Friday, November 24, 2023

November 24, 2023: Thankful for Scholarly Communities: U of Buffalo’s English Department

[For this year’s Thanksgiving series, I wanted to express thanks for a handful of opportunities I’ve had to connect with scholarly communities this Fall. Leading up to a special tribute to my two most important scholarly influences!]

I’ve written many times in this space, most fully in this tribute post, on what the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) in general and the NeMLA Board in particular have meant for my career. NeMLA is quite simply my favorite scholarly community, and its influences have extended far beyond (both in time and in reach) my years of service on the Board or even my attendance at the annual Convention (which will continue next Spring in Boston). Just a couple weeks ago I got to experience a particularly exciting such extended influence, when—invited by NeMLA Executive Director Carine Mardorossian, who is also an English Professor at the University of Buffalo—I had the privilege of giving a talk in the Buffalo English Department’s Juxtapositions lecture series. It was a great chance to build on prior book talks for Of Thee I Sing, but in keeping with the series’ overt interdisciplinary focus I pushed myself to work with cultural works I hadn’t considered for the book, including 1960s music and 1980s films. I really loved the chance to think about all the layers of culture and society that these debates over patriotism can help us examine and engage, and am so grateful to Carine, Buffalo, and these ongoing NeMLA connections for exemplifying scholarly community once more.

Special tribute post this weekend,

Ben

PS. Communities (or anything else) you’re thankful for this year?


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