Jennifer Soong receives the 2025 Arlt Award in the Humanities
CGS Contact: Kelley Karnes
602-791-8278 / kkarnes@cgs.nche.edu
PDF version of press release
Washington, DC —Today the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) presented the Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities to Jennifer Soong at University of Denver during an award ceremony held at the CGS 65th Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
The Arlt Award recognizes a young scholar-teacher who has written a book deemed to have made an outstanding contribution to scholarship in the humanities. Soong becomes the award’s 54th recipient for her book, Slips of the Mind: Poetry as Forgetting (University of Chicago Press, 2025). She received her PhD in English from the Princeton University in 2021.
In Slips of the Mind, Soong rethinks forgetting—not as a flaw or loss, but as a powerful source of creativity. Soong examines how gaps in memory, moments of oblivion, and slips in time can open up new artistic possibilities: fresh structures, desires, styles, and emotional textures. Through this lens, she positions the modern poet as someone uniquely shaped by, and responsive to, these generative absences. While exploring the work of Gertrude Stein, Lyn Hejinian, Tan Lin, Harryette Mullen, Lissa Wolsak, among others, the book contributes to a broader, alternative literary tradition built around the aesthetics of forgetting.
Chevelle Newsome, CGS President, said Soong’s work makes an important contribution to American literary scholarship and the humanities.
“With Slips of the Mind, Jennifer Soong reimagines forgetting into a creative force. This book is a triumph of intellect and scholarship—clear, imaginative and indispensable to the future of literary studies.” Newsome said. “This award is about supporting new voices, new leaders and celebrating early accomplishments, and I look forward to seeing all that Dr. Soong will accomplish as she continues her literary journey.”
Corinne Lengsfeld, Sr. Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Education, University of Denver, said that Soong’s winning of the award was meaningful recognition of her remarkable scholarship and creative achievement.
“At this moment in our nation, Jennifer’s recognition with this prestigious award underscores the power of the humanities to help us understand memory, meaning, and what it means to be human. Her book, Slips of the Mind: Poetry as Forgetting, reflects extraordinary intellectual creativity and a deep passion for exploring how literature captures the complexity of remembrance and loss,” Lengsfeld said. “Jennifer’s scholarship reminds us that art and critical inquiry remain vital to a thoughtful, empathetic society.”
Graham Hammill, Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, Dean of the Graduate School at the University at Buffalo, CGS Board Member and award committee chair, said the committee was unanimous in its endorsement, recognizing the book’s significant impact on the field.
“Jennifer Soong’s Slips of the Mind is a stunning achievement—intellectually rigorous, stylistically elegant, and deeply imaginative,” Hammill said. “Her work reshapes our understanding of modernist poetry and exemplifies the kind of bold, original scholarship the Arlt Award was created to honor.”
Created in 1971, the Arlt Award honors the first president of CGS, Gustave O. Arlt. The winner must have earned a doctorate within the past seven years and currently teach at a North American university. Nominations are made by CGS member institutions and are reviewed by a panel of scholars in the field of competition, which rotates annually among seven disciplines within the humanities. The winner receives a $1,000 honorarium and travel to the awards ceremony.
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About CGS
The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) is an organization of approximately 460 institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada engaged in graduate education, research, and the preparation of candidates for advanced degrees. The organization’s mission is to improve and advance graduate education, which it accomplishes through advocacy in the federal policy arena, research, and the development and dissemination of best practices.