Awards and Honors

3 Humanities professors among 5 UCLA faculty to receive Guggenheim Fellowships

Five UCLA professors — including three from the UCLA Division of Humanities — are among the 171 Guggenheim Fellows for 2023. Presented annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the fellowships recognize the recipients’ prior achievements and exceptional promise. The grants, which vary in amount, are intended to “further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions.” Representing the Humanities Division are professors Michael Berry (Asian Languages and Cultures), Alex Purves (Classics) and Michael Rothberg…

Dominic Thomas wins international Gutenberg Research Chair honor

Last November, Dominic Thomas, Madeleine L. Letessier Professor of French and Francophone Studies in the UCLA Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies, won the Gutenberg Research Chair. As part of his prize, he will serve as lead investigator on a project, “Ecology and Propaganda.” “This honor is a testament to the remarkable timeliness, power and scope of Dominic Thomas’ work,” said Alexandra Minna Stern, dean of the UCLA Division of Humanities. “We are proud to have him representing our division, university and field on a global scale as he innovates new approaches to critically studying pressing environmental and ecological…

Professor Elizabeth DeLoughrey discusses Guggenheim Fellowship

Elizabeth DeLoughrey, a UCLA professor of English who also holds an appointment in the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, received a 2021 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in the category of literary criticism in recognition of her existing work and future potential.  DeLoughrey teaches postcolonial literature courses on the environment, globalization, and the Anthropocene with a focus on the Caribbean and Pacific Islands. She has published several books, including her latest, “Allegories of the Anthropocene” (Duke University Press, 2019), and co-founded the UCLA Postcolonial Literature and Theory Colloquium. In addition to being honored with a Guggenheim, DeLoughrey has…

Professor Dominic Thomas honored as Officer in the Order of Academic Palms

Dominic Thomas, Madeleine Letessier Professor of French in the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies, has been named an Officer in the Order of Academic Palms, or l’Ordre des Palmes académiques. The Academic Palms is the oldest civilian award given out and is second only in age to the Legion of Honor. They were created in 1808 by Napoléon Bonaparte to honor university professors. The French Minister of National Education recommends nominees for the honor to the French Prime Minister, who, if she or he is in agreement, issues an official decree naming recipients. Julie Duhaut-Bedos, Consul General of France…

Professor Maite Zubiaurre selected to join Faculty Mentoring Honor Society

Professor Maite Zubiaurre has been selected to join the Faculty Mentoring Honor Society. The society recognizes UCLA faculty who have given much time and effort to the work of mentoring early and mid-career faculty, especially underrepresented faculty at UCLA. The work of mentoring is too often invisible and unrecognized, and such faculty contribute disproportionately to mentoring on campuses and deserve recognition. The society honors the mentorship of underrepresented faculty with respect to identities such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and disability. For more information on Professor Zubiaurre’s accomplishments and featured work, please click here.

English professor named distinguished alumna by UC Santa Cruz

Harryette Mullen, a professor of English at UCLA, was named the University of California Santa Cruz’s 2022 Humanities Division Distinguished Graduate Student Alumna. UC Santa Cruz’s five academic divisions annually select one graduate student alumnus to be their Distinguished Graduate Student honoree. Mullen received the distinction for the Humanities Division. Mullen has taught a wide range of courses in her time at UCLA including creative writing courses and classes focused on American and African American literature.  “At UCLA, I am blessed with brilliant colleagues in a department that encourages interdisciplinary study and innovation,” Mullen said according to the UCSC Newscenter….

UCLA professor receives award for promoting Spanish language and culture

Barbara Fuchs is the first recipient of the Ñ Prize, an award created to honor individuals who have promoted Spanish language and culture internationally. The Ñ Prize was created by the Instituto Cervantes, a Spanish public institution created in 1991 with the intent to promote the Spanish language through education and use of the language and to encourage the spread of Hispanic cultures globally. The Instituto Cervantes is also currently planning to open a branch in LA. The introduction of the Ñ Prize also aligns with the 30th anniversary of the institution. Fuchs, a professor of Spanish and English, said…

Art history professor Charlene Villaseñor Black wins MRPI Funding Award

UCLA Art History Professor Charlene Villaseñor Black was recently awarded over $1 million in funding as a winner of the 2019 Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives (MRPI) competition. MRPI funding encourages innovative research collaborations across UC campuses that lead to cutting edge discoveries in areas that are important to UC, California, and the global society. Professor Villaseñor Black and her colleagues Professor Jennifer Hughes (UC Riverside), Professor Amy Lonetree (UC Santa Cruz), and Professor Ross Frank (UC San Diego) were one of sixteen awardees selected from the 179 applications to receive funding for their project titled “Critical Mission Studies at…

Alain Mabanckou’s novel ‘Black Moses’ wins 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award

Franco-Congolese poet and novelist Alain Mabanckou won the 2018 Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award for fiction for “Black Moses,” a novel that follows the journey of an orphan from Loango through a revolution in the Congo to Pointe-Noire and the home of a madam with “ten girls, each more beautiful than the last.” “It all began when I was a teenager, and came to wonder about the name I’d been given by Papa Moupelo, the priest at the orphanage in Loango: Tokumisa Nzambe po Mose yamoyindo abotami namboka ya Bakoko,” the novel opens. “A long name, which in Lingala…