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ACU historian wins prestigious publication prize

ACU historian Dr Miles Pattenden has won the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS) 2023 Publication Prize.

The ACIS aims to promote teaching and research in the field of Italian Studies throughout Australasia. It awards the Publication Prize every two years and celebrates a significant contribution to knowledge by an Australasian researcher in the field of Italian Studies.

Dr Pattenden said it was a “great honour” to win the prestigious prize.

The Established Scholar Publication Prize recognised Dr Pattenden’s study titled ‘Papal Rome in Lockdown: Proximities, Temporalities and Emotions during the Im/mobility of the Conclave’, published in I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance.

Dr Pattenden’s award-winning journal article explored parallels between the experience of isolation experienced during the COVID pandemic and diverse historical settings, including the papal conclave.

“I wanted to show how the issues that faced us in the pandemic were not new,” Dr Pattenden said.

“I drew from my own work on the papal conclave to show how people coped with emotional isolation and discomfort during the lockdown it necessarily imposed.”

The article was based on original research using sources in Italian, Latin, and Spanish in the Vatican and other archives.

It drew on letters and eyewitness accounts including diaries, political treatises and material inventories.

The ACIS Publication Prize adjudicators praised Dr Pattenden’s article as “insightful and beautifully written”.

“This article was deliciously relevant to the themes of pandemic and emotional response,” according to the judging panel.

“Dr Pattenden’s ability to combine microdetail – the smell of the latrine, the sleeping arrangements – with the broad implications of confinement is quite exceptional.”