Philip Leverhulme Prize 2022 for Corisande Fenwick

Philip Leverhulme prizes, awarded annually by the Leverhulme Trust, recognise and celebrate the achievements of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future careers are exceptionally promising. 

Chosen from over 300 nominations, the Trust offered five prizes in each of the following subject areas: Archaeology, Chemistry, Economics, Engineering, Geography, and Languages and Literatures.

Corisande Fenwick, who has been awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize 2022 for Archaeology, has established herself as one of the leading archaeologists of early Islamic and late antique archaeology, particularly in North Africa.

Her leading role in North African studies more broadly is reflected in her recent appointment as Director of the Society for Libyan Studies, one of the British International Research Institutes funded by the British Academy. Her research crosscuts traditional disciplinary boundaries between archaeology and history and traditional chronological boundaries between late antiquity and the Islamic period.

Corisande's book on Early Islamic North Africa (2020) received excellent reviews and establishes her as a leading scholar on this subject worldwide. Through her publications on North Africa, including key co-edited volume Aghlabids and their Neighbours: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa (2017), she has redefined the field of Islamic archaeology and history in North Africa and beyond by presenting new models for Islamic imperialism, urbanism, social change and the emergence of successor-Muslim states in North Africa.

According to Corisande:

“The award of this Philip Leverhulme Prize will provide me with a unique opportunity to take a bold step out of North Africa and to advance a comparative archaeological agenda for the early Islamic world."

Read more

• Philip Leverhulme Prize 2022 announcement
• UCL News