Literature Faculty
For full faculty bios visit our Faculty page.
Erik Dussere
Jim Hinkle Memorial Prize for Faulkner scholarship, 2000-2005 (awarded 2006)
Toni Morrison Society Recognition for Balancing the Books: Faulkner, Morrison, and the Economies of Slavery, presented at the Third Biennial Conference of the Toni Morrison Society, 2003
Deborah Payne Fisk
Theatre History Initiative grant recipient (three-year NEH Exemplary Program Grant in conjunction with The Shakespeare Theatre), 2002-2005
Folger Shakespeare Library Long Term Fellowship, 2000-2001
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Short Term Fellowship, 1999
Huntington Library Short Term Fellowship, 1998
Folger Institute for Renaissance and Eighteenth-Century Studies Course Release, 1998
American University Distinguished Teaching Award, 1992
NEH/Folger Shakespeare Library Short Term Fellowship, 1990
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Short Term Fellowship, 1989
Mellon/William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1986
Despina Kakoudaki
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2004-2005
Clark-Cooke Grant for Research in the Humanities, Harvard University, 2001-2003 and 2004-2005
Course Innovation Award, Harvard University, 2002 and 2003
Chancellor's Fellowship, University of California at Berkeley, 1997
Fulbright Scholarship, 1991-1996
David Keplinger
2007 Colorado Book Award for The Prayers of Others (poetry)
2005 Erskine Prize from Smartish Pace Magazine
2003 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
2001 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship
1999 T.S. Eliot Prize for The Rose Inside (poetry)
Charles R. Larson
Award of Excellence in the Criticism of African Literature, International Conference on African Literature and the English Language (University of Calabar, Nigeria), 2005
Senior Research Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1985-1986.
Fellow, The National Faculty, Atlanta, Georgia, 1979-.
Guggenheim Fellow, 1976-1977.
Younger Humanist Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1974.
Fulbright Lecturer for Africa, Department of State, 1973
Jonathan Loesberg
Fellowship to Rutgers Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture, 2002-03
University Senate Research Award, 2002
ACLS Fellowship, 1995-1996
American University College of Arts and Sciences award for achievement in scholarship, 1991
Co-Director, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, "From Romantics to Victorians: The Cultural Transition," 1990
Mellon Grant for Faculty Support, 1985
NEH Summer Stipend, 1984
Fellowship to NEH Summer Seminar, 1982
Fellowship to School of Criticism and Theory, 1981
Richard McCann
O. Henry Award, 2007
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 2006-2007
Goldfarb Fellowship in Nonfiction, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, 2006
Presidential Research Fellowship, American University, 2006-2007
John C. Zacharis First Book Award, Ploughshares Magazine, 2006
Finalist, PEN/Robert Bingham Award, 2006 (for Mother of Sorrows)
Finalist, Lambda Literary Award, 2005 (for Mother of Sorrows)
2006 American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book Award (for Mother of Sorrows)
American University 2005 Scholar-Teacher of the Year
Doris Roberts-William Goyen Fellowship, Christopher Isherwood Foundation, 2005
Washingtonian Magazine Best Books of 2005 (Mother of Sorrows)
10 Best Books of 2005, San Francisco Bay Times (Mother of Sorrows)
Reader's Digest Fellowship for Distinguished Writers, Corporation of Yaddo, 2005
The New York Times Fellowship, Corporation of Yaddo, 2003
Best American Essays 2000
Best Essay Award, National Association of Sunday Magazine Editors (for “To Whom It May Concern,” originally published in the Washington Post Magazine), 2000
D.C. Commission on the Arts Fellowships, 1997, 1993, 1992, 1990
Creative Writing Fellowship (fiction), National Endowment for the Arts, 1995
Finalist, Lambda Literary Award, 1995 (for Ghost Letters)
Beatrice Hawley Award, 1994 (for Ghost Letters)
Capricorn Poetry Award, 1994 (for Ghost Letters)
Stanley Kunitz Fellowship, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, 1993-94
Fellowship, Blue Mountain Center, 1992
PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, 1991
Fellowship, Djerassi Foundation, 1991
Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Fellowship, The MacDowell Colony, 1987 (other fellowships to the MacDowell Colony in 2001, 1997, 1993, 1991, and 1989)
1982-83 Senior Fulbright Lecturer in American Studies, Göteborg Universitet, Göteborg, Sweden
Master Poet, Virginia Commission on the Arts and Humanities, 1974
Charles Philbrick Fellow, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Provincetown, 1972-1973
Madhavi Menon
“Richard II and the Taint of Metonymy” cited in Literature-Compass as one of the five most influential pieces on Shakespeare in the last two years, 2004
Wanton Words nominated for the Phyllis Goodhart Gordon Book Prize, Renaissance Society of America, 2004
Marianne Noble
Choice Outstanding Book of the Year Award, 2000 (The Masochistic Pleasures of Sentimental Literature)
David Pike
Modernist Studies Association Book Prize (shortlist), 2006 (Subterranean Cities)
Canadian Studies Research Grant, Government of Canada, 2006.
Faculty Enrichment Grant, Government of Canada, 2001
American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 1998-1999
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 1998-1999
Choice Outstanding Academic Book for 1997 (Passage through Hell)
Council of Graduate Schools Gustave O. Arlt Award for Passage through Hell, 1997
University Research Award, American University, 1996-1997
Society of Fellows in the Humanities, Columbia University, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Comparative Literature, 1993-95
Roberta Rubenstein
Florence Howe Essay Award, Women’s Caucus of the Modern Language Association, 1999
University Scholar/Teacher of the Year, American University, 1994
University Sabbatical Research Award, 1991-1992
American University Faculty Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Development, 1989
Senior Scholar Award, American University College of Arts and Sciences, 1987
Outstanding Teacher Award, College of Arts and Sciences, 1987, 1979
National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Faculty Research Fellowship, 1981-1982
Fulbright Scholar, 1966-1968
Richard C. Sha
Benjamin Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society, 2008
NEH Summer Stipend for Senior Scholars, 2004
Andrew Mellon Fellowship, Huntington Library, 1999
Yale Center for British Art Fellowship, 1993
Anita Sherman
Mellon Seminar in Interpretation Fellowship, 2000
Marcela Sulak
Fulbright Artist-in-Residence/Teaching Fellowship, Israel 2007
First Prize, Academy of American Poets, 2002, 1992
Michael Wenthe
Visiting Fellowship, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, 2008
Rhodes Scholarship, 1995
College Writing Faculty
Robert Drummond
Finalist, Glimmer Train Press Short Story Award for New Writers, January 2007 (“Tourists”)
Mary Roberts Rinehart Award for Fiction, May 2006
Fishtrap Writing Fellowship, Fishtrap Inc, Summer 2006 (tuition)
Finalist/Publication, Sycamore Review Wabash Prize for Fiction, 2006 (“Life’s Funny that Way”)
Nominee, Pushcart Prize for Short Fiction, 2005 (“Motility”)
Cynthia L. Bair Van Dam
Mellon Grant Recipient, 2004, 2003, 2002
