The Society for Italian Historical Studies (SIHS), in affiliation with the American Historical Association, offers a prize of $400 for the Alan Reinerman Prize for Best Unpublished Manuscript on the history of Italy of dissertation length. Since the object of the award is to encourage fresh interest in Italian history, the prize is offered for the first or second study in the field by a scholar who has received the Ph.D. since January 1 of the previous year. Only current members of the Society for Italian Historical Studies (SIHS) will be considered.
Only manuscripts that are judged worthy of scholarly publication will be considered. Acceptance of a study for publication during the period of competition will not disqualify it from consideration. Scholars and students regularly resident in the United States or in Canada are eligible for the award. The SIHS reserves the right to withhold the prize if no manuscript deemed worthy is submitted. Please do not send any recommendations.
The prize will be announced at the SIHS’s business meeting and the annual American Historical Association conference.
One PDF copy of the work, with a brief curriculum vitae, should be sent by email to each of the following committee members; they must be received no later than September 30 of the current year.
Award Committee
Molly Tambor (Committee Chair)
Department of History
Long Island University
molly.tambor@liu.edu
Brian Maxson
Department of History
Eastern Tennessee State University
maxson@etsu.edu
Corinne Wieben
Department of History
University of Northern Colorado
Corinne.Wieben@unco.edu
A brief curriculum vita and the title of the entry should also be sent to the Executive Secretary, to whom all requests for further information should be addressed:
James Palmer
Executive Secretary / SIHS
History Department
Grinnell College
palmerja@grinnell.edu
This Year’s Recipients
Winner: Tairan An, “The Incidental Artifactuality of the Observational Sciences in Italy, c.1840-1880.”
The committee unanimously decided to award the Reinerman Prize to Tairan An’s dissertation “The Incidental Artifactuality of the Observational Sciences in Italy, c.1840-1880.” This dissertation examines how architectural and infrastructural artifacts became entangled with scientific observation in mid-to-late nineteenth-century Italy. Spanning four chapters, An traces a diverse set of observational settings: the Vesuvius Observatory for volcano monitoring, the Naples Zoological Station for marine biology, solar eclipse expeditions in Sicily, and ornithological fieldwork in Ethiopia. The central concept of “incidental artifactuality” refers to the cascade of unintended consequences (logistical, infrastructural, mediatic, and epistemological) that arose when observational programs were deployed in the field. An argues that observatory-based research inadvertently effected both tangible alterations and unforeseen epistemological shifts. Architecture, initially relegated to mere utilitarian accommodation, became an active participant in how nature was understood and engaged. The dissertation situates these developments against the backdrop of the Risorgimento and emerging Italian colonialism, revealing how scientists navigated the nexus between metropole and frontier, particularly regarding the “Southern Question” and Italy’s early ventures into East Africa.
The committee thought that this dissertation makes a genuinely innovative contribution by bridging architectural history with the history of science in ways rarely attempted. The concept of “incidental artifactuality” offers a powerful analytical framework for understanding how observation always involves intervention. The focus on nineteenth-century Italy from the perspective of field stations and observatories, rather than the conventional foci of laboratory science or metropolitan institutions, opens genuinely new historiographical terrain. The integration of postcolonial critique with the history of material culture and the history of science is sophisticated and timely.
The committee also admired the quality of the research and analysis: An draws on an impressive range of archival sources across multiple Italian repositories (Osservatorio Vesuviano, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Società Geografica Italiana), combining them with published scientific treatises, travelogues, and visual materials including early photography. The theoretical apparatus is sophisticated, drawing thoughtfully on Bruno Latour, Lorraine Daston, John Durham Peters, and others. The analysis of the Vesuvius Observatory as both scientific instrument and epistemological artifact is particularly compelling, as is the treatment of how the Neapolitan aquarium became entangled with urban water infrastructure and cholera epidemics.
Past Recipients
- 2025 – Marissa Smit-Bose, “Multispecies Diplomacy: Ottoman Horses, Mantuan Buyers, and Renaissance Equestrianism (1486-1600)”
- 2025 – Franceso Lacopo, “The Papal States in the Mediterranean World: Conversion to Catholicism in Rome and Ancona.”
- 2024 – Caroline Murphy, Water and Welfare: Rivers, Infrastructure, and the Territorial Imagination in Grand Ducal Tuscany, 1549-1609
- 2024 – Noelle Turtur, Making Fascist Empire Work: Italian Enterprises, Labor, and Organized-Community in Occupied Ethiopia, 1896-1943
- 2023 – Luca Martino Levi, Welfare by Decree: The Making of Italian Social- Insurance Legislation 1908-1920
- 2023 – Barbara Di Gennaro Splendore,The Reinvention of Theriac. Pharmacy, State, and the Market in Italy (1490-1640)
- 2022 – Tommaso Stefini, Commerce and Justice: Ottoman and Venetian Courts in Istanbul during the Seventeenth Century
- 2021 – Rachel Midura, Masters of the Post: Northern Italy and European Communications Networks, 1530-1730
- 2020 – Joel Pattison, Trade and Religious Boundaries in the Medieval Maghrib: Genoese Merchants, Their Products and Islamic Law; Luke Gramith, Liberation by Emigration: Italian Communists, the Cold War, and West-East Migration from Venezia Giulia, 1945-1949
- 2019 – Mackenzie Cooley, Animal Empires: The Perfection of Nature Between Europe and the Americas, 1492-1630
- 2018 – Kathryn Taylor, Orbis and Urbis: Ethnographic Thought in Early Modern Venice
- 2017 – Hannah Florence Marcus, Banned Books: Medicine, Readers and Censors in Early Modern Italy, 1559-1664
- 2016 – Hannah Barker, Egyptian and Italian Merchants in the Black Sea Slave Trade, 1260-1500;
- 2016 – Brian Brege, The Empire that Wasn’t: The Grand Duchy of Tuscany and Empire, 1574-1609
- 2015 – Matthew Gaetano, Renaissance Thomism at the University of Padua, 1465-1583
- 2014 – Giuliana Chamedes, The Vatican and the Making of the Atlantic Order, 1920-1960
- 2013 – Andrew Berns, The Natural Philosophy of the Biblical World: Jewish and Christian Physicians in the Late Italian Renaissance
- 2011 – Caroline Hillard, An Alternate Antiquity: The Etruscans in Renaissance Florence and Rome
- 2009 – Elizabeth Bernhardt, Genevra Sforza and the Bentivoglio: Family, Politics and Reputation in Renaissance Bologna
- 2008 – Joshua Arthurs, “A Revolution in the Idea of Rome”: Excavating Modernity in Fascist Italy
- 2007 – Emily O’Brien, The Anatomy of an Apology: The War against Conciliarism
- 2006 – Paul A. Garfinkel, Criminal Law and Juridical Culture in Liberal and Fascist Italy
- 2005 – Francesca Trivellato, Trading Diasporas and Trading Networks in the Early Modern Period: A Sephardic Partnership of Livorno in the Mediterranean, Europe, and Portuguese India (ca. 1700-1750)
- 2004 – Anne Wingenter, Le veterane del dolore: Mothers and Widows of the “Fallen” in Fascist Italy
- 2002 – Mary Hewlett, Women, Sexual Abuse and Sodomy in Late Renaissance Lucca
- 2001 – Emyln Eisenach, Marriage, Concubinage and Marriage Dissolution in 16th Century Verona
- 2000 – David d’Andrea, Civic Christianity in 15th Century Treviso: The Confraternity and Hospital of Santa Maria dei Battuti
- 1999 – Stephen C. Soper, A Context for Rule: Associations, Public Life and Liberal Ideology of 19th Century Italy
- 1998 – Victoria M. Morse, A Complex Terrain: Church, Society and the Individual in the Works of Opicino de Canistris
- 1997 – Stanislao Pugliese, Socialist Heretic and Humanist: Carlo Roselli in Italy and in Exile
- 1996 – Weitse DeBoer, Sinews of Discipline
- 1993 – Silvana Patriarca, Number and the Nation: The Statistical Representation of Italy, 1820-1871
- 1992 – Marla S. Stone, The Politics of Cultural Production: The Exhibition in Fascist Italy, 1928-1942
- 1991 – Geoffrey A. Haywood, Sidney Sonnino and Liberal Italy, 1847-1901 and Paolo Squatriti, Water and Society in Late Antique and Early Italy
* This award was formerly called the Ezio Cappadocia Prize for Best Unpublished Manuscript