Search results for "Modern Language Association"

In an offering typical of the academic exotica on display at the Modern Language Association, and for that matter, in academia itself, a panel of profesors discussed what they called “queer (i.e. gay or homosexual) literature” and how it interacts with black magic, Caribbean culture, and black Canadian immigrant feminism. Rahul Gairola, an assistant professor […]

“Hamilton,” a popular Broadway hip-hop musical, has now made it into the Modern Language Association consciousness. At the 2017 convention held in Philadelphia, one professor dissected the significance of the musical for minorities in America. Scott Poulson-Bryant, an assistant professor at Fordham University who teaches African-American literature in the 20th century, pop culture, gender and […]

There is at least one way in which the Modern Language Association (MLA) that thousands of English professors belong to lives up to its name: they traverse in a vocabulary most of us working stiffs would never contemplate employing informally, or even formally. Here is a sampling of what we got to hear for four […]

Now here’s a man-bites-dog story: Labor strife at Berkeley. Janitorial, custodial and cafeteria workers at Berkeley are fighting to maintain their raise from $9 to $17 an hour with benefits at a university that prides itself on its progressive outlook. Three points need to be made about this: That may still put them on the […]

In the days before Wayne Gretzky brought elegance to hockey, a running joke about the sport was, “I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.” Something like this might be said of the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association (MLA), where thousands of English professors from around the world gather to […]

At the Modern Language Association (MLA) annual convention in Philadelphia this year, we got to see some of the “Creative Responses to Black Lives Matter” They included: A filmed street theater presentation on “The Shooting of Africa,” presented by Kimberly Welch of UCLA, and featuring actors with signs. A group called #JusticeforFlint, that did a […]

As we saw from interviews with students at last weekend’s protests, higher education, and lower, probably need to spend more time on self-improvement and less on self-esteem, just to further their own interests. For example, there was, as usual, at least one feminist who wanted to end women’s suffrage. You would think our left-wing friends […]

Just as political careers are often launched from electoral defeats, so too do academic careers blossom when Left wing movements fail. Examples of the former abound, from Ronald Reagan’s rise in the wake of the Goldwater defeat of 1964 to Barack Obama’s in the wake of John Kerry’s loss in 2004. For illustrations of the […]

One of the many ironies in academe is the degree to which academics invert reality. This tendency is usually on full display at the Modern Language Association (MLA) annual convention at which thousands of English professors from around the world gather to see and hear previews of the latest courses and “studies” that proliferate in […]

It is startling to realize how much the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. accomplished in a life span that did not even reach 40 years. At last year’s Modern Language Association (MLA) convention, Adrienne Brown of the University of Chicago remembered, arguably, one of Dr. King’s less successful crusades. In 1966 Dr. King and his […]

Here’s the problem with the English professors at the Modern Language Association (MLA) attempting to define humor: They’re not funny, at least intentionally. “Theories of life-writing do not work in stand –up comedy,” Dale Tracy of the Royal Military College of Canada said at a panel on Boundaries: Humor Studies, that was held at the […]

Occasionally, professors at the Modern Language Association (MLA) have good points to make. Unfortunately, they soon get buried in the MLA’s favorite themes and concepts. “Chicago remains one of the most deeply segregated cities in the United States,” Soyica Diggs Colbert of Georgetown said at this year’s MLA convention in Philadelphia. She then went on […]