Dr. Lin Knutson receives 2021-2022 Humanities Teacher of the Year Award

April 1, 2022

By: Jasalyn Lucas, Communications Specialist

The Office of Academic Affairs at Mississippi Valley State University is excited to announce Dr. Lin Knutson as the 2021-2022 Humanities Teacher of the Year.

“I feel honored, humbled, and valuable to the university for being named Teacher of the Year by the Mississippi Humanities Council. This award allowed me to reflect on teaching and its importance,” said Knutson.

The Mississippi Humanities Council Public Humanities Awards recognize Mississippians for bringing the insights of the humanities to public audiences. This year’s awards event was a public ceremony and reception Friday evening, March 25, at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson.

On Tuesday, March 29, 2022, Knutson held a presentation at 11 a.m. in the Cliff E. Williams Auditorium. The exhibition was open to the university community and local community. Dr. Knutson’s presentation was on Octavia E. Butler and Selected Fiction Texts.

Knutson is an English professor at MVSU and has worked for the university for ten years. 

She shared her influences for choosing Octavia E. Butler for her presentation and explained the author’s background, predictions, style, and science fiction texts.

“There are not many science fiction writers, but the ones that exist have had a heavy influence from Octavia Butler,” said Knutson.

“Butler presents a multiracial world and a vision of humanities as fundamentally flawed, saying that we are both intelligent but also hierarchical. She believed intolerance of racism, violence, and gender discrimination all stem from a hierarchical characteristic in humans,” Knutson said during her presentation.

Knutson says that Butler’s writing can be found between traditional African American literature and science fiction.

“Putting this presentation together allowed me to think about Butler, community, and how inspiring it is to hear about the epidemic and teaching about it,” she said.

“I hope that this award allows me to become a better teacher, and it reminds me to be resilient and find new ways to approach teaching students in the classroom after the pandemic,” she added. 

While at MVSU, Knutson has taught ten different courses in the English department. She has also been active in faculty-student collaboration in helping students prepare for conferences such as MVSU Research Day and the English Sigma Tau Delta Conference.

Knutson has a book under contract through Lexington Press, Rites of Passage in the Science Fiction novels of Octavia E. Butler. She also has a second book considered by Ohio State University Press. Knutson has also published articles in the University of Toronto Quarterly and has a chapter in a book Representing 9/11.

The humanities faculty at Mississippi’s colleges and universities continue to produce great work in their classrooms and offices while creating opportunities for Mississippians to learn about themselves and the larger world and enrich communities through civil conversations about our history and culture.