The Faculty Recognition Awards are intended for mid-career faculty members who have demonstrated remarkable contributions to the university through achievements in scholarly research or creative endeavors; excellence as a teacher, adviser and mentor; and distinguished participation in service activities of the university and elsewhere. Eligible candidates include full professors with no more than four years in rank, and tenured associate professors.
Megan Sweeney
Arthur F. Thurnau Professor; professor of English language and literature, professor of Afroamerican and African studies, professor of women’s and gender studies and chair, Department of English Language and Literature, LSA
Megan Sweeney is a distinguished literary scholar, known for methodologically innovative research that draws from African American literary and cultural studies, feminist theory, material cultural studies and auto theory. She joined the U-M faculty in 2004. Her acclaimed first monograph, “Reading Is My Window: Books and the Art of Reading in Women’s Prisons” (2010), was a groundbreaking exploration of cultures of reading in penal contexts. Her second monograph, “Mendings” (2023), centers clothing and textiles in reflecting on possibilities for mending interpersonal, historical and environmental forms of brokenness and loss. Sweeney has received prestigious fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard. For 15 years, she has served as an executive officer in one or more of her three departments, contributed to significant curricular and program initiatives, and developed a reputation as an exemplary mentor, teacher and colleague. Her colleagues affirm her tireless devotion to building and improving communities across the university.
The information for this story was written and provided by the Office of University Development and compiled by Genevieve Monsma of The University Record.
