The MLA would like to congratulate the three members who were named 2026–27 National Humanities Center fellows. Fellows will pursue independent research projects as residential scholars at the center, where they will have an opportunity to further develop their ideas through seminars, lectures, and conferences.
Olabode Ibironke, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Field of study: African studies
Project title: The Republic of Laughter: Television and the Affective Archives of Postcolonial Nigeria
Vanessa Pérez-Rosario, Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York
Field of study: American studies
Project title: Las Girlfriends: A Cultural History of Latina Feminist Writing from 1980 to 1994
Kyla Wazana Tompkins, University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Fields of study: Nineteenth-Century American studies and food studies
Project title: Acquired Tastes