The Prawer lecture, to be held annually, promotes the work of outstanding postgraduate students working on any aspect of literature, culture and history in the German-speaking world from 1700-1900. The first lecture will be held in the academic year 2021-22. The winner will be invited to address the EGS, and the lecture published in a subsequent issue of PEGS. In addition, the lecture carries a cash prize of £300.

Graduate students registered at any higher education institution in the UK or the Republic of Ireland are invited to send abstracts of up to 500 words by Wednesday 30 June, 2021, to Dr Charlotte Lee (cll38@cam.ac.uk). Enquiries may also be directed to this address.

Please note that the lecture will be held on 27 January 2022. You will need to be registered as a student on 1 October 2021 in order to be eligible.

Siegbert Salomon Prawer (1925-2012) taught at Birmingham, at Westfield College, London, and at Oxford, where he was Taylor Professor of German between 1969 and 1987. He and his sister Ruth (later Ruth Prawer Jhabvala) had fled Germany in 1939. Siegbert Prawer was a scholar of immense breadth, his work ranging from poetry to film, from Heine to Marx, and beyond German studies to comparative literature. He was President of the EGS from 1998 to 2003. The naming of the lecture pays tribute to Siegbert Prawer’s charisma as a speaker and to his unflagging encouragement of students and younger scholars.

In written correspondence, he would often accompany his signature with a doodled self-portrait.