The Committee on Honors and Awards of the Modern Language Association invites authors to enter the competition for the fifth Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies. The prize is awarded each odd-numbered year to the author of an outstanding scholarly book on any phase of Italian literature or culture or comparative literature involving Italian. This shall include works that study any aspect of Italian literature and culture including literary or cultural theory, science, history, art, music, society, politics, cinema, and linguistics, preferably but not necessarily relating other disciplines to literature. For the next competition, the committee solicits submission of works published in 2008 by current members of the association. The Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies, which consists of $2,000 and a certificate, will be presented to the winning author at the association's annual convention in December 2009.