Monthly Archives: March 2014

Grant Awarded for the Development of Humanities CORE

The MLA and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services’ Center for Digital Research and Scholarship are pleased to announce that they have been awarded a $60,000 start-up grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to begin development of Humanities Commons Open Repository Exchange, or Humanities CORE. Humanities CORE will connect a library-quality repository for sharing, discovering,… Read more »

Encourage Your Representatives to Support the Humanities

The National Humanities Alliance asks MLA members to encourage their representatives in Congress to sign letters to preserve funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). By signing House and Senate “Dear Colleague” letters, your representatives can demonstrate their support for the NEH to congressional appropriations committees. The deadline for representatives to sign the… Read more »

2014 Presidential Forum Published in Profession

Presentations from the Presidential Forum at the 2014 MLA Annual Convention have now been published in Profession. Focused on the theme “Vulnerable Times,” the essays by Ariella Azoulay, Judith Butler, David L. Eng, Rob Nixon, and Diana Taylor acknowledge vulnerabilities (environmental, political, economic) and assert the possibility for resistance that stems from them. As Marianne… Read more »

MLA Supports Academic Freedom in South Carolina Institutions

The MLA joined several other organizations in signing a letter criticizing the South Carolina legislature, which defunded programs at the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina, Upstate, because it objected to assigned reading. The letter states that “penalizing state educational institutions financially simply because members of the legislature disapprove of specific elements… Read more »

New Guidelines on Letters of Recommendation

MLA President Margaret Ferguson and the Executive Council have released new guidelines for writers, readers, and requesters of letters of recommendation. Shaped by comments received from MLA members during a comment period on MLA Commons, the guidelines urge job seekers and letter writers to communicate early about deadlines, necessary background materials, and the logistics of… Read more »

Comment on a Delegate Assembly Resolution

At its meeting on 11 January 2014 in Chicago, the Delegate Assembly approved a resolution that the Executive Council has forwarded to the membership for a ratification vote. Before the vote is conducted, 2014 MLA members are invited to comment on the resolution on the MLA Web site (log-in required) until 5:00 p.m. (EDT) on 16… Read more »

Submit Convention Program Forms by 1 April

If you’re planning a session for the 2015 MLA Annual Convention in Vancouver, to be held 8–11 January, please visit the MLA Web site to access forms for submitting program copy and for proposing sessions. The deadline for all forms is 1 April. Special-session proposals and nonguaranteed-session proposals will be reviewed by the Program Committee… Read more »

Help Shape Cultural Excursions for the 2015 Convention

Are you interested in participating in MLA-sponsored excursions during the 2015 MLA Annual Convention in Vancouver? If so, let us know which of these categories of excursions would appeal to you: art galleries or museums, libraries, science or natural history museums, food and wine tastings, architecture tours. Post your preferences by using the Leave a… Read more »

PMLA Special Topic: Literature in the World

MLA members are invited to submit essays on literature in a diverse and multilingual world for a special issue of PMLA. The issue will seek to provide a critical reflection on the diversity of both dominant and less-taught languages and of their spheres of use, to engage with the vernacular and the indigenous as critical… Read more »