Tina Lu, the 2025–26 president of the MLA, has chosen Family Resemblances as the presidential theme for the 2026 MLA Annual Convention in Toronto. Wittgenstein writes about how difficult it is to come up with categorical definitions of what constitutes a game. Even a quick glance reveals so much diversity: “we see a complicated network… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Convention
2024 ALD and ADE Award Winners
Congratulations to the winners of the 2024 Association of Language Departments and Association of Departments of English service awards, Amy S. Thompson and Douglas Hesse. Amy S. Thompson, recipient of the ALD Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession, is an experienced language educator, accomplished researcher, and inspiring humanities leader. Thompson came into the national… Read more »
2025 Presidential Theme: Visibility
Dana A. Williams, the 2024–25 president of the MLA, has chosen Visibility as the presidential theme for the 2025 MLA Annual Convention in New Orleans. In the essay “Invisible Ink: Reading the Writing and Writing the Reading,” Toni Morrison uses the metaphor of invisible ink to suggest that one characteristic of flawless writing involves the… Read more »
Gates and Mitchell to Be Honored at MLA Annual Convention
2023 Presidential Theme: Working Conditions
2022 Presidential Theme: Multilingual US
Barbara Fuchs, the 2021–22 president of the MLA, has chosen Multilingual US as the presidential theme for the 2022 MLA Annual Convention in Washington, DC. The MLA can play a crucial role in imagining and supporting a linguistically diverse commons, to make language a tool of inclusion rather than exclusion. For those who care about… Read more »
Update on the 2021 Convention
Although the 2021 convention will be shaped by the current crisis and may look different from what we anticipated, we are looking forward to the opportunity to bring MLA members together again in January and are working toward this goal. Many members have already submitted session proposals, which the Program Committee will review in May…. Read more »
2021 Presidential Theme: Persistence
Judith Butler, the 2020–21 president of the MLA, has chosen Persistence as the presidential theme for the 2021 MLA Annual Convention in Toronto. The humanities is now compelled to fight for its own survival and to mark the path for persistence during intensely challenging times. Humanities scholars are especially alert to the precarity of our… Read more »
2020 Presidential Theme: Being Human
Simon Gikandi, the 2019–20 president of the MLA, has chosen Being Human as the presidential theme for the 2020 MLA Annual Convention in Seattle. The theme invites members to reflect on the role of literature and language in defining the nature of the human in the face of what appears to be its diminishment and… Read more »
2019 Presidential Theme: Textual Transactions
Anne Gere, the 2018–19 president of the MLA, has chosen Textual Transactions as the presidential theme for the 2019 MLA Annual Convention in Chicago. Textual transactions are the mutually constitutive engagements of human beings, texts, and their contexts. Transactions are more than mere interactions, in which separate entities act on one another without being changed at… Read more »