This book explores the prize cultures of the most famous scientific award worldwide: the Nobel Prize. Awards shape careers, make research visible, and create role models. They provide evidence of prestige and credit and play a key role in evaluating individual scientists. Nevertheless, the understanding of prize cultures in science has remained surprisingly superficial. This book explores the prize cultures of the most famous scientific award worldwide: the Nobel Prize. It contributes to modern approaches in history and sociology of science that focus on the social context of scientific practices and gives new insights into the role of status and impact in academia. Awards shape careers, make research visible, and create role models. They provide evidence of prestige and credit and play a key role in evaluating individual scientists. Nevertheless, the understanding of prize cultures in science has remained surprisingly superficial. This book explores the prize cultures of the most famous scientific award worldwide: the Nobel Prize. It contributes to modern approaches in history and sociology of science that focus on the social context of scientific practices and gives new insights into the role of status and impact in academia. Table of Contents Preface by Klaas Landsman Chapter 1. Nils Hansson, Ad Maas - Introducing Prize Studies: Perspectives on Reward Mechanisms in Science Chapter 2. Gustav Källstrand - Everybody’s Searching for a Hero: Controversial Nobel Laureates and the Status of the Nobel Prize Chapter 3. Ad Maas, Louise Lagarde - Nobel Artefacts: Material Heritage of Nobel Prize Laureates in the Netherlands Chapter 4. Daniela Link - What Heroes does Literature Need? Insight into the Nobel Prize as a Literary Motif Chapter 5. Annelie Drakman - The Post-Heroic Nobel Laureate having Fun: a New Scientific Ideal in Post-War America Chapter 6. Jelmer Heeren - Demythologizing Science: Reijer Hooykaas on Hero Worship as “Undesirable” and “Disdaining” Chapter 7. Christian Engberts - Honors Without Impact: Emil von Behring’s Inconsequential Nobel Prize Chapter 8. Rob van den Berg - A Hotly Contested Nobel: Christiaan Eijkman, Gerrit Grijns and the Discovery of Vitamin B1 Chapter 9. Daniela Angetter-Pfeiffer - Konrad Lorenz, Nicolaas Tinbergen, and Karl von Frisch – the Scientific Network and the Controversy over the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973 Chapter 10. Nils Hansson, Giacomo Padrini, Andreas Winkelmann, Mathias Schütz - What does it take for an Anatomist to get a Nobel Prize? An Analysis of the Nobel Prize Nominations for Wolfgang Bargmann, Albert von Kölliker and Hans Spemann Chapter 11. Leander Scheel, Nils Hansson - Physicians as Candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize Bibliography Index