DC Queers Win Big at the MLA GL/Q Caucus!

(L to R: Robert McRuer, Marilee Lindemann, and Dana Luciano. Photo Credit: Damion Clark)

It was a nearly clean sweep at the MLA GL/Q Caucus as three members of DC Queer Studies won awards at the annual gathering.

Dana Luciano, assistant professor of English at Georgetown University, won Honorable Mention for the Crompton-Noll Award for best essay in lesbian, gay, queer studies in the modern languages/literatures for her essay, "Coming Around Again: The Queer Momentum of Far from Heaven." The essay was published in GL/Q in vol. 13, number 2-3.

"The award pays tribute to Louis Crompton (University of Nebraska at Lincoln) and Dolores Noll (Kent State University), two early scholar/activists who helped found the gay and lesbian caucus of the MLA. The award recognizes the important work of lesbian, gay, and queer studies in the modern languages and the history that has helped make this current work possible."

Robert McRuer, associate professor in English at George Washington University, won the 2007 Alan Bray Memorial Book Award, which is given annually to a book in LGBT Studies by the GL/Q Caucus for the Modern Languages for his book, Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (NYU, 2006).

The judges for this year said:
"The members of the Committee were especially impressed by McRuer's original intervention in the area of queer studies, one that not only sheds light on the important new area of disability studies, but brings it into conversation with a variety of disciplinary perspectives, from composition studies to performance art. McRuer's book combines the public and the private work of queer studies in surprisingly new ways."

and

Marilee Lindemann, associate professor of English and director of the program in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies at the University of Maryland, won the 2007 Michael Lynch Service Award.

The award recognizes her extensive service in building and directing the University of Maryland's LGBT Studies program, as well as her innovative scholarship and teaching in queer studies. The Michael Lynch Service Award is meant, in Eve Kosofky Sedgwick's words, "to publicize and celebrate – as widely as possible – the range, the forms, the energy, and the history of queer activism in academics."

Kathryn Bond Stockton won the Crompton-Noll Award for best essay in lesbian, gay, queer studies in the modern languages/literatures for her essay, "Feeling Like Killing?: Queer Temporalities of Murderous Motives among Queer Children." Her essay was published in GL/Q in vol. 13, number 2-3.

Maria C. González, associate professor in English at the University of Huston, also won a Michael Lynch Service Award.

Congratulations to Dana, Robert, and Marilee on their awards.