MLA Members Awarded August 2025 NEH Grants

Posted by Colleen Baer

Congratulations to the six MLA members who were awarded National Endowment for the Humanities grants in August 2025! Their projects include a volume on Walt Whitman’s journalistic writing; a virtual institute on the history of literary education; a research center focused on AI, the humanities, and the health sector; and more.

Deborah Gussman
Project Title: Letters of American Author Catharine Maria Sedgwick: An Online Edition
Project Description: Preparation for publication of an open-access digital edition of the complete letters of the early American writer Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789–1867).

Kevin McMullen
Project Title: “Missing Me One Place, Search Another”: Locating and Digitally Editing Walt Whitman’s Unsigned Journalism (1846–48)
Project Description: Preparation for publication of the journalistic writing of Walt Whitman (1819–92) while editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Cristanne Miller
Project Title: Marianne Moore’s Notebooks: A Dynamic Record of Poetry in the Making of Twentieth-Century Culture
Project Description: Preparation for publication of selections from twelve of the literary notebooks of the American modernist poet Marianne Moore (1887–1972).

Deborah Mutnick
Project Title: The Federal Writers’ Project: New Directions for Research, Teaching, and Public Engagement
Project Description: A three-week, combined virtual and residential institute for twenty-five college and university faculty members to study methods for teaching and researching the Federal Writers’ Project.

Andrew Newman
Project Title: Making the Good Reader and Citizen: The History of Literature Instruction in American Schools
Project Description: A two-week virtual institute for thirty middle and high school teachers on the history of literary education.

Kirsten Ostherr
Project Title: Center for Humanities-Based Health AI Innovation (CHHAIN)
Project Description: Establishing a collaborative humanities research center at Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University focused on integrating humanities knowledge into the development of trustworthy AI tools in the health sector.

Member Spotlight: Miriam Wallace

Posted by Colleen Baer

Miriam Wallace

Miriam Wallace, who first joined the MLA in 1986, is featured in our August member spotlight. Read about Miriam’s experience with how the MLA has evolved over the years and what impact MLA resources have had on her career:

“[T]he MLA has changed in some great ways—this is now the first place I go for professional advice and connections. The increase in professional panels at all levels from supporting graduate students to focusing on teaching to moving into academic leadership has been an important aspect of reinvigorating the organization. And I’m also heartened by efforts to represent the whole of our profession— we have groups focused on contingent labor, on 2-year colleges as well as 4-year, on regional universities as well as flagships. Especially in a moment when higher education is subject to attacks from all sides, any organization that matters needs to bring together voices from the full range of institutional types and those who work in them. And leveraging the MLA’s voice in concert with other learned societies for instance in joining the lawsuit to halt the demolition of the NEH is another sign of the power of our voices when joined together.”


Recommended resource: “For all those who are teaching regularly, I want to make a plea for including assignments that train students on working with the MLA Bibliography. First, it’s a great introduction to the entire conception of how to research a topic without simply going to a handy electronic collection. I started doing this years ago working with librarians—and it was revealing. Students were either going straight to JSTOR or to google.scholar (I used to just walk down the stacks)— and they really didn’t understand the limitations of those methods. Librarians sometimes offered too many options to students—by dialing into the bibliography we were able to focus on developing search skills (think a version of prompt engineering), showcasing developing areas of scholarship (ecocritical or disability focused or medical humanities work in say Victorian literatures), and starting to see themselves as in conversation with a larger scholarly world. And finally, while many of us depend on the bibliography (and we are lucky to be in a field where there’s a single very strong database like this), if our students aren’t using it, we may lose the resource on smaller, less-well-funded campuses as libraries track usage carefully in making budget decisions.”

Member Spotlight: Michael Jacobs

Posted by Colleen Baer

Michael Jacobs

For our July member spotlight, we’re highlighting the work of Michael Jacobs, a seven-year member of the MLA who serves as provost and vice president of academic and student affairs at Monroe Community College. Read about Michael’s work on the Committee on Community Colleges and which MLA resources he recommends other members take advantage of:

“Serving on MLA’s Committee on Community Colleges (as a member and chair) was a profoundly worthwhile experience. For one, it imbued me with a deep understanding of the state of humanities education in two-year institutions—not simply the challenges we’re facing, but also the opportunities we’ve been afforded to align our work more seamlessly with the access-oriented and equity-driven mission of the community college. And this has proved instrumental in my efforts to communicate the value of our disciplines and programs in academic, professional, and societal contexts.”

Recommended resource: “There are two that immediately come to mind. The first is the Institutes on Reading and Writing Pedagogy. I served on the committee that developed the curricular framework for this initiative (way back in 2018), and I can say unequivocally that it’s one of the professional accomplishments of which I’m most proud—both for the collaborative process that shaped it and for the lasting impact I know it will have. Again—just another example of the MLA’s grasp of the importance of AOIs. The second is the range of ongoing programs focused on humanities leadership development. Janine Utell (MLA’s associate director of academic program services and professional development) has done incredible work in collaboratively building professional learning opportunities to help burgeoning leaders not only advocate for the humanities—to (re)establish their central role in higher ed—but also make possible their innovation in alignment with the evolving educational landscape.”

MLA Members Awarded 2025 ACLS Fellowships

Posted by Colleen Baer

Congratulations to the six MLA members who have been awarded 2025 American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) fellowships. ACLS fellowships support untenured early-career scholars in the humanities and interpretive social sciences as they complete a major scholarly project.

  • Natalie Ghassan El-Eid, Georgetown University
  • Tonhi Lee, Tufts University
  • Anna Muenchrath, Florida Institute of Technology
  • Rovel Jerome Alex Sequeira, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Melanie Masterton Sherazi, California Institute of Technology
  • Sarah T. Weston, Washington University in St. Louis

Suggestions Invited for PMLA Editor

Posted by Colleen Baer

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 the content for each issue, and commissioning material for the journal’s special features. The MLA offers the editor significant support from the staff, as well as resources for networking on behalf of the journal, including participation at the association’s annual convention.

Qualifications:

The ideal candidate has a capacious intellectual vision and is conversant with developments in a wide range of fields. PMLA is a membership journal, and it is vital that the diversity of MLA members and their work be represented in the journal.

The editor should be able to work innovatively within the structures of the MLA and PMLA and to communicate and collaborate well with staff members and authors.

The editor must be a member of the MLA and preferably have had some experience with PMLA (as an author, a reviewer, or a member of the advisory committee or editorial board) or substantial editorial experience with another peer-reviewed scholarly journal in the field.

To suggest a candidate, please send an email to pmlaeditorsearch@mla.org by 6 October 2025.

Member Spotlight: Anne Lambright

Posted by Colleen Baer

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 young researcher, fresh out of grad school, I met impactful mentors and long term collaborators through attending MLA conventions. I had the privilege of serving on the PMLA Editorial Board–one of the highlights of my career and something I highly recommend. And, I’m thrilled that my translation and edited volumes on Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani, a group I’ve researched and written on for about twenty-five years, will be published in the Texts and Translations series this coming fall. I cannot imagine a more perfect venue for introducing Yuyachkani and their human rights theater to an English-speaking audience.”

Recommended resource: “I think it wasn’t until I moved into academic leadership that I fully understood the importance of our professional academic organizations and how tirelessly the MLA works to advocate for our interests and protect the future of language and literature teaching and scholarship. That work is even more important now, and I am extremely proud of and grateful for the courageous stand that the MLA has taken to fight for the NEH and to oppose attacks on higher education.

At the moment, the resources I am constantly turning to are the Advocacy and Resources on Legislative Threats to Higher Education pages [on the MLA website], and I’ve been grateful for the various resources on defending humanities work that I’ve made good use of over the years.”

Member Spotlight: Katherine Elkins

Posted by Colleen Baer

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 resource for members:

“Currently I serve as principal investigator representing the MLA for the US AI Safety Institute. Our MLA team consists of five members, and together we serve on nearly all of the key task forces. I believe it’s incredibly important to have specialists in writing and languages making sure our AI systems are safe, unbiased, and representative of the entire breadth of humanity’s cultural heritage. Last November, our team had the opportunity to present some of our safety research to the [Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute] Consortium, with many of the leading tech companies represented. Afterwards several AI researchers approached me and thanked the MLA for all of our incredibly important work in this field. I’m grateful to our organization for supporting the initiative.”

Recommended resource: “The yearly MLA conference is really a wonderful opportunity to put a face to people whose work you’re reading. This past January I finally had the chance to sit down and connect with people whom I had only known through writing. Don’t hesitate to reach out to people and invite them to coffee. Ask for a quick chat after a panel with someone whose work you like. We are all there to connect.”

MLA Announces 2025–26 Cohort of Pathways Step Grant Recipients

Posted by Colleen Baer

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 college students, and Pell Grant recipients.

“Students who are drawn to the humanities often don’t come into them with a clear sense of the skills, values, and perspectives they will develop in their courses and majors,” said Paula M. Krebs, the executive director of the MLA. “We are so glad that, with the support of the Mellon Foundation, Pathways can continue to bolster faculty members who are working to name, measure, and document the value of study in our fields and are increasing opportunities for their students every day, across the country.”

The selected projects, which come from all over the United States, introduce humanities students to an array of professions.

  • At the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, faculty members are developing three digital humanities courses to enhance students’ career readiness though digital tools and multimodal communication, all while bringing attention to Black narratives and cultural histories.
  • To boost student’s awareness of humanities careers in the region, faculty members from Appalachian State University, in North Carolina, are deploying a new academic success course paired with a speaker series dedicated to demystifying humanities career pathways.
  • At Western Illinois University, faculty members are using a three-pronged approach focused around career literacy to support internships, recruit new students, and build campus and regional partnerships.

The twenty-one projects, selected through a rigorous peer-review process, demonstrate an array of innovative approaches intended to engage and enrich humanities students in the classroom and beyond. The recipients of Pathways Step Grants will present their projects at the 2026 MLA Annual Convention, taking place in Toronto from 8 to 11 January. The twenty-one project directors are

  • Todd Barnes (Ramapo Coll of New Jersey) – “English Career Ramapo Alumni Mentoring Program”
  • Johana Barrero (Univ. of North Florida) – “Empowering First-Generation Success: Bridging Language Studies with Professional Opportunities at UNF”
  • Joanne Britland (Univ. of Florida) – “Comics and Community: A Transfer Student Pathway”
  • Mary Clinkenbeard (Southern Univ. and A&M Coll.) – “Creating a Career Readiness Program for English Majors and Minors at Southern University and A&M College”
  • Megan Cole (Victor Valley Coll.) – “Humanities Career Exploration Academy”
  • Cynthia Cravens (Univ. of Maryland, Eastern Shore) – “Inclusive Digital Humanities at an HBCU”
  • Darci Gardner (Appalachian State Univ.) – “Job-Hunting from Appalachia: A New Academic Success Course and Speaker Series on Career Paths in the Humanities”
  • Marcela Lemos (Utah State Univ.) – “Bridging Language Education and Career Opportunities in Utah: Consolidating the Translation and Interpretation Program through Multilingual Course Development”
  • Brian Lockey (St. John’s Univ., Queens) – “The Interdisciplinary Humanities and PreProfessional Studies”
  • Christine Marks (LaGuardia Community Coll., City Univ. of New York) – “Building Career-Informed Learning Opportunities for LaGuardia’s Health Humanities Students”
  • Martha Nadell (Brooklyn Coll., City Univ. of New York) – “Promoting Career Readiness across the English Department”
  • Amy Patrick-Mossman (Western Illinois Univ.) – “Serving Our Students, Serving the Region: Cultivating Career Pathways While Building Transfer and Internship Partnerships for English Majors and Minors”
  • Jenna Reynolds (Univ. of Alabama, Birmingham) – “Building Global Connections: Leveraging the Language Lab for the Professions”
  • Michele Ricci Bell (Union Coll., NY) – “Language in the Present Tense: Modeling, Mentoring and Mapping Language Proficiency for Career Readiness”
  • LeeAnne Richardson (Georgia State Univ.) – “English Major Internships for Recruitment and Retention”
  • Jonathan Shelley (St. John Fisher Univ.) – “Developing Learning Communities with the Fisher Urban Scholars”
  • LeAnne Spino (Univ. of Rhode Island) – “Forging Pathways for Academic and Professional Success for International Studies and Diplomacy Students”
  • Amanda Van Lanen (Lewis-Clark State Coll.) – “Be a Creative Writing Student for a Day”
  • Miaowei Weng (Southern Connecticut State Univ.) – “Enhancing Career Readiness in World Languages: A Comprehensive Intervention at Southern Connecticut State University”
  • Anne Wheeler (Springfield Coll.) – “Pathways to Writing”
  • Claudia Yaghoobi (Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) – “Middle East and Islamic Studies Career Pathways Initiative

The Pathways Step Grants are funded by a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation. The MLA step grants are housed under a new initiative, MLA Pathways: Recruitment, Retention, and Career Readiness, which supports departments and programs in literature, language, writing, culture, area studies, and related disciplines to build tools, networks, and resources for the recruitment, retention, and career readiness of undergraduate students. Central to the Pathways program is the creation of new structures of support at the program, campus, and regional levels for students from groups underrepresented in the humanities, especially students of color, first-generation college students, and Pell Grant recipients.