Faculty Recognition Award: Anne Curzan
Anne Curzan has won a Faculty Recognition Award from the College of Literature, Science and the Arts.
In her seven years at U-M, Ann Curzan, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, associate professor of English language and literature, Department of English Language and Literature; associate professor of linguistics, Department of Linguistics, LSA; and associate professor of education, SoE, has built a remarkable record of achievement in all areas of academic activity — research, teaching and service. Accolades for her “stellar intellectual and professional accomplishments” in multiple areas are numerous. In 2007 she won both the Henry Russel Award and a Thurnau professorship.
Curzan’s central scholarly work is in English diachronic syntax and semantics, the study of how the English language has changed and developed over time. More particularly, because of her 2003 book “Gender Shifts in the History of English,” she has been called “the leading authority on issues of grammatical gender in the history of English.” This book, which is a synthesis of historical linguistics, corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics, has commanded a large and diverse audience of students, linguists, cultural and literary historians, and general readers.
With a background in both linguistics and English language and literature, Curzan has wide-ranging interests and capacities, all of which she pursues with the same passion and competence that she brings to her central work in diachronic syntax and linguistic gender. She is a serious student of semantics and lexicography and an expert on North American English. And she has an intellectual passion for all issues that involve teaching, teacher training, the politics of pedagogy and classroom dynamics. She has co-authored both a book on teaching, “First Day to Final Grade,” and a textbook in her field of study, “How Language Works,” among her many other publications. She currently is working on two more books on the history of the language.
Her teaching of both undergraduate and graduate students is called “transformative” — for colleagues and other teachers as well as for students. She also has been invited to speak about teaching on campuses around the country and internationally.
In Curzan’s service to the Department of English, she successfully fashioned and instituted a radical revision of the undergraduate curriculum, and has taken on the task of directing the first-year writing program.