2019 Hubbell Medal: 

The winner of the 2019 Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Achievement is Lauren Berlant, George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor, Department of English, University of Chicago.

We will recognize Professor Berlant during the MLA Awards Ceremony on Saturday, January 11, 2020, from 7-8 pm in the Sheraton, Grand A. Thanks to the Hubbell Committee, chaired by Susan Griffin (with Jay Watson, Elizabeth Dillon, Rodrigo Lazo, and Herman Beavers), for your work this year. Of Berlant, Griffin writes:

“What takes place in her thinking and writing is NOT the performance of the powerful critic who condescends to uncover the unwitting ideologies of subjects and texts. Citizens, as Berlant sees them, are not the helpless and unknowing victims of an all-powerful, uniform, enforced normativity. Instead of such—I want to say ‘professional’—disdain, what Berlant expresses, again and again is respect for and curiosity about our multiple, varied attachments and aspirations. [….] This is a pedagogy of curiosity—her students’ and her own. For curiosity is, I would venture, precisely what drives Berlant’s more-than-considerable body of work: how do citizens and lovers feel? Why do they feel that way? How else might they feel?”