Jasmine An, a joint PhD Candidate in English and Women's and Gender Studies, has received the English Department's Lora Hutchins Heberle Award for Outstanding Achievement in Critical Writing, for her essay, “‘a handful of syllables thrown back across the water’—experimental media interventions to the embedded politics of language learning.”  

In the citation for the award, Aida Levy-Hussen, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in English, described An's essay as "remarkable for its nimble and revelatory close readings, its knowledgeable and compelling historical contextualization, and its important interventions into a wide range of scholarly discourses, including contemporary theories of reading, gender studies, Asian American Studies, and critical race studies."

The Heberle Prize is awarded by the preceding year’s Graduate Advisory Committee, for a critical essay originally completed as a requirement for a graduate course in this department within the past three years.  The criteria for evaluation include freshness, maturity, sustained argument, consistent supple style, and potential contribution to the field.