Greetings colleagues,

I am writing to ask for your help in completing a brief survey about teaching age studies.  I am looking to find respondents who both:

 teach undergraduates (baccalaureate or associate level) in the American higher education system, and
address the topics of aging, old age, and/or ageism in those undergraduate c…[Read more]

Warner’s essay is concerned that students will continue to be ill prepared for college because of Common Core testing:  https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/unfortunately-i-am-ready-common-core

Disability and Interdependence

What are alternatives to the binary of independence/dependence in disability discourse? How might rhetorics of care illuminate and intervene in disability’s perception/representation? 250 word abstract and 1 page CV by 15 March 2015; Elizabeth Bearden (ebearden@wisc.edu).

17th-Century Britain/and/or/in Europe
Special Session
A panel reframing geographical and literary contours: literary, political, or philosophical concerns; networks; thinking beyond ‘Crisis’; questioning current institutional barriers. 300 word abstract by 21 March 2015; Sharon Achinstein (sachins1@jhu.edu) and Anston Bosman (abosman@amherst.edu).

Dear Members of the Interdisciplinary Approaches to Culture and Society discussion group,

I am organizing a special session on literary and legal approaches to personhood for the 2016 MLA in Austin. Please consider submitting an abstract, due March 15. Below are the full CFP and a more detailed description. The CFP can also be found here:…[Read more]

The deadline for proposals about “The Oldest Profession:  Teaching and Aging” has been extended to 3/15/15.  The panel, co-sponsored by the Age Studies Forum and Teaching in the Profession Forums will take place at the annual convention of the Modern Language Association, in Austin, Texas January 7-10, 2016.

What difference does age make in w…[Read more]

Dear Members of the Interdisciplinary Approaches to Culture and Society group,
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Please consider submitting an abstract for our special session, “Teaching Memory Studies.” Here’s the full CFP:

Teaching Memory Studies

Integrating studies of memory and literature: e.g. memory as metaphor, personal or collective pract…[Read more]

Dear Members of the Teaching of Literature group,

Please consider submitting an abstract for our special session, “Teaching Memory Studies.” Here’s the full CFP:

Teaching Memory Studies

Integrating studies of memory and literature: e.g. memory as metaphor, personal or collective practice, neuroscience, narrative hindsight, cinematic flash…[Read more]

Proposals invited for MLA roundtable session on innovative approaches to teaching literature surveys. Papers may encompass the practical (e.g., syllabus design, teaching strategies, assignments/assessment), the institutional (i.e., ways of introducing curricular innovation), and/or the theoretical (i.e., on place of the survey course in our…[Read more]

***SPECIAL OFFER***
Studies in American Humor has additional copies of its landmark, jumbo special MAD issue (n.s. 3, no 30, fall 2014) with guest coeditor John Bird—
“MAD MAGAZINE AND ITS LEGACIES”
a splendiferous 224 pp. issue devoted to one of the most important American comic innovations of all time
For new members, or members who were not m…[Read more]

This panel will consider the audiences for Bukowski’s oeuvre and public self in conversation with the social milieus of his fictional counterpart, Chinaski. Specific topics panelists might explore include, but are not limited to:

The varying nature of Bukowski’s reception across time and space (his contemporary European reception, for instance,…[Read more]

Call for Papers for a guaranteed panel at the Modern Language Association

(MLA) Annual Convention, 7-10 Jan. 2016, in Austin.

Satire and the Editorial Cartoon

Ever since the days of William Hogarth and his brand of pictorial satire, expressing an opinion on the politics of the day in print demanded a combination of humor, hyperbole, and c…[Read more]

Organizers: Thomas Beebee (Penn State – University Park) & Bhavya Tiwari (U of Houston) 

Papers that theorize a construction of polylingual literary history in local, national, and global contexts are invited to imagine a manifesto for a transnational and transregional comparative literary historiography for this special session of MLA 2016 at…[Read more]

“Literature and the Public Sphere: Connecting Classroom and Community”

The focus of this session is on the interconnections, both actual and possible, between what we teach in the literature classroom and the world beyond that classroom. This can mean looking at literature that engages public events/ideas/issues, as well as exploring the ways lit…[Read more]

“Literature and the Public Sphere: Connecting Classroom and Community”

The focus of this session is on the interconnections, both actual and possible, between what we teach in the literature classroom and the world beyond that classroom. This can mean looking at literature that engages public events/ideas/issues, as well as exploring the ways lit…[Read more]

When Diane Ravitch spoke to the MLA  two years ago, she predicted that the push for Common Core standards would soon be extended to state colleges and universities. That moment has come.

The Florida State Board of Education now is offering grants to support collaboration between state colleges and K-12 systems. I have a copy of my college’s gr…[Read more]

If you’re concerned about the place of eighteenth-century studies in the new forum structure being implemented by the MLA, you might consider applying to the following proposed special session for the 2016 convention in Austin:

Naming the 18th Century. What’s at stake in naming this period “long” (1660-1830), “short” (1715-1789), early modern, En…[Read more]

A call for papers for the 2016 convention now up at mla.org:

Naming the 18th Century. What’s at stake in naming this period “long” (1660-1830), “short” (1715-1789), early modern, Enlightenment (etc.)? What’s its role in the new MLA forum structure? 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2015 to Dustin D. Stewart (dustin.d.stewart@gmail.com) and Joshua…[Read more]