenth-Century London," Georgetown University, Amy Leonard and Jo Ann Moran Cruz advisers