A Penn State Brandywine English instructor has earned international recognition for her article on Michael Arlen, a highly influential Jazz Age literary figure, writes Christina Billie for Penn State Brandywine.

Lusine Mueller, a part-time instructor of English at Penn State Brandywine, has been awarded the First-Degree Laureate Award from the All-Russian Society of Scientific Researchers in the 2026 International Competition of Research Works in Philological Sciences.

The award honors her article, “Michael Arlen’s ‘The Green Hat’: Reassessing the Impact a Hundred Years Later,” published in the journal Literature of the Americas.

“The Green Hat” was first published in January 1924.

Recovering a Titan of the 1920s

Mueller’s award-winning article notes that in the 1920s and 1930s, Michael Arlen was the highest-paid author on both sides of the Atlantic. He moved in the same literary circles as Aldous Huxley, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, H.G. Wells, and Nancy Cunard — the defining voices of an era.

Her article traces Arlen’s influence, demonstrating how some of the most famous writers of the Jazz Age borrowed ideas and motifs that Arlen had developed in “The Green Hat.”

In 2012, Mueller published a full-length book on the author. Michael John Arlen, the author’s son and a celebrated figure in his own right as a television critic for The New Yorker and winner of the 1975 National Book Award for “Passage to Ararat,” wrote the preface to Mueller’s book.

“I was fortunate to be granted exclusive interviews with him about his father’s work,” Mueller said. “I subsequently published some of those exclusive interviews.”

A Scholarly Relationship Built Over Decades

Her research has been shaped and encouraged throughout by Harry Keyishian, whom she credits as the leading scholar in Arlen studies and one of her most important mentors.

“His support always meant a great deal to me,” she said.

In 2023, English literary critic Philip Ward published Keyishian’s book on Michael Arlen, “Encounters with Michael Arlen,” citing Mueller’s work and listing her among scholars who had significantly contributed to the field.

“I am proud to be among a handful of scholars who have studied Michael Arlen’s works and published scholarly articles on them,” Mueller said. “It is the highest honor to be recognized as part of the small circle of literary critics who have devoted serious scholarly attention to Arlen.”