La Marr Jurelle Bruce Wins First Book Award From the Modern Language Association

La Marr Jurelle Bruce, an associate professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, was awarded the 2022 MLA Prize for a First Book from the Modern Language Association. The Modern Language Association is the world’s largest scholarly humanities association.

Dr. Bruce’s prize-winning book, How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity (Duke University Press, 2021), is a sweeping study of black artists who activate madness in radical literature and performance — and in broader projects of art-making, self-making, and world-making. According to the selection committee’s citation, “Bruce develops original and provocative readings across media and genres, and the impact of his work will be felt in multiple fields and disciplines.” The book also received the 2022 Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista Outstanding Book Award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association.

Dr. Bruce is a graduate of Columbia University, where he majored in African American studies and English and comparative literature. He holds a Ph.D. in African American studies and American studies from Yale University.  Dr. Bruce joined the faculty at the University of Maryland in 2014 and was promoted to associate professor in 2020.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Get the JBHE Weekly Bulletin

Receive our weekly email newsletter delivered to your inbox

Latest News

Recent Books of Interest to African American Scholars

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education regularly publishes a list of new books that may be of interest to our readers. The books included are on a wide variety of subjects and present many different points of view.

North Carolina A&T State University Mounts Effort to Educate Heirs Property Owners

Heirs property is land passed down through a family, often over multiple generations and to numerous descendants, without the use of wills or probate courts. In North Carolina, the value of land owned as heirs property is estimated at nearly $1.9 billion. Heirs property is disproportionately held by Black landowners.

Higher Education Grants or Gifts of Interest to African Americans

Here is this week’s news of grants or gifts to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.

New Legislation Aims to Boost Entrepreneurial Efforts of HBCU Students

Congresswoman Nikema Williams (GA-05) has introduced the Minority Entrepreneurship Grant Program Act, bipartisan legislation that creates a grant program with the Small Business Administration for entrepreneurs at minority-serving institutions like historically Black colleges and universities.

Featured Jobs