Two Northwestern faculty members will be honored today for their literary contributions to combatting homophobia.
Dwight McBride, chairman of the African-American studies department, and Jennifer Brody, incoming director of undergraduate studies in English, are receiving two of this year’s four Monette/Horwitz Trust Achievement Awards at the Lambda Literary Awards in Los Angeles.
McBride additionally will be given a Lambda Literary Award in the fiction anthology category for co-editing “Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual African American Fiction.” The Lambda Literary Foundation is the only national nonprofit organization dedicated to recognizing gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender writings.
“It is gratifying to know that someone was taking note enough to notice the work we are trying to do,” McBride said. “And even when I encounter resistance, that demonstrates all the more the need for it to be done.”
McBride has written extensively on issues of race, sexuality and their interaction.
“One of the things I saw that had happened as a result of African-American studies really coming of age … was there was a kind of conservatism in the way we think about race,” McBride said. “It very much left out of a discussion of sexuality.”
He said women have made significant efforts to be included in the discussion of black issues and hopes to see a similar push to include sexuality in that discussion.
“I think it’s the next frontier in African-American studies,” said McBride, adding that NU has positioned itself at the field’s “cutting edge” by recruiting faculty such as himself and Brody.
McBride said receiving this award has cemented his commitment to build a doctorate program in African-American studies at NU, which he hopes will reflect issues addressed in his own research.
Brody also said she wants to see more discussion of sexuality at NU. She currently is working to add a sexuality studies concentration to NU’s gender studies department.
An associate professor with a joint appointment in the English, performance studies and African-American studies departments, Brody follows artists and intellectuals who speak out against racism, misogyny and homophobia. She said her work focuses on “how race and sexuality get connected.”
“I never could understand bracketing off certain kinds of inquiry,” Brody said.
Brody said she will donate some of the $2,500 from her award to organizations she works with, including one aimed at fighting AIDS and another that funds feminist plays. The rest of the money will go toward researching her next book, which she said was inspired by writer Paul Monette’s work.
Monette, best known for his 1988 book Borrowed Time, which helped humanize the AIDS plague, established the Monette/Horwitz Trust.
Aside from writing her book, Brody plans to focus on her new position in the English department.
“I’ve been thinking about the curriculum,” said Brody, who joined NU’s faculty last year. “And I want to learn more about Northwestern students and become more integrated into the university community.”
