Dr. Brooks Hefner receives Madison Scholar Award
English
SUMMARY: Professor of English, Dr. Brooks Hefner, is the 2026 College of Arts and Letters Madison Scholar Award recipient.
Each year, the College of Arts and Letters recognize one faculty member for the Madison Scholar Award, which is given to faculty who exemplify excellence and scholarly achievement in their respective disciplines.
This year’s recipient of the 2026 College of Arts and Letters Madison Scholar Award is Dr. Brooks Hefner. Hefner is the author of two books: Black Pulp: Genre Fiction in the Shadow of Jim Crow (2021) and The Word on the Streets: The American Language of Vernacular Modernism (2017). He is co-editor of Claude McKay: Letters in Exile, which was published by Yale University Press this summer. Hefner has also published numerous journal articles and book chapters.
In her nomination letter, Interim Department Head, Dr. Annette Federico, writes that “Over the years, I have seen him soar as a scholar, earning a Provost’s Research Award, the Edna Shaeffer Humanist Award (multiple times), a Virginia Humanities Grant (twice), the Roop Professorship in the English Department, and an NEH grant.” She noted that Hefner “is a disciplined and tenacious scholar and an amiable and interesting speaker, with the kind of generous intelligence and sincerity of intellect we need in academia now.”
Hefner is a Professor of English and has been with the department since 2009. He specializes in American fiction, 1865-1945; popular literary genres (hard-boiled crime and detective fiction, dime novels, and westerns); American modernism; American periodical culture; silent film and film history; popular film genres; American language and slang; literature and the American Left; jazz and literature; and early sound recording history and technology.
Visit Hefner’s faculty profile for more information on his publications and research:
