[With the start
of a new semester comes all the new opportunities and possibilities provided by
a fresh group of courses. In this week’s series I’ll highlight a few of those
semester plans, among a couple other things on my Spring 2015 radar. I’d love
to hear about your spring plans and goals in comments!]
On three
additional reasons—besides the always-stimulating program of panels,
roundtables, seminars, and talks—why I’m looking forward to NeMLA’s 2015 Conference in Toronto.
1)
A Ground-breaking Keynote: NeMLA’s current
President, Daniela
Antonucci, has arranged for a truly innovative keynote address for Toronto.
Christopher
Innes and Brigitte Bogar will
present “Multi Modal Adaptations of Romeo
and Juliet: A Performative Analysis,” featuring both a lecture component and
accompanying musical and dance performances. The talk exemplifies Daniela’s
commitment to bringing interdisciplinarity to NeMLA, not just as an element of
scholars’ work but as a primary goal and methodology for the organization. I
couldn’t agree more, and look forward to this keynote as a next step in that direction!
2)
Welcoming New Board Members: We’ve completed our
annual election, and have a number of new Board members who will be joining us
in Toronto and for the next few years beyond: new 2nd Vice President
Maria DiFrancesco;
American Area Director John Casey; Comp
Lit and Languages Area Director Richard Schumaker;
Culture and Media Studies Area Director Lisa Perdigao; and
Member-at-Large for Professional Development Angela Fulk. I’m
very excited to work with all of these new folks as well as all our returning
Board members, not least because of…
3)
The Start of My Presidency Year: As of the membership
brunch on Sunday, the transition to the 2015-2016 year—the year for which I’ll
be NeMLA’s President—will be underway. In recent months I’ve really begun
to feel that the movement toward the 2016 conference in Hartford has commenced,
including securing two great University of Connecticut graduate students to be
our local representatives and working with the wonderful Dean Shirley Roe and Dr. Cathy
Schlund-Vials at UConn to help plan many aspects of the conference. But I’m
still very interested in getting any and all thoughts on my two personal goals for
the conference: helping NeMLA better connect to and serve adjunct
and contingent faculty; and linking the conference to the Hartford
community, and specifically the city’s public schools, in one way or another. I’d
love to hear your takes on either or both of those ideas!
MLK-inspired
series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Spring plans you’d share?
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