Month: February 2015

Welcome to the Modern Language Association. As the MLA’s president for 2015–16, I would like to remark briefly on where we are today and where we are going in the near future. My membership has meant a great deal in my professional life, and sharing my understanding of this association with you is an important part of my work this year.

The theme of the 2016 convention in Austin will be Literature and Its Publics: Past, Present, and Future. I'd like to anticipate that event with a year of renewed attention to the publics we face as scholars of literature, language, and writing and to the MLA's particular public, its members. In this first column of my presidency, I reflect on how the MLA braids two identities, as a scholarly association and an advocacy organization, in support of our members' professional lives.