The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences here at Illinois is
celebrating its centennial this year. As part of the celebration, we’ve already
heard about the naming of Centennial Scholars. Now the College has announced a
new set of honors. A “Gallery of Excellence” has gone up on the LAS website
that will highlight the teachers, researchers, academic programs, and alumni
who have been responsible “for some of the most important ideas and discoveries
of the 20th and 21st centuries.”
I’m pleased to report that English is represented in the
first round of honorees that is now available. I can’t think of a more
deserving person to be singled out than Nina Baym, emerita professor of
English, who is indeed responsible for many important ideas and discoveries!
Nina held a number of the most prestigious titles available on this campus
during the course of her career, including Swanlund Endowed Chair, Jubilee Professor
in the College of LAS, and Center for Advanced Study Professor of English. What
is important is of course not the names of those positions but the work that
stands behind them: Nina is universally recognized as a major figure in
changing the way we think about American literary history. She is especially
and rightly renowned for expanding the canon of American literature so that it
would take into account and value many women writers previously left out of the
picture. Among her numerous important books during the course of a very rich
career are Women’s Fiction (1978), Feminism and American Literary History
(1992), and Women Writers and the
American West, 1833-1927 (2011). Among the signs of her prominence in the
field are her ongoing editorship of The
Norton Anthology of American Literature (since 1985), and the many awards
she has won, including the Modern Language Association’s Jay B. Hubbell Award
for lifetime achievement in American literary studies (2000). Congratulations,
Nina! You honor us by being part of our community.
While we’re on the topic of honors, I’m also very happy to
report that Feisal Mohamed has received a new award. His co-edited collection Milton and Questions of History (2012) has
just been awarded the Milton Society of America’s Irene Samuel Memorial Award,
the highest honor from the society for a collection of essays. This is the second consecutive year that Feisal has received an award from the MSA. The award will
be bestowed at the upcoming Milton Society Association conference in Chicago.
Congratulations, Feisal, for receiving this further recognition of your work!