Karla Mallette, professor of Italian and Mediterranean Studies and Chair of the Department of Middle East Studies, will be awarded the thirteenth annual Modern Language Association of America Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies for her book, Lives of the Great Languages: Arabic and Latin in the Medieval Mediterranean. The book, published by University of Chicago Press, addresses crucial issues of language learning, and culture in the Middle Ages through early modernity, as well as monolingualism in our multicultural (and multilingual) society. 

The Modern Language Association of America Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies is awarded to extraordinary works in the field of comparative literature over the previous year. The prize will be awarded on January 6th, 2023 during the annual convention in San Francisco, California.

When referencing Mallette’s book the Committee stated:

At once lyrical, engaged, and profoundly learned, Karla Mallette’s Lives of the Great Languages: Arabic and Latin in the Medieval Mediterranean is a thrilling example of the power, appeal, and breathtaking scope of comparatist literary scholarship at its best. In an account distinguished by both poetic force and scholarly ambition, Mallette limns the trajectories of two megalanguages of literary history: Arabic and Latin. These cosmopolitan languages, Mallette shows, function as agents of connectivity and spurs to desire; they detach themselves from time and place even as they create new geographies. Formally and conceptually inventive and infused with vibrancy, this book is a gorgeous testament to the worlding power of language.

Mallette arrived at U-M in 2009 and is currently the Chair of Middle East Studies. She also holds faculty appointments in Middle East Studies and Romance Languages and Literatures. Mallette has written three monographs, eight reviews, and twenty eight articles in journals and edited volumes. She is the first professor from RLL and Middle East Studies to receive this prestigious award. 

Congratulations to Karla Mallette!