Book co-authored by UNF professor wins 2023 Teaching Literature Book Award
“The Teaching Archive: A New History for Literary Study,” co-authored by Dr. Laura Heffernan, professor of English at the University of North Florida, won the 2023 Teaching Literature Book Award (TLBA) presented by the Idaho State University Department of English and Philosophy.
The TLBA is a national prize that recognizes the best book on teaching literature at the collegiate level. The award is presented biennially by the faculty in the English graduate programs at ISU. Nominated books are judged by a committee of external and internal reviewers.
“The Teaching Archive: A New History for Literary Study,” explores the history of teaching literature in the 20th century. Heffernan and co-author Rachel Sagner Buurma, associate professor of English at Swarthmore College, examine the syllabi, course notes, lectures and assignments from some key literary critics and authors, including T.S. Eliot, I.A. Richards, Caroline Spurgeon, Josephine Miles and Simon J. Ortiz.
Heffernan’s book shows that core ideas and texts of 20th century literary study have arisen not at elite research universities, but in classrooms at small liberal arts colleges, public universities, HBCUs and community colleges. In other words, engaging, challenging work with students from a range of backgrounds and in all kinds of post-secondary classrooms developed many of the most influential critical approaches to literature.
“We’re so honored to receive the Teaching Literature Book Award,” Heffernan and Buurma jointly commented. “The award is especially meaningful because the prize — like our book itself — honors the everyday teaching of literature as not only worthy of scholarly attention but formative of our core intellectual and disciplinary histories.”
The book also received the 2022 Modernist Studies Book Prize from the Modernist Studies Association as well as the Best Monograph Award from UNF in 2022.
“The Teaching Archive: A New History for Literary Study” can be found at the Chicago Press website. More information about the award, including past winners, is available on the ISU Teaching Literature Book Award webpage.