[A couple weeks back, NeMLA held our 52nd annual—and first entirely virtual—convention. So this week I’ll highlight a handful of the convention’s stand-out remote events, leading up to some broader reflections on virtual conferences.]
I had the chance
to attend a number of other great NeMLA 2021 sessions as an audience member. Here
are a few more AmericanStudies-related highlights:
1)
Writing History in 18th and 19th
Century Women’s Writing: This excellent panel was organized by my twitter
friend Kait Tonti, who also presented
brilliantly on the late 18th century Quaker poet Hannah
Lawrence Schieffelin’s complex poetic engagements with George Washington’s
legacies. While I had never heard of Schieffelin before Kait’s awesome talk, the
other two presentations offered an opposite and equally stimulating effect:
opening up compelling new angles on familiar authors and histories, Mary Balkun on Phillis
Wheatley and the Revolution, and Gailanne
Mackenzie on Emily Dickinson’s domestic quarantine (and our own!).
2)
Creative Anxiety in the Works of Shirley Jackson:
This panel was personal, in the best sense: Kaitlynn Chase, one of
our most talented Fitchburg State English Studies alums, presented a wonderful paper
on Eleanor Vance in Jackson’s The
Haunting of Hill House. But while I was there to cheer on Kaitlynn, I also
learned a great deal from the other presenters: Chris McComb on
Jackson’s dualities of identity and voice; Alessandra Occhiolini on
disability in We Have Always Lived in the
Castle; and Kelly Suprenant
on humanity, community, and the end of the world. A great example of how
single-author sessions still have so much to offer!
3)
Discourses of Asian American Literature and
Studies: As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, expanding and diversifying the
American, Transnational, and Diaspora Area has been my central goal over the
last few years; so I was very glad to see sessions like this one, and hope they
can continue and grow into 2022 and beyond. This roundtable featured five
wonderful presenters on the past, present, and future of Asian American Studies
(in and out of the classroom): Proma
Chowdhury on Nora Okja Keller’s Comfort
Woman; Shannon I-Hsien
Lee on racial ambiguity and in-betweenness; EnShu
Robin Liao on redesigning courses and curricula; Leland Tabares
on nerds, weirdos, and anti-racist solidarities; and Xiaobo Wang on
Chinese American women’s transnational struggles. Please propose more such
sessions for NeMLA 2022, all, and keep all these great conversations going!
Special post
this weekend,
Ben
PS. If you took
part in NeMLA 2021, reflections you’d share?
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