The Sounds of Humor

The Drama and Performance Forum and the Sound Studies Forum of the Modern Language Association (MLA) announce a co-sponsored session entitled “The Sounds of Humor” to be held at the MLA Convention in San Francisco, CA from January 5-8, 2023. What does humor sound like? Sounds tend to play an important role in performances inte…[Read more]

The Drama and Performance Forum solicits paper proposals for two guaranteed sessions at MLA 2023 in San Francisco:

Humor and Humorlessness before 1900  From the medieval period to the nineteenth century the concept of humor shifted from an aspect of human physiology, to the eccentric qualities of individuals or comic characters, to a mode of…[Read more]

The Chaucer Forum warmly invites submissions for our MLA 2023 (San Francisco, January 5-8) sessions:

Chaucer’s Ornamentalism and Gimmickry

This roundtable session brings Anne Anlin Cheng’s concept of ornamentalism and Sianne Ngai’s work on the gimmick into conversation with Chaucer’s work. For instance, in The Squire’s Tale, Canacee’s…[Read more]

How are various new media forms (e.g. apps, memes, gaming avatars, Webcast rites) creating performative representations of religion?  200-word proposals by March 15.  Manisha Basu, U of Illinois, Urbana (mbasu@illinois.edu ) Adrienne Brown, U of Chicago (adrienneb@uchicago.edu ).

More information: How have visual digital forms supplemented r…[Read more]

How do cleric-sleuths or other religious detective figures (e.g., Cadfael, Granchester, Father Brown, etc.)  navigate/challenge religion alongside police or state-sponsored will-to-knowledge? 200-word proposal to mbasu@illinois.edu by March 10.

More information: From G.K. Chesterton’s ‘Father Brown’ to Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael, from Harry…[Read more]

Memorialization, “entering the canon,” and the influence of politics, race, class, or gender. Who decides on the people, texts, places, dates, etc. selected to be commemorated, studied, and/or enshrined? Theorists such as Lonergan, Bourdieu, Girard, and Agamben have explored “sacralization” as a process of making holy or sacred that can inv…[Read more]

Please consider submitting a proposal for the following guaranteed session, sponsored by the LLC Canadian Forum:

“Working in Canadian Literary Archives”

Short papers on work in or about Canadian literary archives—issues, gaps, holdings, digitization, access, and how archives/archival objects intersect with notions or depictions of labour. P…[Read more]

Dear members,

As a member of the MLA Irish LLC, I am writing to begin a discussion about the way that the Irish forum could be most useful for your work and engagement. What kinds of posts, links, or connections would you like to see here? How can we best use this forum to connect with each other and encourage community building and…[Read more]

Greetings to the membership of LSL Linguistics and Literature!

Each year our Executive Committee says farewell to its longest-serving member and welcomes a new one.  The time has come (the Walrus said) for us to appoint a new EC member who would begin their service in January 2023. Our appointment form is due in one week, and we seek…[Read more]

Please consider nominating outstanding authors, scholars, educators, leaders, playwrights, artists, and editors for the  Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s prestigious awards.

Please visit ATHE’s website for submission information and other details (under the “awards” drop-down tab).

The deadline for nominations is February 1.

We a…[Read more]

The executive committee of the Arthurian Forum would like to solicit nominations (including self-nominations) for a new member of the executive committee who will serve from Feb. 1, 2022-Jan. 31, 2027. The new member must be an MLA member (if they aren’t currently, the appointee can join or renew and then be eligible); they cannot already be s…[Read more]