Dr. Alex Vernon Receives NEH Fellowship

The Division of Research Programs for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded a 12-month research fellowship to Dr. Alex Vernon, Julia Mobley Odyssey Professor of English at Hendrix College.

Vernon’s application was one of only 99 approved out of 1,220 received across all four NEH fellowship programs. He is the first Hendrix faculty member to receive an award of this scope from the NEH.

Citing prominent historical and art exhibits that reflect on the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, and the 18-hour nonfiction film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, Vernon says the time is right for also revisiting the literary history of this decade-long war.

“A lot of readers know Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried—it is one of the most assigned contemporary works of fiction in U.S. high schools and colleges. But O’Brien’s career doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There’s a rich historical, literary, and personal context,” he said. “Also, and sadly, we are losing those voices. Michael Herr, the author of Dispatches, died in 2016. Larry Heinemann, whose postwar novel Paco’s Story shocked everyone when it won the National Book Award over Toni Morrison’s Beloved, died only last month. I was very fortunate to visit with Larry this past summer. So there is some urgency to this task.”