Programs and Series

Co-Directors:

Priscilla Wald, R. Florence Brinkley Distinguished Professor of English, Duke University, and Co-Editor of American Literature

Sean X. Goudie, Director of the Center for American Literary Studies and Past Winner of the MLA Prize for a First Book

The stakes of successful publishing by early career professors in humanities fields are as urgent as ever given the many challenges confronting institutions of higher education and university presses. Responding to a glaring need in the field, the First Book Institute—now in its fourteenth year—features workshops and presentations led by institute faculty aimed at assisting participants in transforming their book projects into ones that promise to make a significant impact on the field and thus land them a publishing contract with a top university press. Eight successful applicants will be awarded stipends to defray the costs of travel and lodging for the institute, which is scheduled to be held in person at Penn State.

Congratulations to the eight successful applicants to this year’s institute!  They are: 

 

Akash Belsare, Assistant Professor of English, University of Illinois, Springfield

Project Title: Humanimal Narratives: Genres of Race and Species in Contemporary Literature

 

Kathleen Burns, Assistant Professor of American Studies/English, Oklahoma State University

Project Title: Vegetative Sciences: Plant Animacy, Life, and the Human in Literature and Science

 

Brandi Bushman, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Project Title: Sovereignty’s Glitch: Structures of Feeling in Native American Literature

 

Olivia Lafferty, Assistant Professor of English, Pomona College

Project Title: Transpacific Vibrancy: Listening across Asian American and Chicanx Texts

 

Peggy 경원 Kyoungwon Lee, Assistant Professor of English, Georgetown University

Project Title: Unflinching: Politics of Racial Composure

 

Caitlin Marshall, Assistant Professor of Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies,
University of Maryland, College Park

Project Title: Power in the Tongue: Sounding America in red, black, and brown

 

Kaitlin Moore, Assistant Professor of English, Wake Forest University

Project Title: Quantum Currents: Indigenous Cosmologies and Virtual Reality Poetics

 

Mitch Therieau, Assistant Professor of English, West Virginia University

Project Title: Senses of an Ending: Aesthetics in a Burning World