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


Activities of the American Literature Section

The ALS-MLA carries out its mission in several ways:

American Literature
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
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, Henry Nash Smith, Gay Wilson Allen, Cleanth Brooks, Malcolm Cowly, Robert Penn Warren, Alfred K azin, R. W. B. Lewis, Leon Edel, Richard Poirier, Leslie Fiedler, Houston A. Baker Jr., Nina Baym, Paul Lauter, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Lawrence Buell. The 2009 recipient is Cecelia Tichi of Vanderbilt University.

Norman Foerster Prize
The ALS also presents the Norman Foerster Prize for the best essay published annually in American Literature. The 2009 winner is Nicholas Gaskill's "Red Cars with Red Lights and Red Drivers: Color, Crane, and Qualia" (81:4, December 2009). Jordan Alexander Stein's "Mary Rowlandson's Hunger and the Historiography of Sexuality" (81:3, September 2009) and Hsuan L. Hsu's "Vagrancy and Comparative Racialization in Huckleberry Finn and 'Three Vagabonds of Trinidad'" (81:4, December 2009) have received honorable mentions.

2008 Don D. Walker Prize
Mark Rifkin’s essay “Documenting Tradition: Territoriality and Textuality in Black Hawk’s Narrative” (80:4, December 2008) has received the 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.

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
Jacqueline Goldsby (University of Chicago), 2010
Gavin Jones (Stanford University), 2010
Melani McAlister (George Washington University), 2010
Gretchen Murphy (University of Texas, Austin), 2010
Siobhan B. Somerville (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), 2010
Joanna Brooks (San Diego State University), 2011
Elizabeth Maddock Dillon (Northeastern University), 2011
Brian M. Reed (University of Washington), 2011
Karen Shimakawa (New York University), 2011
Sean Kicummah Teuton (University of Wisconsin–Madison), 2011
Sara Blair (University of Michigan), 2012
Jeannine Marie DeLombard (University of Toronto), 2012
Nancy Glazener (University of Pittsburgh), 2012
William J. Maxwell (Washington University in St. Louis), 2012
Paula Rabinowitz (University of Minnesota), 2012

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 offi cio, 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.

Related links:


American Literature
American Literary Scholarship
American Literature Section Web site

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