Jonathan Culler, the Class of 1916 Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) is the winner of the 2026 Wayne C. Booth Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for the Study of Narrative (ISSN).
A specialist in literary and cultural theory and French literature of the 19th century, Culler has written on structuralism, theory and criticism, semiotics and contemporary and comparative literary theory. Many of his books have been translated into more than 25 languages.
“Through the concept of naturalization, Culler’s work has shaped numerous conversations in cognitive and unnatural narrative theory,” said Marco Caracciolo, ISSN past president. “His reappraisal of narratorial omniscience and work on narrative's relationship with the lyric have also left a profound mark on contemporary narratology.”
Culler will receive the award in June 2026 during the ISSN conference in Aarhus, Denmark, an event that will include a panel devoted to his scholarly contributions and celebrating his career.
The Lifetime Achievement Award has gone to some of the biggest figures in literary theory of the last 50 years, said Gavin Walker, professor and chair of the Department of Comparative Literature (A&S).
“Jonathan Culler’s importance to the history of literary theory, and really to the humanities as a whole, can’t be overstated,” Walker said. “His presence at Cornell turned the university into one of the key centers for literary, critical and cultural theory in the entire world, and as colleagues who try to continue his defense of the place of theory in the humanities, we are thrilled (but not surprised) by this major recognition of his accomplishments.”
Culler’s career as a Cornell professor began in 1977. In 1982, he was named the Class of 1916 Professor and he retired in 2020.
His book “Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of Literature” won the Modern Language Association’s James Russell Lowell Prize in 1975. His other books include “On Deconstruction: Literature and Theory After Structuralism” (Cornell University Press, 1982), “Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction” (Oxford University Press, 1997), and “Theory of the Lyric” (Harvard University Press, 2015).
Among other literary leadership roles, Culler has been president of the American Comparative Literature Association, secretary of the American Council of Learned Societies, and chair of the New York Council for the Humanities. He served on the editorial board of the Cornell literary journal Diacritics from 1977-2017 and as its editor from 1993-98 and 2004-05 and held editorial positions at many other journals. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001, to the American Philosophical Society in 2006 and to the British Academy in 2020.
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