94th South Atlantic Modern Language Association Convention

November 11-12, 2022

Jacksonville, FL

As we begin to emerge from a global pandemic, we confront mounting catastrophes, old and new, that bind our lives in insecurity.  Literature, in and of itself, cannot resolve these economic, cultural, political, and environmental catastrophes.  Yet literature—reading, writing about, and teaching it—remains urgent, not necessarily because therein we always find clear solutions to our problems, but because the habits the work of literature ingrains in us run counter to the habits that have brought us to this precarity.  In this roundtable, we will discuss the approaches instructors have to teaching literature in precarious times.  While we welcome all responses to this theme, we are particularly interested in the ways in which instructors have dealt with—and taught their students to deal with—catastrophe and precarity through the teaching of literature.  By August 15th, please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words and a brief bio to Dr. Chandler Fry, chandlerfry1012@gmail.com.