Victor Emeljanow Bursary

VICTOR EMELJANOW BURSARY (ECR Conference Bursary)

Purpose The Victor Emeljanow Bursary assists a deserving, unfunded Early Career Researcher (ECR) to attend and present at the annual ADSA conference or other ADSA event.
Eligibility Nominees must:
  • be recently completed ECRs (within three years of being awarded) ;
  • have no institutional funding, and
  • submit an extended abstract (600 words) and CV to the prize chair by the nominated deadline.
Value $500 to be used towards any aspect of conference or ADSA event attendance
Deadline TBC
Judging Criteria
  • Clarity and Relevance to the Conference Theme
  • Method or Approach
  • Significance
  • Originality
Judge Selection Each year a new judge with appropriate expertise will be appointed to the panel. Any judge who has evaluated THREE years’ worth of applications will step down from the panel. 
Nomination Process The nominee will submit a nomination cover sheet and relevant documentation to prizes@adsa.edu.au. 
Prize History In 2018 the inaugural Joanne Tompkins Prize for editing was awarded to Gillian Arrighi and Victor Emeljanow for their editorial work on Popular Entertainment Studies. Following the passing of Professor Emeljanow just prior to the award, Gillian Arrighi decided the most appropriate direction of the prize money would be to support an ECR to attend the 2019 ADSA conference. The name of the initial one-off bursary reflected the journal, Popular Entertainment Studies, but it is intended to support a researcher working in any field of Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies. Following the 2019 conference, it was decided to continue this gesture, and rename the bursary the Victor Emeljanow Bursary in honour of Professor Emeljanow.

The late Victor Emeljanow was Emeritus Professor in the School of Creative Industries at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and General Editor of the e-journal Popular Entertainment Studies. He published widely on subjects including the reception of Chekhov in Britain, the career of Theodore Kommisarjevsky, Beerbohm Tree's engagement with Ibsen on the West End, Victorian popular dramatists, and prisoner-of-war entertainments during the First and Second World Wars.



Recipients of the Award


The judges for the prize in 2023 were Gillian Arrighi (UNSW Sydney), James Wenley (Victoria University of Wellington), and Hannah Banks (University of the Sunshine Coast). 

2023 Dr. Kath Kenny, “An Archive of Revolution: Betty Can Jump and the Pram Factory Women”

In 1972, women from the Australian Performing Group (APG) and the Carlton Women’s Liberation Group performed the collectively devised show Betty Can Jump, the first play of the Australian women’s liberation movement. Dr Kenny’s work was a fascinating insight into the collective Betty Can Jump a production and moment in time that could have so easily been lost to history had it not been documented. There must be so many productions like this that are absent from the archive. It was wonderful to hear Kath describe and discuss this production with such care and attention to detail.

2022 No award
2021 Sean Mulcahy (La Trobe University)
2020 No award
2019 Hannah Banks (Victoria University of Wellington)