American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association
- Official Site: http://als-mla.org
The American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association comprises scholars, teachers, and students of American literature and culture. The section sponsors the journal American Literature and the annual volume American Literary Scholarship, sponsors two plenary sessions and a cash bar at the annual MLA meeting, and is linked to the MLA's American Literature divisions. Membership is open to any member of the MLA. Correspondence regarding the section and its work should be directed to its executive coordinator, Joycelyn Moody.
Benefits of Membership
• One-year subscription to American Literature (four issues)
• The annual hardbound American Literary Scholarship volume
• Electronic access to current issues of American Literature through HighWire Press, as well as electronic access to American Literary Scholarship, beginning with the 1998 edition, through HighWire Press
• Electronic access to back volumes of American Literature through JSTOR
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American Literary Scholarship features bibliographic essays arranged by writer and time period, from pre-1800 to the present, and acts as a “systematic evaluative guide to current published studies of American literature” (ALA Booklist). Each volume of American Literary Scholarship covers content from two years previous to the volume.Membership in the American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association includes the following: a one-year subscription to American Literature, a copy of the annual hardbound American Literary Scholarship, electronic access to current and back volumes of American Literature through a combination of HighWire Press and JSTOR, and electronic access to American Literary Scholarship, beginning with the 1998 edition, through HighWire Press.
Abstractors and Indexers:
Indexed/abstracted in the following: Humanities International Complete, Humanities International Index, International Bibliography of Periodical Literature (IBZ), Literature Online, MLA Bibliography.
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Organization and Officers
The American Literature Section is presided over by an advisory council. Six of its members are elected directly by the members of the section, two each year for staggered three-year terms. One of the elected council members in the last year of his or her term is elected chair of the section each year. The advisory council also includes the executive coordinator, who is elected by the section (the post is now held jointly by two people); the chairs of the seven MLA American literature divisions, who are elected through the MLA's annual ballot; and, ex officio, the editor of American Literature. The advisory council must approve the selection of the editor of American Literature, who serves a five-year term, and appoints, with the approval by ballot of the section as a whole, five members each year to the American Literature editorial board. (The board members serve staggered three-year terms.) The chair appoints, for various terms, the members of the Hubbell Award and Foerster Prize committees, as well as the members of the advisory council's nominating subcommittee and any ad hoc committees that may be needed to carry out the section's work.
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The ALS-MLA carries out its mission in several ways:
The American Literature Section elects the editorial board of American Literature and approves the appointment of the editor, who is always a member of the faculty of Duke University. American Literature is beyond question the flagship journal in American literature. It has won numerous prizes, including an award for the Best Special Issue of 1998 from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals. Its editors and contributors have included some of the most distinguished scholars in American literature. The current editor is Priscilla Wald.
American Literary Scholarship reviews and evaluates the vast amount of scholarly work on American literature each year. Experts on the major American authors and on the various periods of American writing report on the scholarly work in each field.
Committee on Scholarly Editions
The Committee on Scholarly Editions, the successor of the advisory board of the Center for Editions of American Authors, inspects and certifies the accuracy of newly edited editions of major authors. The need for a way to certify the accuracy of scholarly editions was first recognized by Americanists within the MLA, and the Committee on Scholarly Editions grew out of the American Literature Section. Its work, however, has broadened considerably, and the committee now inspects the texts of scholarly editions of works from any nation, period, or language. Editions that display the committee’s emblem represent the highest level of textual editing. Most recently, the committee has focused on the electronic publication of scholarly texts.
Jay B. Hubbell Award
For more than thirty years, the American Literature Section has presented a medal to a scholar whose lifetime of scholarly work has significantly advanced the study of American literature. Recipients of the Hubbell Award, named for Jay B. Hubbell, the founding editor of American Literature, include Willard Thorp, Gay Wilson Allen, Cleanth Brooks, Malcolm Cowly, Robert Penn Warren, Alfred Kazin, Leon Edel, Richard Poirier, Leslie Fiedler, Houston A. Baker Jr., Nina Baym, Paul Lauter, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Lawrence Buell, and Cecilia Tichi. The 2011 recipient is Linda Wagner-Martin.
Norman Foerster Prize
The ALS also presents the Norman Foerster Prize for the best essay published annually in American Literature. The 2012 winner is Toni Wall Jaudon, for her essay "Obeah's Sensations: Rethinking Religion at the Transnational Turn" (84:4, 715–41). Honorable mentions have been awarded to Edlie Wong, for her essay "Comparative Racialization, Immigration Law, and James Williams's Life and Adventures" (84:4, 797–826); and Kay Yandell, for her essay "The Moccasin Telegraph: Sign-Talk Autobiography and Pretty-Shield, Medicine Woman of the Crows" (84:3, 533–61).
2012 Pioneer Award
David M. Higgins received the Pioneer Award from the Science Fiction Research Association for the best critical essay-length work on science fiction or fantasy from the previous year. His essay, "Toward a Cosmopolitan Science Fiction," appeared in the June 2011 "Speculative Fictions" issue of American Literature (83:2, 331–54). Everett Hamner received
an honorable mention for his essay "The Predisposed Agency of Genomic Fiction," published in the same issue (414–41).
2013 Don D. Walker Prize
Kay Yandell's essay "The Moccasin Telegraph: Sign-Talk Autobiography and Pretty-Shield, Medicine Woman of the Crows" (84:3, 533–61), received the 2013 Don D. Walker Prize, awarded annually by the Don D. Walker Prize Committee and the Western Literature Association for the best essay published on western American literature in the previous year.
2011 Hennig Cohen Prize
Cody Marrs was awarded the Hennig Cohen Prize for his essay "A Wayward Art: Battle-Pieces and Melville's Poetic Turn" (82:1, March 2010). The prize is awarded annually by the Melville Society for excellence in scholarship and writing in an article or book chapter on Melville published in the preceding year.
Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Essay Prize
Michael C. Cohen's essay "Contraband Singing: Poems and Songs in Circulation during the Civil War" (82:2, June 2010) has been awarded the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies (INCS) Essay Prize for the best work of interdisciplinary scholarship published by a member in 2010.
MLA Convention Sessions
At each convention of the Modern Language Association, the American Literature Section sponsors two sessions, which are invariably among the best-attended and influential meetings at the convention. At the 2009 convention in Philadelphia, the ALS sessions were "Politics Makes American Literature: Crossing National Boundaries," chaired by Sarah R. Robbins, Texas Christian University, and "Politics Makes American Literature: Confronting Issues," chaired by Joycelyn K. Moody, University of Texas at San Antonio.
Coordination of MLA American Literature Divisions
The American Literature Section also coordinates the work of the seven MLA divisions that study American literature: American Literature to 1800; Nineteenth-Century American Literature; Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century American Literature; Twentieth-Century American Literature; Black American Literature and Culture; American Indian Literature; and Asian American Literature.
Editorial Board, American Literature
Priscilla Wald (Duke University), Editor
Glenda R. Carpio (Harvard University), 2013
Peter Coviello (Bowdoin College), 2013
Amy Abugo Ongiri (University of Florida), 2013
Kathryn Bond Stockton (University of Utah), 2013
Ed White (University of Florida), 2013
Mary Pat Brady (Cornell University), 2014
Josephine Nock-Hee Park (University of Pennsylvania), 2014
Susan Scott Parrish (University of Michigan), 2014
Jed Rasula (University of Georgia), 2014
Robert Warrior (University of Illinois), 2014
Andrew Hoberek (University of Missouri), 2015
Stephanie LeMenager (University of California, Santa Barbara), 2015
Marianne Noble (American University), 2015
Sonnet Retman (University of Washington), 2015
Milette Shamir (Tel Aviv University), 2015