American Literature Section The Jay B. Hubbell Medal

The Hubbell Medal, which has been awarded since 1964, is named for the founding editor of American Literature. Jay B. Hubbell, a long-time professor at Duke University, was one of the pioneers of American literary scholarship. Hubbell championed treating American authors as objects of serious attention at a time when academic students of literature focused almost entirely on English authors. The award named for him has been awarded to some of the most distinguished practitioners of the discipline he helped create. The citations by which the awards were made and the acceptance speeches with which they were received, the more recent of which are available below, form an illuminating and often touching record of one part of the scholarly life.

The winner of the Hubbell Medal is selected each year by a committee of five eminent scholars, named by the chair of the American Literature Section, who serve staggered five-year terms on the committee.

Winners of the Hubbell Medal:

2011: Linda Wagner-Martin
2010: Frances Smith Foster
2009: Cecelia Tichi
2008: Sharon Cameron
2007: Lawrence Buell
2006: Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
2005: Martha Banta
2004: Sacvan Bercovitch
2003: Houston A. Baker
2002: Annette Kolodny
2001: Paul Lauter
2000: Nina Baym
1999: Paula Gunn Allen
1998: Louis J. Budd
1997: James M. Cox
1996: Blyden Jackson
1995: Blanche H. Gelfant
1994: Leslie Fiedler
1993: Leo Marx
1992: Merton M. Sealts, Jr.
1991: Lewis Simpson
1990: Edwin Cady
1989: Nathalia Wright
1988: Richard Poirier
1987: Daniel Aaron
1986: Leon Edel
1985: James Woodress
1984: Roy Harvey Pearce
1983: R.W.B. Lewis
1982: Alfred Kazin
1981: Lewis Mumford
1980: Robert Penn Warren
1979: Malcolm Cowley
1978: Cleanth Brooks
1977: Gay Wilson Allen
1976: Lewis Leary
1975: Henry Nash Smith
1974: Walter Blair
1973: Leon Howard
1972: Willard Thorp
1970: Howard Mumford Jones
1967: Robert E. Spiller
1965: Norman Foerster
1964: Jay B. Hubbell