MLA members are invited to suggest candidates to serve as editor of PMLA. The term of the current editor, Brent Hayes Edwards, ends in June 2026, and the new editor’s term, a three-year appointment, would begin 1 July 2026. Responsibilities include reviewing submissions, leading meetings of the editorial board, writing an editor’s column and selecting… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Feature
Member Spotlight: Anne Lambright
This month, our MLA member spotlight features Anne Lambright, a thirty-year member of the MLA. Read more about Anne’s work and how MLA resources have shaped her work: “The MLA has had a tremendous impact on my career, from my work as a scholar to my efforts in academic leadership and language advocacy. As a… Read more »
Member Spotlight: Katherine Elkins
For our May member spotlight, we’re highlighting Katherine Elkins, a twenty-year member of the MLA. Read about Kate’s work as a member of the MLA team for the US AI Safety Institute, a Commerce Department initiative to support the development of AI standards and guidelines, and why she thinks the MLA convention is an invaluable… Read more »
MLA Announces 2024–25 Cohort of Pathways Step Grant Recipients
The MLA today announced it is awarding the association’s Pathways Step Grants to twenty-one faculty teams in MLA-related disciplines. Each step grant provides up to $10,000 to support faculty members with the development of new structures, programs, and resources that bolster the recruitment, retention, and career readiness of undergraduate students, especially students of color, first-generation… Read more »
MLA Members Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Congratulations to the three MLA members who were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2025! This honor is a recognition of their remarkable contributions to language and literature studies.
MLA Members Named National Humanities Center Fellows
The MLA would like to congratulate the four members who were named 2025–26 National Humanities Center fellows. Fellows will pursue independent research projects as residential scholars at the center, where they will have the opportunity to further develop their ideas through seminars, lectures, and conferences. Patrick McKelvey, University of PittsburghField of Study: Theater, Dance, and… Read more »
MLA Members Receive 2025 Guggenheim Fellowships
Congratulations to the six MLA members who were awarded 2025 Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowships! This year marks the 100th class of Guggenheim fellows. In a statement about this year’s fellowship recipients, Edward Hirsch, the president of the Guggenheim Foundation, said, “We believe that these creative thinkers can take on the challenges we all face today… Read more »
Member Spotlight: Gaurav Desai
For our March member spotlight, we’re highlighting Gaurav Desai, an MLA member since 1989 and the current president of the Association of Departments of English (ADE). Learn more about how Gaurav’s involvement with the MLA has shaped his work: “[The MLA] is an organization that has consistently, over the years, advocated for the humanities, especially… Read more »
MLA Members Awarded January 2025 NEH Grants
Congratulations to the seventeen MLA members who were awarded National Endowment for the Humanities grants in January 2025! Their projects include new humanities courses that engage critically with AI, educational resources about Quechua and Zapotec languages and cultures, a collection of oral histories from residents of Jersey City, a book analyzing how Jack Kerouac’s bilingualism… Read more »
2026 Presidential Theme: Family Resemblances
Tina Lu, the 2025–26 president of the MLA, has chosen Family Resemblances as the presidential theme for the 2026 MLA Annual Convention in Toronto. Wittgenstein writes about how difficult it is to come up with categorical definitions of what constitutes a game. Even a quick glance reveals so much diversity: “we see a complicated network… Read more »