Jennifer Tuttle named Ludcke Chair of Liberal Arts and Sciences for 2021-2022

Jennifer S. Tuttle, Ph.D., Dorothy M. Healy professor of Literature and Health in the University of New England School of Arts and Humanities and director of the Maine Women Writers Collection, has been named the Ludcke Chair of Liberal Arts and Sciences for 2021-2022.

The Ludcke Chair, funded by a generous bequest from the estate of Eleanor Ludcke (Westbrook College Class of 1926), is presented annually to a tenured member of the faculty of the college of arts and sciences in recognition of their outstanding academic accomplishments.

The chair holder must have attained the ideal of the “teacher/scholar,” a dedicated educator and productive researcher who has given time generously to the University of New England over a significant period.

Tuttle teaches courses on literature and health studies, U.S. literature and culture, women's writing, and the U.S. West. As part of her position of endowed chair in literature and health, she designs courses, pursues scholarship, and develops curricular and programming initiatives that integrate the health sciences and the humanities at UNE. She is also a co-founder and affiliated faculty of UNE’s Women’s and Gender Studies program.

Central to Tuttle's research is scholarship drawing on archival sources as well as the study of archives themselves. Much of her work engages in the recovery of texts, writers, and perspectives that are absent from or obscured by the historical record. As an example, Tuttle is editor of the first recovered edition of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1911 western “The Crux” (2002) and co-editor of two additional books on Gilman, a collection of her letters (2009) and a volume of critical essays (2011).

Tuttle earned her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California, Irvine, in 1989. She received her master’s in English and American Literature from the University of California, San Diego, in 1994 and earned her Ph.D. in literature from the same university in 1996.

In addition to the Ludcke Chair, Tuttle is the recipient of myriad awards for her work as a scholar and teacher, including Distinguished Alumna of the University of California, San Diego Department of Literature and the Kenneally Cup Award for Distinguished Academic Service to UNE, among others.

“I am so grateful to have been nominated for this award and honored to join the community of Ludcke Chairs, all of whom are individuals I admire and value deeply,” Tuttle remarked. “Even more, I am grateful to the wonderful students I have had the privilege to teach at UNE these past 20 years; their enthusiasm for rigorous humanities research, commitment to social justice, and intellectual curiosity inspire me every day and affirm why my scholarship matters.”