uncnews.unc.edu

Linda Wagner-Martin, Frank Borden Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has received a lifetime achievement award in American literary studies from the Modern Language Association.

The association’s Jay B. Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Achievement in American Literary Studies is given each year “to a scholar who has made an extraordinary contribution to the study of American literature over the course of his or her career.” Wagner-Martin was cited as being “a pioneer, a standard-setter and an exemplar for more than a half century.” 

William “Bill” Andrews, senior associate dean for the fine arts and humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences, presented the award to Wagner-Martin.

“As an editor, she has also been extraordinarily productive, having published 26 edited essay collections, bibliographies and reviews of scholarship,” he said. “When I reflect on the fact that Linda has published an average of one book per year for the last half century, I don’t know what to admire more — the creativity or the stamina.”

Wagner-Martin’s other awards and recognitions include a Guggenheim Fellowship, and she was a senior fellow at the National Endowment for the Humanities.

She has edited or written 50 books, including biographies on Sylvia Plath, Gertrude Stein, Ellen Glasgow, Barbara Kingsolver and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald. She also co-edited the “Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States” and its accompanying anthology with Cathy N. Davidson.

College of Arts and Sciences contact: For a photo, contact Kim Spurr, (919) 962-4093, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it