MLA 2026 Special Session: Literature and Taxonomy
Literature and Taxonomy
Taxonomy is a fraught word in literary studies. As a regime of classification descended from the Euro-American scientific tradition, taxonomy encourages the organization of biological life on earth based on hard distinctions or similarities between groups. This practice appears to endorse essentialist and deterministic paradigms that scholars in literary and cultural studies typically eschew—and for good reason. Taxonomic modes of thinking are allied with racial, medical, and sexual ideologies that have fueled historical and contemporary efforts to police the categories of race, gender, ability, and desire.