Annual Report
1 We are very happy to share our annual report, which outlines the work of the MLA in 2022–23. It was a big year for advocacy, with much press attention to our efforts in the wake of the decision of West Virginia University to decimate humanities programs, especially world languages. We released our national survey of language enrollments, highlighting programs that are especially successful, and we launched new grant programs for graduate students and for programs trying to better serve their students. We assembled an exciting new partnership among research institutions committed to supporting language, literature, writing, and culture and to helping shape the national conversation on the humanities. The association is in solid financial shape and is committed to increasing services to members and advocacy for our fields. We’re grateful for your interest in our work, and we thank you for your support. Paula M. Krebs Executive Director A Message from the Executive Director
CONTENTS Welcome to the MLA Annual Report 2022–2023 A Message from the Executive Director About the MLA Strategic Planning Convention and Events Publications Academic Program Services and Professional Development Institutes on Reading and Writing Pedagogy Committees Awards and Prizes Grants Advocacy Leading Donor List MLA Officers and Council Members 1 3 4 6 8 10 12 13 14 16 17 18 19
Founded in 1883, the Modern Language Association promotes the study and teaching of languages and literatures through its programs, publications, annual convention, and advocacy work. The MLA exists to support the intellectual and professional lives of its members; it provides opportunities for members to share their scholarly work and teaching experiences with colleagues, discuss trends in the academy, and advocate humanities education and workplace equity. The association aims to advance the many areas of the humanities in which its members currently work, including literature, language, writing studies, screen arts, digital humanities, pedagogy, and library studies. The MLA facilitates scholarly inquiry in and across periods, geographic sites, genres, languages, and disciplines in higher education that focus on communication, aesthetic production and reception, translation, and interpretation. Through the ADE and ALD, the MLA also supports the work of department chairs and directors of graduate studies. The MLA at a Glance • Over 20,000 members in one hundred countries • Programs serving teachers of English and other languages • An annual convention, with meetings on a wide variety of subjects, and smaller seminars across the country and an array of online events • The MLA International Bibliography, the most comprehensive research database in language and literature • Writing resources, including the digital resources MLA Handbook Plus and the MLA Style Center • An active book publications program that regularly releases new titles for teachers, students, and researchers and maintains a backlist of over three hundred titles • Four periodicals: the ADE Bulletin; the ADFL Bulletin; Profession; and PMLA, one of the most distinguished journals in the humanities • MLA Commons, a scholarly communication network and publishing platform, and open access resources supporting literary studies and digital pedagogy • A quarterly newsletter providing updates on association events and initiatives, stories about members’ innovative work, and other items of interest to members • 158 forums for the scholarly, teaching, and professional interests of members • More than fifty membership committees overseeing association activities and publications • Leadership in the national education community About the MLA 3
4 Through a series of surveys and other methods, we reached out to all MLA members to find out what they valued about the association and where they hoped to see it go. Based on this feedback, in May 2023, the Executive Council updated the association’s mission, defined the MLA’s values, and outlined strategic priorities for the future. Our Mission A leading advocate for the humanities, the Modern Language Association promotes the study, teaching, and understanding of languages, literatures, and culture. Our Values The values on which the MLA bases its decision-making are as follows: Equity: The MLA supports and encourages impartiality, fairness, and justice throughout the humanities ecosystem. Inclusion: The MLA recognizes that all members should feel a sense of belonging within the association—that they are accepted, supported, and valued in word and in actions and that the association’s resources are accessible to them. Advocacy: The MLA champions intellectual freedom, fair working conditions, and the value of scholarship in, pedagogy of, and public engagement with the humanities. Strategic Priorities Priority 1: Broaden the reach of the MLA and expand its leadership role in promoting the value of the humanities. Priority 2: Develop mechanisms that help us address the decline of humanities enrollments and funding. Priority 3: Expand services and initiatives that foster the improvement of working conditions. Visit mla.org/Mission to learn more about our strategic priorities. In support of these priorities, the MLA has launched new initiatives and bolstered ongoing programming. Here are just some of the ways the MLA has worked to advance the new priorities in 2022–23. New Projects and Initiatives • The MLA obtained a grant from the Mellon Foundation to launch MLA Pathways: Recruitment, Retention, and Career Readiness. Pathways will equip humanities departments and programs with the tools and resources to help students find success throughout their education and after graduation. Departments will learn how to gather and interpret local data and gain access to case studies in order to help them reform curricula and thereby improve enrollments and retention. Graduate students interested in teaching at access-oriented institutions (AOIs) and faculty members at AOIs will learn together at regional institutes about the latest reading and writing pedagogies. To announce the grant, we released a video that shared stories of successful programs and invited viewers to submit their own. • Staff members gathered data on language enrollments in US colleges and universities, which will be published in a forthcoming report and made available through the Language Enrollment Database and the Language Map. These data, along with case studies researched by MLA staff members, help us understand the state of language study and give us the tools to advocate for investing in departments and programs. • The MLA spoke out against cuts to humanities programs at institutions like West Virginia University through interviews, op-eds, and letters and made the case for the importance of the humanities for all students, not just the elite. • To support members’ collective efforts to advocate for improvements in working conditions and enhanced shared governance, we created a collection of resources on collective action. We also formalized a regular exchange with the American Association of University Professors to support collaboration on issues of shared interest. • We moved the MLA offices into a coworking space more appropriate to the staff’s hybrid work needs, creating savings that will allow more resources to go toward strategic priorities. Strategic Planning
5 Ongoing Activities • We have advanced the MLA’s leadership role in advocating for the value and visibility of the humanities, strengthening enrollments, and improving working conditions by providing premiere professional development for faculty and staff members and program leaders, including the Professional Development Hub at the convention, online webinars, and the ADE-ALD Summer Seminar and MAPS Leadership Institute, which focus on supporting training in advocacy, equity, recruitment, and curricular development in languages, literatures, writing, and cultural studies. • As the producer of the MLA International Bibliography, MLA Thesaurus, and the MLA Directory of Periodicals, the MLA provides key resources for humanities researchers and instructors around the world, with subscribers on six continents. • The association encourages the study of languages, literatures, writing, and culture by producing high-quality materials for teachers and students and by making translations of works in world languages available to a public readership, thereby promoting engagement with MLA fields. • We teach critical source evaluation and information literacy through a humanities-centered perspective to a wide international audience through the MLA Handbook, MLA Handbook Plus, and the MLA Guides, including the MLA Guide to Digital Literacy and the MLA Guide to Undergraduate Research in Literature. • We promote inclusive language practices by creating resources for scholars, teachers, students, and the general public. • The MLA International Bibliography works to extend the reach and inclusivity of the organization through its editorial practices, actively seeking out publications that focus on underrepresented national literatures and languages and scholars from underrepresented communities and incorporating non-Latin versions of names, works, and terms specific to international literary traditions. In addition, through our contributing scholars programs, we provide opportunities for humanities librarians and scholars at all levels from around the world to participate in the work of the organization while also expanding our coverage to encompass materials our in-house staff members cannot access or cannot read.
6 The 2023 Annual Convention The annual convention is held each year at the beginning of January and brings together scholars from a wide variety of fields and interests to share their work and take part in professional development. The 2023 convention was held in San Francisco and online. • 4,070 attendees, including 782 (19%) graduate students • 766 convention sessions • 2,975 speakers from nearly 918 universities and colleges and other institutions How People Attended the 2023 Convention Based on responses to the postconvention survey Convention and Events Both 17.0% Online 8.8% In person 74.2%
Upcoming Conventions The 2024 MLA Annual Convention will be held from 4 through 7 January in Philadelphia and online. The 2025 convention will be held in New Orleans from 9 to 12 January. Members may submit 2025 calls for papers through the MLA website beginning in November. Webinars The MLA continues to offer webinar programming to members and the broader public. In the past year we offered these free webinars, open to the public: • The Great Untenuring • Diverse Career Pathways for Languages and Literatures PhDs • What AI Means for Teaching We also launched a series of webinars in conjunction with the publication of the Guidelines for Evaluating Publicly Engaged Humanities Scholarship in Language and Literature Programs. The four webinars aimed to foster member conversations about developing and sustaining projects in the public humanities and using the guidelines to spark dialogue and implement change around how such projects are valued. Recordings of these webinars are available on the MLA website: • Developing and Sustaining Projects in the Public Humanities • Advocating for the Public Humanities • Podcasting for Humanists • The Possibilities of Public Writing Sometimes there’s a kind of false dichotomy between making knowledge and disseminating knowledge where public humanities work is seen as just publicizing what you’ve already done, and I think sometimes it can be very useful to show how public engagement can actually enhance the rigor of the work that’s being done. –Jordana Cox, speaker for Advocating for the Public Humanities We’ve reached out to MLA committees to generate topics for future MLA webinars and look forward to conversations on a wide range of topics. Recordings of our webinars are available at webinars.mla.org. 7
8 MLA International Bibliography Available to libraries by subscription on the EBSCOhost platform, the MLA International Bibliography is the world’s leading resource for research in modern languages and literatures. It provides online access to more than 3 million subject-indexed citations for books, articles, dissertations, and websites relating to a broad range of humanities disciplines: modern languages and literatures; folklore; dramatic arts, including film; linguistics; rhetoric and writing studies; and the teaching of language. Coverage includes publications in more than 70 languages. Upwards of 75,000 records are added annually, with updates throughout the year. Subscribers can also opt for the MLA International Bibliography with Full Text, which supplements the original database with full text of more than 1,100 academic journals licensed by EBSCO. Subscribers to either product also get access to the MLA Thesaurus, a controlled vocabulary of more than 850,000 terms, names, and works updated continually by our staff, and the MLA Directory of Periodicals, a searchable database providing detailed information on more than 20,000 journals and book series in our fields. Free access to the MLA Directory of Periodicals is available to MLA members. Materials included in the bibliography are indexed by an in-house staff of subject specialists assisted by contributing field bibliographers and bibliography fellows. The bibliography team continues to expand our free online course as well as our library of tutorial videos and to present models for using the bibliography in the classroom through webinars and conference presentations as well as lesson plans and assignments posted with the course. This year we added an online course module on using the bibliography for research in the area of cross-cultural communication. We are also developing a series of short videos and lesson plans presenting ways instructors are using the bibliography in their teaching. MLA Handbook Plus MLA Handbook Plus provides online access to the MLA Handbook for institutional subscribers around the world so that students and other members of your campus community can use this resource for free. While the MLA Handbook is the cornerstone of MLA Handbook Plus, subscribers also have access to the MLA Guides series, video courses, and other resources that support and enhance engagement with writing, citation, and information literacy. Newly added to the site in 2022–23 are more than one hundred additional citation examples and enhanced search filtering to aid in discoverability, six annotated student papers, a guide to English grammar, expanded guidelines in several sections of the MLA Handbook, and the second edition of the best-selling MLA Guide to Digital Literacy, by Ellen C. Carillo. Coming in 2023–24 are more videos, including on quoting and paraphrasing and in-text citations; the second edition of the MLA Guide to Undergraduate Research in Literature, by Elizabeth Brookbank and H. Faye Christenberry; and additional citation examples and student papers. PMLA MLA members have access to all current issues and the full archive of PMLA on Cambridge Core—the only website where the full contents of the journal and additional features are available. Under the editorship of Brent Hayes Edwards, this year PMLA featured three Theories and Methodologies sections: on Abdulrazak Gurnah, on aesthetic education, and on monolingualism. Little-Known Documents ran pieces by W. E. B. Du Bois, Doris Lessing, and Goethe. Criticism in Translation covered the Arabic free verse movement, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, and more. Finally, a formidable special topic issue, Translation, was coordinated by A. E. B. Coldiron. The journal’s website also launched a new feature, introducing readers to thematic collections of articles from the archives. The inaugural post, by Gaurav Desai, details highlights from the much revered “For Members Only” column that ran from 1947 to 1969—newly digitized and only available on Cambridge Core. Publications
Translation, the May 2023 special topic issue of PMLA, includes forty essays from leading and emerging scholars on translation studies methods and theories. Illustrating a range of translation methods and theories, the articles challenge an instrumentalist view of translation and foreground the generative role of translation. [E]very MLA member, every PMLA reader, and every scholar in every subject area and subfield of the MLA has compelling intellectual reasons to take translation into account in comprehensive and incisive ways. . . . Translation is at work in literature whether you are reading a translation or not. –A. E. B. Coldiron New Book Titles The MLA publishes peer-reviewed resources that support teachers and students in writing, research, language instruction, literary studies, and related fields at postsecondary and secondary institutions. Representing some of the finest pedagogical materials in the humanities and engaging diverse perspectives, MLA book publications draw on the talents and experience of the MLA’s members to advance the MLA’s mission of promoting the humanities. Over the past year, we’ve published 12 new titles. Teaching and Studying Transnational Composition Teaching Postwar Japanese Fiction Beyond Fitting In: Rethinking First-Generation Writing and Literacy Education Approaches to Teaching the Romance of the Rose Lost Texts in Rhetoric and Composition An Introduction to Old English, Revised Edition Hyumŏnijŭm, cheguk, minjok: Han’guk ŭi munhak kwa munhwa pip’yŏng Humanism, Empire, and Nation: Korean Literary and Cultural Criticism Teaching Comedy Teaching World Epics Esfinge: Um romance neo-gótico do Brasil Sphinx: A Neo-Gothic Novel from Brazil 9
10 The office of academic program services and professional development creates resources for individual teachers and scholars as well as for department and program leaders who are members of MLA Academic Program Services (MAPS), the umbrella organization for the Association of Language Departments (ALD) and the Association of Departments of English (ADE). MAPS MAPS is a professional network and a bundle of benefits and services designed to support the work and professional development of those who lead and manage academic programs in languages and literatures (and in the humanities more broadly)—and those who aspire to do so. 834 MAPS memberships • 219 ADE memberships • 321 ALD memberships • 294 combined ADE and ALD memberships MAPS organizes professional development events, conducts leadership and management training, coordinates program review and consultancy services offered by experienced leaders, and produces a wide array of resources that will help you successfully lead and manage your academic program or department, navigate a changing humanities landscape, and advocate for your colleagues. Find out more by going to maps.mla.org or by reading the latest issue of the MAPS Quarterly e-newsletter. More than 275 people participated in summer professional development training, leading to over 80 certificates in reading and writing pedagogy and over 40 leadership certificates. MLA Pathways A new initiative made possible by a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation, MLA Pathways: Recruitment, Retention, and Career Readiness will equip humanities departments and programs with the tools, networks, knowledge, and resources to help students find success throughout their education and after graduation. MLA Pathways promotes recruitment and retention of students in the humanities, especially students of color, first-generation college students, and Pell Grant recipients. The Pathways initiative will include a tool kit to support equitable departmental practices, a regranting program, and backing for the MLA Institutes on Reading and Writing Pedagogy. ADE-ALD Summer Seminar and MAPS Leadership Institute MLA summer seminars and institutes provide training and support to lead your academic department, center, or program in languages and literatures and related fields. Each year, these events connect chairs, program directors, other department leaders, and aspiring leaders to a network of peers and colleagues from around the country. The ADE-ALD Summer Seminar, offered in person, and the MAPS Leadership Institute, offered online, provide workshops and informational sessions facilitated by experienced program leaders on best practices, trends, challenges, and proven strategies for success. In collaboration with the ADE and ALD executive committees, the MLA offered one in-person summer seminar and one online leadership institute in June 2023. ADE-ALD Summer Seminar • Georgetown University • 1–4 June • In partnership with the Association of Departments and Programs of Comparative Literature, the American Comparative Literature Association, Howard University, and the University of Maryland, College Park, with additional support from the Mellon Foundation ADE membership ALD membership ADE and ALD combined membership Academic Program Services and Professional Development
11 MAPS Leadership Institute • 22–29 June • Pre-institute workshops 21 June, with additional workshops held on 22 and 27 June • Sponsored by the MLA International Bibliography on EBSCOhost, in partnership with the Association of Departments and Programs of Comparative Literature and the American Comparative Literature Association, with additional support from the Mellon Foundation Research Since 1958, the Modern Language Association has gathered and analyzed data on course enrollments in languages other than English in United States colleges and universities. The 2021 census is the twenty-sixth in the series and was complemented by a snapshot of data in which 2020 data were collected from a subset of the full census in order to track pandemic impacts on enrollments. A total of 2,455 AA-, BA-, MA-, and PhD-granting colleges and universities, or 92.2% of all eligible institutions, reported for fall 2021, with results to be shared in a report scheduled for publication in November. Additional Professional Development Activities Public Humanities Incubator The Public Humanities Incubator program invited applications from current graduate students interested in the public humanities. Twelve participants were selected to work with their mentors to envision their research as contributions to public humanities scholarship: to imagine audiences and impact, form and dissemination, collaboration and partnerships, and project life cycle. Now in its second year, the incubator will be complemented with additional professional development programming on grant writing and career pathways. Participants and their mentors will present their projects at the 2024 MLA convention in Philadelphia. Sit and Write Sessions Virtual writing retreats designed to support members at all stages of their careers, these monthly ninety-minute sessions feature a bite-size presentation offering suggestions and resources on topics such as creating a writing schedule, crafting a first article, and productive revision strategies. Presentations are followed by a solid hour of dedicated, quiet writing time for members to focus on their work in the (virtual) company of other writers. Professional Development Hub The new Professional Development Hub was launched at the 2023 MLA convention and expanded activities formerly clustered under the Career Center, aiming to provide more extensive support to members at all stages of their careers and in all career paths. Activities planned for the 2024 convention include one-on-one mentoring for academic and nonacademic careers, a wide range of professional-issues discussion groups, and networking events.
12 This summer, the MLA Institutes on Reading and Writing Pedagogy at Access-Oriented Institutions (AOIs) brought together 85 graduate student and faculty participants, 8 faculty facilitators, and over 10 guest speakers for a total of 4 weeks of immersive pedagogical training at 4 host sites across the country. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, with additional support from the Social Science Research Council and National Endowment for the Humanities’ Sustaining Humanities Infrastructure Program, the MLA Institutes on Reading and Writing Pedagogy at AOIs prepare graduate students and early-career faculty members to teach reading and writing at two- and four-year institutions that prioritize access over selectivity. This year’s regional institutes were held in • Birmingham, AL, hosted by the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and Jefferson State Community College: 14 July (virtual), 19–21 July (in-person), and 28 July (virtual) • Fairfax, VA, hosted by George Mason University and Northern Virginia Community College: 26–30 June (in-person) • Salt Lake City, UT, hosted by the University of Utah and Salt Lake Community College: 5–9 June (hybrid) • Waltham, MA, hosted by Brandeis University and Middlesex Community College: 26–30 June (in-person) This five-day intensive training in pedagogical theory and practice provided participants with an understanding of the needs and circumstances of students at community colleges and AOIs who are primarily first-generation college students, Pell Grant recipients, and students of color. The institutes explored issues such as establishing reading and writing communities (Birmingham), theoretical foundations driving access (Fairfax), antiracist pedagogy (Salt Lake City), and writing across disciplines (Waltham). The 2023 institutes were led by the following faculty facilitators: • Christopher Minnix, professor of English at University of Alabama, Birmingham, and Connie Caskey, chair of communications at Jefferson State Community College • Leslie Goetsch, professor of English at George Mason University and director of the Northern Virginia Writing Project, and Chris Kervina, interim associate dean at Northern Virginia Community College and PhD candidate in writing and rhetoric at George Mason University • Darin Jensen, professor of English, linguistics, and writing studies at Salt Lake Community College, and Christie Toth, professor of writing and rhetoric studies and director of undergraduate studies at the University of Utah • Paige Eggebrecht, faculty advisor to the Writing Center and lecturer in the writing program at Brandeis University, and Nicholas Papas, professor and program coordinator of ALP and reading at Middlesex Community College (MA) This was such a special, intensive, unique, and generative program. Being in community with other passionate educators across life paths and experiences and engaging in dialogue, sharing ideas and experiences, learning together, and brainstorming towards the equitable, accessible, inclusive education that we all believe in has been quite a unique and incredible opportunity that I would have never otherwise gotten in my doctoral training so far. –Attendee of the Waltham, MA, institute The institutes will return in summer 2024 with the generous support of the Mellon Foundation as part of MLA Pathways: Recruitment, Retention, and Career Readiness. The upcoming institutes will continue to feature new partnerships between universities and local community colleges in order to promote even greater collaboration and regional sustainability. As part of continued work with the institutes, a core curriculum will be published in the 2024 issue of the ADE Bulletin. Institutes on Reading and Writing Pedagogy
As a membership organization, the MLA depends on the dedication and commitment of its members to ensure the vitality of association programs. Each year, hundreds of members serve on the association’s committees. In addition to governance, our committees focus on work in areas including issues of concern to the profession, the annual convention, publications, and prizes and awards. In 2022–23 there were • 158 forum executive committees • 56 standing committees 386 people served on standing committees 934 people served on forum executive committees The MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AI In 2022–23, the MLA and the Conference on College Composition and Communication formed a joint task force to develop resources, guidelines, and professional standards around the use of AI and writing. In July 2023, the committee published its first working paper, which discusses the risks and benefits of generative AI for teachers and students in writing, literature, and language programs and makes principle-driven recommendations for how educators, administrators, and policymakers can work together to develop ethical, mission-driven policies and support broad development of critical AI literacy. The working paper offers twelve recommendations, urging “educators to respond out of a sense of our own strengths rather than operating out of fear. Rather than looking for quick fixes, we should support ongoing open and iterative processes to develop our responses. At the institutional level, policy should be accompanied by education about AI; when creating policy, institutional actors must prioritize both ethical conduct and the mission of higher education.” The committee’s webinar about the working paper was attended by nearly 1,800 people, and over 2,000 people have viewed the recording. Going forward, the committee plans to develop a second working paper; convene with representatives from groups focused on technical writing, writing programs, two-year-college English, college and research libraries, and world languages; and publish a site for sharing pedagogical resources related to AI. Serve on a Committee Consider serving on a standing committee to help enrich your and your colleagues’ membership experience. We encourage you to suggest yourself or colleagues for consideration by the Executive Council (which appoints the committees) by completing a brief suggestion form that is made available to members between mid November and early February. Watch for an e-mail from us when the form is available. You may also suggest yourself or other members for service on one of our 158 forum executive committees. Serving on a forum executive committee gives you an opportunity to connect with members in your scholarly community and shape the programming for the annual convention. To suggest yourself, fill out the form included at the end of the fall election ballot, linked on the Elections web page, or e-mail the coordinator of governance ([email protected]). 13 Governance and Conventions Publications Professional Issues Prizes and Awards Committees
14 We are pleased to celebrate the winners of eighteen publication prizes as well as honorees of the ADE and ALD and the winners of the MLA-EBSCO Collaboration for Information Literacy Prize. 2022 Publication Prizewinners For the full list of award recipients, including honorable mentions, check out mla.org/prizewinners. 59th Annual William Riley Parker Prize: For an outstanding article in PMLA: Emma Maggie Solberg, Bowdoin College, for “Imagining the Bob and Wheel” (PMLA, January 2022); Shane Vogel, Yale University, for “Waiting for Godot and the Racial Theater of the Absurd” (PMLA, January 2022) 53rd Annual James Russell Lowell Prize: For an outstanding literary or linguistic study by a member of the association: Kevin Quashie, Brown University, for Black Aliveness; or, A Poetics of Being (Duke Univ. Press, 2021) 29th Annual Modern Language Association Prize for a First Book: For an outstanding literary or linguistic study that is the first book-length publication by a member of the association: La Marr Jurelle Bruce, University of Maryland, College Park, for How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity (Duke Univ. Press, 2021) 37th Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize: For an outstanding publication in the fields of language, culture, literature, or literacy with strong application to the teaching of English: Nancy Bou Ayash, University of Washington, Seattle, for Toward Translingual Realities in Composition: (Re)Working Local Language Representations and Practices (Utah State Univ. Press, 2019) 34th Modern Language Association Prize for Independent Scholars: Jordan S. Carroll, University of Puget Sound, for Reading the Obscene: Transgressive Editors and the Class Politics of US Literature (Stanford Univ. Press, 2021) 27th Howard R. Marraro Prize: Martin Eisner, Duke University, for Dante’s New Life of the Book: A Philology of World Literature (Oxford Univ. Press, 2021) 32nd Annual Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize: For an outstanding scholarly book published in English or Spanish in the field of Latin American and Spanish literatures and cultures: Samuel Amago, University of Virginia, for Basura: Cultures of Waste in Contemporary Spain (Univ. of Virginia Press, 2021) 30th Annual Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies: Karla Mallette, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for Lives of the Great Languages: Arabic and Latin in the Medieval Mediterranean (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2021) 30th Annual Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Studies: Jill Jarvis, Yale University, for Decolonizing Memory: Algeria and the Politics of Testimony (Duke Univ. Press, 2021) 15th Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Studies in Germanic Languages and Literatures: Alys X. George, Stanford University, for The Naked Truth: Viennese Modernism and the Body (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2020); Samuel J. Spinner, Johns Hopkins University, for Jewish Primitivism (Stanford Univ. Press, 2021) 18th Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work: Eric Henry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, for Garden of Eloquence / Shuoyuan / 說苑, by Liu Xiang (Univ. of Washington Press, 2021) 25th Annual Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Publication Award for a Manuscript in Italian Studies: Jessica Gabriel Peritz, Yale University, for The Lyric Myth of Voice: Civilizing Song in Enlightenment Italy (Univ. of California Press, 2022) 13th Modern Language Association Prize for Collaborative, Bibliographical, or Archival Scholarship: Catherine D’Ignazio, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Lauren F. Klein, Emory University, for Data Feminism (MIT Press, 2020); Suzanne W. Churchill, Davidson College; Linda A. Kinnahan, Duquesne University; and Susan Rosenbaum, University of Georgia, for Mina Loy: Navigating the Avant-Garde (mina-loy.com/) 15th Lois Roth Award for a Translation of a Literary Work: Sasha Dugdale, West Sussex, United Kingdom, for In Memory of Memory: A Romance, by Maria Stepanova (New Directions, 2021) 21st Annual William Sanders Scarborough Prize: For an outstanding scholarly study of African American literature or culture: Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Georgetown University, for The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2021) 11th Fenia and Yaakov Leviant Memorial Prize in Yiddish Studies: Justin Cammy, Smith College, for his translation of From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg: Memoir and Testimony, by Abraham Sutzkever (McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press, 2021); Jordan Finkin, Hebrew Union College, and Allison Schachter, Vanderbilt University, for their translation of From the Jewish Provinces: Selected Stories, by Fradl Shtok (Northwestern Univ. Press, 2021) Awards and Prizes
15 5th Modern Language Association Prize for Studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, and Languages: Craig Santos Perez, University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa, for Navigating CHamoru Poetry: Indigeneity, Aesthetics, and Decolonization (Univ. of Arizona Press, 2021) 7th Annual Matei Calinescu Prize: For a distinguished work of scholarship in twentieth- or twenty-first-century literature and thought: Katerina Clark, Yale University, for Eurasia without Borders: The Dream of a Leftist Literary Commons, 1919–1943 (Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 2021) 1st Modern Language Association Prize for an Edited Collection: Sarah D. Wald, University of Oregon; David J. Vázquez, American University; Priscilla Solis Ybarra, University of North Texas; and Sarah Jaquette Ray, California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, for Latinx Environmentalisms: Place, Justice, and the Decolonial (Temple Univ. Press, 2019); Melanie Benson Taylor, Dartmouth College, for The Cambridge History of Native American Literature (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2020) MLA-EBSCO Collaboration for Information Literacy Prize Thanks to a generous grant from EBSCO, the MLA confers up to two annual awards of $500 each for coursework developed in collaboration between department faculty members and academic librarians in literature, language, or related disciplines. The award recognizes successful integration of the disciplinary objectives of the course with learning objectives in information literacy. Winning submissions will be deposited in CORE, the Open Access Repository for the Humanities. 2022 Winners Jennifer Newman, Hunter College, City University of New York, and Julie Van Peteghem, Hunter College, City University of New York, for ITAL 34300 / ITAL 71200 Dante’s Inferno The ADE Francis Andrew March Award In 1984 the ADE Executive Committee established the Francis Andrew March Award to recognize and honor distinguished service to the profession of English at the postsecondary level. March (1825–1911) was a professor of English at Lafayette College and the first professor of English in the United States. In establishing the award, the ADE committee wanted to hold up as an ideal the scholar and teacher who accepts responsibility for strengthening the life and work of departments, the field, and the English studies community. 2022 Winner Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University Wai Chee Dimock has extended our sense of how the study of a singular national literary culture might open itself generatively to alternative frames and scales of interrogation and analysis through field-shifting engagements with legal studies, philosophies of history, and environmental studies. She has fashioned an exemplary career as a citizen-leader and embodied the spirit that defines the Francis Andrew March Award, presented to her by the Executive Committee of the ADE. The ALD Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession The ALD Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession honors contributions to teaching, scholarship, and service in world languages at the postsecondary level and is given to eminent scholar-teachers who serve the profession in the larger community. 2022 Winner Ofelia García, Graduate Center, City University of New York Ofelia García’s research, pedagogy, and activism is a model in the field of language teaching and learning that has inspired generations of language scholars and continues to affect multilingual education and language teachers working in college classrooms and beyond. The ALD Executive Committee is delighted to honor García for her distinguished service and forward-looking contributions to the profession. ALD Special Recognition On 6 January 2023, during the MLA Annual Convention’s awards ceremony, the ALD Executive Committee honored Dennis Looney for his outstanding advocacy work.
16 The MLA offers several grant programs that provide professional development opportunities, subsidize membership, and help build undergraduate interest in the humanities. MLA grants are funded by contributions to Paving the Way, the professional education assistance funds, and the Good Neighbor Fund. To donate in support of these funds, please visit mla.org/donate. Professional Development Grants for Part-Time Faculty Members The MLA offers $1,000 grants to part-time faculty members to help them pay for expenses associated with their professional development. The grants may be used for technology purchases, continuing education, research expenses, conference participation (in-person and virtual), or other costs related to career development, including childcare expenses incurred while faculty members pursue professional development opportunities. Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 Lottery Recipients • Tomi Adeaga (Vienna, Austria), conference participation • Jennifer Alberghini (Bellerose, New York), conference participation • Nahla al-Huraibi (Dublin, Ohio), technology purchase • Leah Leone Anderson (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), research expenses • Chiaki Sekiguchi Bems (Rockville, Maryland), research expenses • Allison Bernard (New York, New York), research expenses • Shawn Doubiago (San Francisco, California), research expenses • Nicole Lowman (Buffalo, New York), continuing education • Rodrigo Lopez Martinez (Aberdeen, United Kingdom), research expenses • Heidi Newbauer (Mankato, Minnesota), research expenses • Evan Nicoll-Johnson (Edmonton, Canada), conference participation • Daniel Nutters (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), conference participation • Ralph Pennel (Endicott, New York), technology purchase • Shabeeh Rahat (New Delhi, India), conference participation • Virginia Ramos (San Francisco, California), conference participation • Ann Reading (Middletown, Pennsylvania), research expenses • James Rizzi (Buffalo, New York), conference participation • Ruma Sinha (Princeton Junction, New Jersey), conference participation • Jiann-Chyng Tu (Berlin, Germany), research expenses • Jasmin Wagner (Charlotte, North Carolina), continuing education Humanities Innovation Grants The MLA awards $3,000 grants every year to support the development of courses and other educational programs in English, languages, and related disciplines that build enrollments and revitalize student interest in the humanities. The grants seek to recognize interdisciplinary and collaborative projects that engage with questions of global, regional, or local significance; that have the potential to offer transformative experiences for learners; that foster lasting connections between individuals and their communities; and that draw on innovative and effective pedagogical practices. Grant recipients are honored at the awards ceremony during the MLA convention and are invited to present their project in the convention’s Language and Literature Program Innovation Room. Project materials are made available on the MLA website. 2023 Winners • Edurne Beltrán de Heredia Carmona, Coastal Carolina University, “Global Health in Hispanic Communities: Narrative, Storytelling, and Representation” • Amanda Hamilton-Hollaway and Celeste Rodriguez Louro, University of Western Australia, “Decolonizing the Introductory Linguistics Curriculum” • Claire Lutkewitte, Nova Southeastern University, “Writing in the Wilderness” • Michael Moir and Jennifer Ryer, Georgia Southwestern State University, “Writing Southwest Georgia: A Place-Based Approach to the Public Humanities” • Carlos Yebra López, University College London, “The Digital Revitalization of Endangered Languages in the 21st Century: The Case of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish)” Assistance for Convention Attendance and Member Dues As part of its mission to support the professional development of humanities scholars of all ranks and backgrounds, the MLA offers several types of financial assistance to prospective and current members. Graduate student members, nontenure-track faculty members and unemployed members, and members living outside the United States and Canada are eligible to apply for funding to help defray the cost of attending the annual convention. Residents of developing nations who wish to become members of the MLA can apply to have their dues paid by the Good Neighbor Fund. Edward Guiliano Global Fellowships In spring 2023, through the generous support of Edward and Mireille Guiliano, the MLA launched the Edward Guiliano Global Fellowships. Created to encourage graduate students in languages, literatures, and related fields to pursue transformative experiences by exploring research and learning opportunities beyond their immediate community, these fellowships will provide PhD students in MLA-related disciplines awards up to $2,000. Grant recipients will be announced in fall 2023 and honored at the awards ceremony during the MLA Annual Convention in Philadelphia. Grants
17 The MLA advocates on behalf of students and teachers and provides resources to those seeking information about language study, scholarly publishing, the academic workforce, and much more. Through their recently created advocacy network, MLA Delegate Assembly members share MLA policies, guidelines, and statements with colleagues and administrators in their regions. The MLA also partners with organizations such as the National Humanities Alliance, the Coalition for International Education, the Joint National Committee for Languages, and others to share resources to expand our advocacy efforts and strengthen our impact. Executive Council Actions The Executive Council regularly considers academic and public policy matters and writes letters, statements, or guidelines to address these issues. The following 2022–23 council documents deal with a variety of issues, including academic freedom, faculty governance, research funding for the humanities, and race-conscious admissions. • Statement on Research Funding in the Humanities • Joint Statement in Support of Academic Freedom and New College of Florida • Statement Supporting Academic Freedom in Recent Cases of Faculty Employment • Joint Statement Denouncing Florida HB 999 • Joint Statement Condemning the Effort to Undermine Academic Freedom in Florida HB 999 • MLA Statement on SCOTUS Affirmative Action Ruling Opposition to Humanities Cuts at West Virginia University • In August 2023, the MLA’s executive director, Paula M. Krebs, responded to proposed cuts at West Virginia University, including the elimination of the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics. Krebs noted that the kinds of cuts to the humanities proposed by West Virginia University were unprecedented for a state flagship university and would “dramatically narrow educational opportunities” for all students, not just those in the humanities. • “All students’ job prospects and lives are enriched by language study, writing instruction, and the research and analytical skills taught in beginning and advanced literature and culture courses,” wrote Krebs. • The MLA’s opposition to the cuts at West Virginia University was covered in a variety of media outlets, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, The Washington Post, Axios, and NPR’s Here and Now. Webinar: The Great Untenuring • Participants in this free webinar discussed challenges such as reductions of tenure-track lines, which often lead to the elimination of entire programs; increased hiring of lecturers and adjuncts with heavy teaching loads, which creates a vulnerable class of talented scholars and teachers; the exodus of many scholars from the academy during the pandemic; and the changing relationships between state governments and systems of higher education. Together, they presented strategies for combating structural disruptions, disengagement, burnout, and the changing job market along with ideas for moving forward. • Visit webinars.mla.org to view a recording of this and other MLA webinars. Supporting MLA Advocacy The support provided by MLA members and allies is essential to maintaining important advocacy efforts and to funding professional development opportunities for graduate students and contingent faculty members. Donor contributions also make possible course development grants for faculty members to develop courses that build enrollments and revitalize student interest in the humanities, provide assistance to colleagues in developing nations, sustain advocacy efforts at the local and national level, and much more. Most important, every donation—no matter the amount—is a statement of support for the study of language, literature, and the humanities at a critical time. Advocacy
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19 The officers and other members of the Executive Council are elected by the MLA membership and have fiduciary and administrative responsibility for the association. President: Frieda Ekotto First Vice President: Dana A. Williams Second Vice President: Tina Lu Executive Director: Paula M. Krebs Ama Bemma Adwetewa-Badu, 2022–Jan. 2026 Samer Mahdy Ali, 2020–Jan. 2024 Esther Allen, 2021–Jan. 2025 Brenda Brueggemann, 2022–Jan. 2026 Rebecca Colesworthy, 2021–Jan. 2025 David Damrosch, 2023–Jan. 2027 Stacey Lee Donohue, 2023–Jan. 2027 Erin D. Graff Zivin, 2021–Jan. 2025 Lisa Karakaya, 2020–Jan. 2024 Leah S. Marcus, 2022–Jan. 2026 Ifeoma C. Kiddoe Nwankwo, 2022–Jan. 2026 Jahan Ramazani, 2020–Jan. 2024 Virginia Ramos, 2023–Jan. 2027 Ignacio Sánchez Prado, 2020–Jan. 2024 Election Cycle The association’s annual elections for second vice president, Executive Council, and the Delegate Assembly are held each year in the fall, and balloting ends on 10 December. Help shape the future of the MLA by getting involved, nominating yourself for offices, and voting in these elections. You can find out more about the election process, including nominations, by going to mla.org/Elections. MLA Officers and Council Members