2023 Bithell Prize-Winners Announced

12 March 2024

The Institute is delighted to announce the award of the Bithell Prizes for 2023. 

The Jethro Bithell Prize was awarded to Jonathan Shipton of University College London for his performance in the MA in Language, Culture, and History, and whose dissertation topic was ‘Ostalgie als Nostalgia for a Future that Never Was in Post-Unification German Music’. 

The Alice Emily Bithell Prize, awarded for the best performance in a degree course incorporating a major German component, was awarded jointly to two students who were awarded first class honours. Saskia Cookson, from King’s College London, graduated with a BA in German with Film Studies, whilst Graham Vintner, graduated from Birkbeck College with a BA in German. 

Established in memory of Dr Jethro Bithell, sometime Reader and Head of German at Birkbeck College, and his wife, Dr Alice Emily Bithell, the prizes were first awarded in 1977. Both Jethro and Alice Emily Bithell were generous benefactors of the then Institute of Germanic Studies, of which the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies is the successor.