A month of recognition, resonance, and renewed horizons.
by Fabiola M. Martinez Del Valle
As the semester winds toward winter, our English community continues to shine through scholarship, creativity, and public engagement. November brought distinguished awards, new publications, inspiring presentations, and features that highlight the vitality of our department. Let’s celebrate the month’s achievements together.
Awards & Achievements
- Alison Rollins’ Black Bell won the 5th Annual Maya Angelou Book Award, announced at the Writers for Readers dinner at the Kansas Public Library, which administers the award along with six Missouri universities.
- Joe Nosek was inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame at Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago, with an induction speech by Tomiko Dixon, granddaughter of Willie Dixon.
- Lisa Marvel Johnson and Joe Nosek were officially appointed to the Teaching Professor series, Lisa as Assistant Teaching Professor and Joe as Teaching Professor, effective Fall 2025.
- Ellen Cecil-Lemkin received a Forward in Access Award from the McBurney Disability Resource Center for exemplary efforts supporting student accessibility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- Ralph Grunewald and Anja Wanner each won a Hessen Incentive Grant from the UW-Madison International Division to develop a COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) course with a German university.
- Ainehi Edoro and Anja Wanner were selected for the inaugural UW-Madison Faculty Fellowships in AI and Knowledge within the Center for Humanistic Inquiry into AI and Uncertainty, beginning spring 2026.
- Theresa Delgadillo’s public humanities project Latinx Talk was selected by the Open Access Community Investment Program of LYRASIS, securing fundraising support for the next three years.
Publications
- Óscar Useche published “Imposture, Dilettantism, and the Artificiality of Tradition in Leopoldo Alas’s La Regenta” in Hispanic Studies Review (Vol. 9, No. 2, 2025).
- Ainehi Edoro published “African Literary Culture and the Archival Stakes of Social Media” in the Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies (Vol. 13, No. 2, 2025).
- Dantiel Moniz announced the sale of her forthcoming book Beholder to Scribner.
Presentations
- Ramzi Fawaz released the full first season of his podcast Nerd from the Future, with episodes on Teaching Gen Z, the future of DEI, and the value of humanities education. The season concludes with a live episode recorded at UC Berkeley, where Fawaz discusses psychedelic humanities with scholar Ramsey McGlazer. Listen here.
Publicity
- The Division of the Arts published a feature on Maryhilda Obasiota Ibe, MFA alum and current fellow: “Prizewinning Nigerian poet once again chooses Madison”.
- A song Joe co-wrote and recorded, The Wine Talkin’, was included in The All-Time Greatest UW Playlist, featured in On Wisconsin alumni magazine.
- Publishers Weekly published an article, “African Publishers Battle ‘Wakanda Problem’ as Market Grows,” that centers on a session led by Ainehi Edoro at the Sharjah Publishers Conference, “Inside the African Literary Market: What Global Publishers Need to Know.” The article shows the growing global attention to the work Brittle Paper is doing to document the African literary ecosystem.