professional topics

MLA ‘27 Guaranteed Session:

TITLE:  Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Emancipatory Activities at the Crossroads of Academic Freedom

DESCRIPTION:  In honor of the 60th anniversary of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the MLA Committee on Higher Education Practices (HEP) seeks paper proposals regarding contemplation, design, and/or implementation of emancipatory activities in literature, language, and writing classrooms.

Topics might include (but are certainly not limited to) the following:

Why is close reading a particularly valuable learning strategy/professional practice at the current moment? This MLA seminar (a guaranteed session) seeks participants interested in thinking and talking through aspects of close reading with an eye towards producing pieces of public writing (e.g. an OpEd, think piece, lyric essay, call to action, etc. published in a newspaper, magazine, or periodical, in print or online). Topics for exploration may include, but are not limited to:

Multilingualism, Cultural Diversity, and Intercultural Communication for Sustainable Development

Scope of the Book

Roundtable considering pressing academic freedom challenges and potential strategies from and for those without tenure protections, especially staff, contingent faculty, lecturers, professional and clinical track faculty, and grad students. ~200-word abstracts, ~100-word bios.

Deadline for submissions: Sunday, March 15, 2026

Patrick Lawrence, University of South Carolina Lancaster (pslawren@mailbox.sc.edu)

Throughout its consolidation as an academic discipline, museum studies have tended to gravitate around major national and international museums, their emblematic collections, and the management models they have established as standards. These institutions, mostly located in urban centers and supported by solid structures of funding, research, and public outreach, have shaped a “canon” that has influenced not only academic agendas but also collective imaginaries about what a museum is (and what it should be).

Call for Proposals
MLA 2027 (Los Angeles)
Special Session

We are proposing a special session for the 2027 MLA Convention in Los Angeles on "Edited Collections: Tips and Tricks to Successful Publishing." This special session will be a roundtable featuring six presenters with the following format: 

Fat has been ever-present in public imagination in various forms. Fat is perceived as a

public enemy and “demonized in medicine and public policy” (Blank 2020). It is “adored by chefs

and nutritional faddists, desired and abhorred when it comes to sex, and continually courted by a

multi-billion-dollar fitness and weight-loss industry” (Blank 2020). Yet, ‘Fat’ as an area of

academic research has remained remarkably underdeveloped in the Humanities and Social

Sciences domain. Only recently, it has emerged as a vibrant interdisciplinary field that interrogates

Penn State’s Center for American Literary Studies presents

Heat and the Humanities: Reframing Human Relationships to Heat and Wildfire

Friday, February 27, 2026, Noon—1:00 p.m. EST via Zoom

 Register here

https://psu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_tzjjrtt9RYWmESys5PkJaw

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email