Free Republic

A panel on “Queer Ecology” was featured at the 2011 Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA). Four panelists provided their insights on the relationship between “queers” and the environment, coming to sometimes contradictory conclusions. In her lecture “Green Angels in America: Aesthetics of Equity,” Katie J. Hogan of Carlow University argued for “environmental justice,” and used as her vehicle the controversial play Angels in America. Hogan argued that Angels in America is a “contribution to this queer environmental effort” because it “links beauty, environment, and social justice” with an “esthetic of equity.” She argued that “minorities have the...

At almost any gathering of the self-described intellectual elite, it seems that irrationally celebrating hatred of Sarah Palin is practically mandatory. The 2011 Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention was no different. In his lecture entitled “Hicksploitation: or, the Cultural Emergence of Sarah Palin,” Scott Herring of Indiana U-Bloomington had a lot to say about Sarah Palin. Of course, all of it was negative. Herring began by describing Palin as the “once and future proponent of faux populist conservatism.” He talked about how Palin has repeatedly said that she is not a hillbilly, and how Palin has stated that the...

With a title like “Graphic Aging,” one might think that such a panel at the 2011 Annual Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention was meant to discuss porn for the elderly. However—thankfully—the Graphic Aging panel at this year’s MLA Convention had nothing to do with inappropriate images of nude grandparents, and everything to do with comic books. There’s a question parents and students alike may be wondering: why study comic books? Speaker Christopher Pizzino of University of Georgia addressed this question in his lecture entitled “Comics and the Problem of Bildungsroman: Charles Burns’s Black Hole” when he read aloud from the...

The 2011 Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention featured more than just lectures on language. One roundtable, entitled “Transmedia Activism,” dealt with both “technocultural innovation” and the more controversial idea of increasing political activism among students. Anne Balsamo of the University of Southern California talked about “designing culture” through “technocultural innovation” and argued that universities have a “responsibility” to create “publications and outreach in new modalities,” including modalities such as ebooks and Twitter. Radhika Gajjala of Bowling Green State University talked about the need for electronic representation in “global civil society,” and discussed the technological disparities across the world. But...

At the Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention in Los Angeles this month, one of thousands of English professors gave a lecture on a popular film. Although millions have seen this particular movie, it may be safe to say that few of those viewers have examined Dr. Strangelove with the interpretation offered at the MLA. Dr. Joseph Litvak of Tufts University argued that Dr. Strangelove is not just a former Nazi, but that he is also a Jew—a claim Litvak makes based on somewhat questionable evidence (the doctor’s hair and crippled body, and the fact that his creators listed several...

Although the U. S. Senate voted down the federal government’s latest attempt to expand government entitlements, academics remain just as adamantly for it. On December 18, 2010, as we reported, the U. S. Senate voted down the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. Last week, the radical caucus of the Modern Language Association (MLA) voted for it, as our correspondent on the scene at their Los Angeles confab—Allie Duzett—discovered. “Whereas the U. S. Senate voted down the ‘Dream Act,’ which would have granted undocumented students in high schools legal status by attending college, thus depriving them of...

At a time when most people pick out pine trees, many English professors make plans to travel to the annual convention of the Modern Language Association. Accuracy in Academia is, as usual, sending a correspondent to cover the event. Nevertheless, we thought that we would share with you what promise to be the most intriguing panels and presentations of the 2011 MLA meeting: o Dickens and Psychoanalysis o Queer Ecology o Literary Autism o Intolerance in Queer Cinema o Queer Studies and the future of the profession o Cultural Studies in Post-Socialist Spaces o Queering Lawrence [D. H.] o Queer...

Fostering Dissensus In Academia Bethany Stotts, January 26, 2010 At a recent Modern Language Association (MLA) panel on “The Future of Critical Exchange in Academe,” two professors discussed how to overcome conformism within the academic profession and foster critical conversations within the Humanities. In his speech, “Critical Affiliations,” Professor Jeffrey Di Leo described two types of professors, - a female “Professor Jones,” who adheres to the critical credo “if you don’t have anything positive to say about a student or colleague [then] it’s best not to say anything at all, at least not in public,” and - a male “Professor...

Critical Exuberance Defined Bethany Stotts, January 13, 2010 With a full year under his belt and approval ratings below 50%, many Americans seem disenchanted with President Obama’s leadership. Even former ivory tower advocates for the President, it seems, are criticizing hope and change in action. “I have to come out as a full participant in Obama mania leading up to the election and, in fact, my niece was employed by Obama and is now employed in his administration,” said Professor Janet R. Jakobsen, continuing, “so, my exuberance was perhaps uncritical at the time although now here at the end of...

Academic Wisdom Unboxed Bethany Stotts, January 8, 2010 As the Chronicle’s blog, Tweed, notes, it is an academic tradition for professors to “try to one-up their colleagues by exchanging unintentionally hilarious sentences from students’ exams and final papers.” (Some of these can be seen here, in the Chronicle forums). In a similar spirit, I will be providing some of the more striking statements made by professors discussing their papers at the 2009 Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention. These are from a panel called “Critical Exuberance” and arranged by the MLA Division on Gay Studies in Language and Literature. President Obama,...

2008 MLA Unplugged by: Bethany Stotts, February 17, 2009 When the Modern Language Association (MLA) held its 2008 Convention in San Francisco this December Executive Director Rosemary Feal decided to blog the conference. Among the notable Convention experiences Feal covered were her packing supplies, flight experiences, community college workshops, “Welcome to the MLA” socials, and pedagogical seminars, and award ceremonies. “I’m really looking forward to this convention, because it showcases what’s best about the MLA,” wrote Feal the day before the Convention started. “We are, first and foremost, an association of teachers.” She marks out sessions such as “a roundtable...

McCarthy Unplugged by: Bethany Stotts, February 05, 2009 More than half a century after Senator Joseph McCarthy’s hearings, Americans continue to paint frightening portraits of these “red witchhunts”—often without regard for the facts of the time. As M. Stanton Evans writes in Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies, “So deeply etched is the malign image of McCarthy that the ‘ism’ linked to his name is now a standard feature of the language, defined in all the dictionaries as a great evil and routinely used this way by people accusing others...

Red Badge of Courage by: Bethany Stotts, January 29, 2009 Just as students sporting t-shirts of Che Guevara are often ignorant of his bloody revolutionary record, so too it seems that champions of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade suffer from a peculiar form of “historical amnesia” promoted by academics and activists alike. But in Professor Char Prieto’s case, the decision to continue lauding the Soviet-influenced Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (VALB) stems not from ignorance of the these values, but their acceptance. “After World War II the movement to stop Communism was rampant in the United States. Therefore, anything associated...

The Wondering Wanderer by: Bethany Stotts, January 29, 2009 As Accuracy in Academia (AIA) has previously documented, members of the Ivory Tower, some of whom remain ardent Marxists themselves, maintain that McCarthyite “hysteria” suppressed free expression in the 1950s and led to the unjustified blacklisting of those with socialist sentiments. But one poet, Langston Hughes, may not be as innocent as these academics suggest. “Yet two decades later, even as he was composing his memoir of this event, Hughes suffered an ordeal of anti-communist fervor in his own country at the hands of [Senator Joseph] McCarthy and, more portentously, [General]...

Virtually Gay Ghettos by: Bethany Stotts, January 14, 2009 At this year’s Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention, two panelists diverged on whether new media aids or undermines the process of gay liberation. Robin Bellinson, a doctoral student at Kent State University, argued in a panel on reality television programming that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual (LGBT) community might just find a silver lining to the often “heteronormative” depictions of gays in such shows. ,p> “Certainly with respect to queer representation, Reality Television is changing the culture on the economic landscape of entertainment. But does this matter if queer representation...

Dreams From My President by: Bethany Stotts, January 07, 2009 Speaking at a 2008 Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention panel, one scholar supplied her own solution to the question “Why teach literature anyway?” A professor emerita at Stanford University, Marjorie Gabrielle Perloff dedicated the majority of her 20-minute speech to reading large excerpts from Dreams from my Father and commenting on Barack Obama’s highly electable character. “Why teach literature anyway? I want to posit that the study of literature brings the student closer to actual life than does any other discipline offered in the curriculum,” said Professor Perloff. “It does...

Postmodern Epistemologies by: Bethany Stotts, February 19, 2008 ...How does style affect our perception of the text, and does style itself impart its own distinct meaning?...Modern Language Association (MLA) professors attempted to answer these questions by drawing upon postmodern academics who remain skeptical of absolute knowledge, one of whom belongs to the radical “naturalist” Brights movement. Among the scholars mentioned were Donald Freeman, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Mark Turner, Daniel Dennett, and Noam Chomsky.... Instead, Chodat referred the audience to the works of radical atheist and Brights Movement member Dennett, who is listed on the site as one of the movement’s “enthusiastic...

No Relation to Rhett by: Bethany Stotts, February 13, 2008 Chicago, Ill.—At a panel on “Revision as Writing, Writing as Revision,” Modern Language Association (MLA) panelists offered tips to increase the clarity and quality of academic writing ... In direct contrast to the other panelists’ emphasis on cogency and understandable writing, Birkenstein-Graff suggested that academic writers look to “Bad Writing Award” winner Judith Butler for inspiration. According to the UI Chicago lecturer, Butler is a “masterful, masterful writer” who “directly engages what her harshest critics say about her work.”... One topical sentence from Butler’s 2004 Bodies That Matter reads “The...

Shakespearian Dytopias by: Bethany Stotts, February 12, 2008 Chicago, Ill.— A recent Modern Language Association (MLA) panel hosted by the Division on Shakespeare asked “What Does Science Have to Do With Shakespeare?” According to Professor Henry Turner of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, if the question encompasses attitudes toward science, “then the answer to [the] question is: quite a bit.” He listed many areas on which Shakespeare’s work touches, including “cosmology, medicine, mathematics, meteorological phenomena....astrology, and other so-called ‘sciences.’”... ....Similarly, Professor Paula Blank argued that Shakespeare explored how humanity itself defies measurement. “Shakespeare’s rhetoric of measurement exposes more often...

Above the Law by: Bethany Stotts, February 06, 2008 Chicago, Ill— ....In a new twist on criminal sympathy, Professor April Miller of the University of Northern Colorado argued during her presentation that murder may serve as a means of female resistance against the “patriarchal machinery” that is the law. “In fact, the media spectacle inspired by these times [the 1920’s] often encouraged readers to engage in a highly controversial debate: Can a woman be held to the same legal responsibility for murder as a man?,” said Miller. She analyzed the 1920’s Broadway hit, Machinal, and the short silent film, Red...