CANDIDATE INFORMATION 2018 MLA Elections ______Contents

Background Information

Notes on Association Governance 1

Elections for Second Vice President, Executive Council, Delegate Assembly 1

Elections for Forum Executive Committees 1

Making Suggestions for the 2019 Executive Committee Elections 2

Abbreviations Used in Biographical Summaries 2

Candidate Information

Voting for Second Vice President 3

Voting for At-Large Members of the Executive Council 8

Voting for Professional-Issues Delegates 14

Voting for Regional Delegates 33

Region 1: New England and Eastern Canada 33

Region 2: New Jersey and New York 35

Region 3: Middle Atlantic 37

Region 4: Great Lakes 39

Region 5: South 42

Region 6: Central and Rocky Mountain 44

Region 7: Western United States and Western Canada 46

Voting for Forum Delegates 49

CANDIDATE INFORMATION 2018 MLA Elections ______

Note: To be counted, online ballots must be submitted by midnight EST on 10 December 2018, and paper ballots must be received at the MLA office no later than 10 December 2018.

Notes on Association Governance Ø Two elected bodies play a role in association governance. The Executive Council is a fiduciary body and has responsibility for managing the business of the association. It has seventeen voting members (the three officers and fourteen members) and one nonvoting member (the executive director). The Delegate Assembly, which has just over three hundred voting members, recommends actions to the council regarding the conduct of association business and the association’s directions, goals, and structure. Ø The MLA constitution (see www.mla.org/About-Us/Governance/MLA-Constitution) outlines the specific duties of the officers, the council, and the assembly in articles 5, 7, and 9, respectively.

Elections for Second Vice President, Executive Council, Delegate Assembly Ø MLA elections are held annually in the fall to elect a second vice president of the association and to fill vacancies on the Executive Council and in the Delegate Assembly. Nominations for the second vice president and Executive Council elections have been made by the Nominating Committee, whose members are elected by the Delegate Assembly. Nominations for professional-issues and regional seats in the Delegate Assembly have been made by the Elections Committee, whose members are also elected by the Delegate Assembly. Nominations for forum seats in the assembly have been made by the membership and the executive committees of the forums that are holding elections this year. Ø Nominees to these elected positions in the association are asked to submit biographical summaries and are invited to submit statements on matters of professional concern. This document contains summaries and statements submitted by this year’s nominees, and it is intended for use by those members who request paper ballots for the 2018 elections. Candidate information appears in the same order as the nominees’ names appear on the paper ballot, and, for the Delegate Assembly elections, the number preceding each nominee’s name corresponds to the number assigned to the nominee on the ballot. Specific details about each of the election categories precede the candidate information for that category. Ø The candidate information in this document is also included in the online ballot system that all voting members of the association have been invited to use to cast their votes in the 2018 elections. In the online system, the names of the candidates for second vice president, the Executive Council, and the Delegate Assembly are links. Clicking on a candidate’s name will open a window containing the candidate’s biographical summary and election statement.

Elections for Forum Executive Committees Ø Elections are held each fall to replace outgoing members of the executive committees. Nominations are made by the membership and by the executive committees. 2 – Candidate Information

Ø Eligibility to vote in these elections is determined by voters’ primary forum affiliations, as recorded in their membership profiles. Changes to primary forum affiliations are not allowed while voting is under way. Ø Voters using the online system will be asked to vote in the executive committee contests for the forums with which they have primary affiliations. Voters using the paper ballot will need to follow the instructions for voting that appear on the paper ballot sheet.

Making Suggestions for the 2019 Executive Committee Elections Ø At the bottom of the paper ballot is a space that members can use to suggest nominees for the 2019 executive committee elections. Names written in on the ballot will be forwarded to the appropriate executive committees, which must select at least one nominee each year from the names suggested by the membership (unless there are too few suggestions). Ø It is also possible to suggest nominees through the MLA Web site. When exiting the online ballot system, members will be given the opportunity to use the online suggestion form. The form can also be accessed directly from the Committees page.

Abbreviations Used in Biographical Summaries AAAS Association for Asian American Studies AATF American Association of Teachers of French AATG American Association of Teachers of German AATI American Association of Teachers of Italian AATSEEL American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages AATSP American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese AAUP American Association of University Professors AAUW American Association of University Women ACLA American Comparative Literature Association ACLS American Council of Learned Societies ACTFL American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages ADE Association of Departments of English ADFL Association of Departments of Foreign Languages ASA American Studies Association ASECS American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies AWP Association of Writers and Writing Programs CCCC Conference on College Composition and Communication CEA College English Association CIES Council for International Exchange of Scholars CLA College Language Association DAAD Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service) ETS Educational Testing Service FIPSE Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education FLAS Foreign Language and Area Studies (fellowship prog. in the US Dept. of Educ.) HASTAC Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory ICLA International Comparative Literature Association Candidate Information – 3

IREX International Research and Exchanges Board LASA Latin American Studies Association MELUS Society for the Study of the Multiethnic Literature of the United States MMLA Midwest Modern Language Association NACCS National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies NCTE National Council of Teachers of English NDEA National Defense Education Act NEA National Endowment for the Arts NEH National Endowment for the Humanities NEMLA Northeast Modern Language Association NWSA National Women’s Studies Association PAMLA Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association RMMLA Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association SAMLA South Atlantic Modern Language Association SCMLA South Central Modern Language Association SSHRC Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada SSRC Social Science Research Council (New York) TESOL Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages WCML Women’s Caucus for the Modern Languages WPA Council of Writing Program Administrators

Part I: Voting for Second Vice President The person elected second vice president will serve in that office from 7 January 2019 through the close of the January 2020 convention and will automatically become first vice president in 2020, serving in that office through the close of the January 2021 convention, and president of the MLA in 2021, serving in that office through the close of the January 2022 convention. This year all nominees are from fields other than English or American language and literature; the MLA constitution (article 6.D) stipulates that the second vice president shall be elected from the field of English or American only in alternate years. (From 7 Jan. 2019 through 12 Jan. 2020, the first vice president will be Judith Butler, English, Univ. of California, Berkeley, and the president will be Simon E. Gikandi, African, Princeton Univ.) The Hare voting method will be used in the election of second vice president. (Using this voting method will, except in the case of a tie, eliminate the need for a separate runoff election in the spring.) Members are asked to rank the candidates listed below in order of preference. On the ballot sheet, members should write “1” next to the name of their first choice, “2” next to the name of their second choice, and “3” next to the name of their third choice. Please note that voting for only one candidate means casting no vote in the subsequent rounds of balloting that the Hare voting method incorporates.

Rank these candidates in order of preference.

Sandra L. Bermann. Cotsen Prof. of the Humanities and prof. comparative lit., Princeton Univ. PhD, Columbia Univ. Ch., Dept. of Comparative Lit., Princeton Univ., 1998–2010; cofounder, Princeton Prog. in Translation and Intercultural Communication, 2007; head, Whitman Coll., Princeton 4 – Candidate Information

Univ., 2011–19; research community dir., Migration: People and Cultures across Borders, Princeton Inst. for Intl. and Regional Studies, 2017–20. Fulbright fellowship, 1969–70; Whiting fellowship, 1974–75; Jonathan Dickinson Preceptor, Princeton Univ., 1980–83; member, School of Historical Studies, Inst. for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ), fall 2001; fellow, Columbia Inst. for Scholars, Reid Hall (Paris), spring 2002; Sawyer Seminar grant, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2017–19. Visiting appointments: Nida Prof., Nida School of Translation Studies (Italy), May 2015; School of Criticism and Theory, Cornell Univ., July 2016; Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture, June 2017. Honorary prof., Henan Normal Univ,. 2011; Chief Faculty Marshal, Princeton Univ., 2014– ; special orator, Nassau Hall Soc., Princeton Univ., 2018. Exec. comm., Humanities Council, Princeton Univ., 1998–2001; exec. comm., Univ. Center for Human Values, Princeton Univ., 2001–03, 2004– ; Intl. Comm. for the Museum René Char (France), 2002–04; Board of Overseers, Köc Univ. (Istanbul), 2009– ; advisory board, Natl. Sun-Yat-Sen Univ. (Taiwan), 2009– ; exec. comm., Inst. for World Lit., Harvard Univ., 2010–13. Consultant, Ford Foundation, 1984–85. Undergrad. Comm. (ch., 1987–90), advisory board (1989–92, 2009–11), Comm. on the Constitution (ch., 1991–93), annual conference coch. (2006), vice pres. (2005–07), Charles Bernheimer Prize Comm. (2006–08), pres. (2007–09), Program Comm. (2010), ACLA; Comm. on Translation (ch., 2011–17) and Exec. Comm. (2011– 19), ICLA. MLA activities: exec. comm., Div. on Poetry, 1995–99; Delegate Assembly, 2003–05, 2012–Jan. 2015; Program Comm., 2006–09; exec. comm., Div. on European Literary Relations, 2011–Jan. 2016; Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Lit. Selection Comm., 2012–15 (ch., 2014–15). Ed. board, Inventory (Princeton Univ.), 2010– . Publications include The Sonnet over Time: A Study in the Sonnets of Petrarch, Shakespeare, and Baudelaire (1988); coed., Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation (2005), A Companion to Translation Studies (2014); trans. and introd., Alessandro Manzoni, On the Historical Novel (1984); introd., René Char, Fury and Mystery and Other Writings (2010); contrib., European Writers: The Romantic Century (1985), Comparative Poetics (1985), New Visions of Creation: Feminist Innovations in Literary Theory (1993), René Char et ses alliés substantiels (2003), Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies (2007), Mapping the World, Culture, and Border-crossing (2010), Translating Women (2011), The Routledge Companion to World Literature (2011), Foundational Texts of World Literature (2011), The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (4th ed., 2012), Writing and Translating Francophone Discourse: Africa, the Caribbean, Diaspora (2014), Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism (2016), La réception de René Char hors de la France (2018); articles in Transfer, Inventory, Recherches littéraires / Literary Research, Comparative Literature, PMLA, ACLA Newsletter, Clio, Yearbook of General and Comparative Literature, Poetics Today, Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, Style, Poetics Today, Princeton Alumni Weekly, Forum Italicum, Romanic Review, Italica. Statement I strongly believe that, in our divided times, collaboration is more necessary (if also more difficult) than ever. We need to listen carefully across differences of background and belief, then negotiate together for positive action. The MLA, through its diverse membership and long-standing reputation, offers an outstanding opportunity to use collaborative action to make a significant difference in the world. I am eager to work with colleagues nationally for more inclusive, equitable, and better-funded humanities programs. I am also committed to extending the MLA’s role internationally, developing its conferences with organizations abroad on topics such as human rights, climate change, civic engagement, and migration, where humanistic insights are essential. As an MLA member since 1976, I have served on various committees and twice in the Delegate Assembly. As past ACLA president, ICLA executive committee member, and professor of comparative literature at Princeton for more than forty years, I have balanced administration with teaching and research— for seventeen years as head of two different colleges and twelve years as department chair. My strong belief in interdisciplinary, cross-cultural study led me to cocreate a program in translation, chair the planning group for Princeton’s Bridge-Year Program, and develop a cross-disciplinary research community on global migration. Candidate Information – 5

Such collaborative efforts convince me that much more would be possible through the MLA. I would be honored to serve its community of national and international students and scholars to ensure that the humanities are heard at home and abroad with positive effect.

Barbara Fuchs. Prof. Spanish and English, Univ. of California, Los Angeles. PhD, Stanford Univ. Dir., Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies and William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Univ. of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), 2011–16. Previous appointments: Univ. of Pennsylvania, 2003–09; Univ. of Washington, 1997–2002. Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, 1992–97; predoctoral fellowship, Stanford Humanities Center, 1995–96; research fellowship, Center for the Humanities, Univ. of Washington, 1998–99; Guggenheim fellowship, 2006–07; grant, Univ. Research Foundation, Univ. of Pennsylvania, 2006–07; Mellon faculty research fellowship, Penn Humanities Forum, 2007–08; NEH collaborative research grant, 2007–08; participant, NEH summer inst., 2010; short-term visiting fellow, Council of the Humanities, Princeton Univ., 2014; Council on Library and Information Resources grant, 2014–16. Visiting appointment: Folger Shakespeare Library, spring 2007. Honorable mention (for Mimesis and Empire), Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies, MLA, 2001; Clark Professorship, Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies, UCLA, 2011–12. Invited lectures: Donald Dietz Lecture, Assn. for Hispanic Classical Theater, 2017; Clifford Lecture, ASECS, 2018. Grant reviewer: Stanford Humanities Center, 2003–05; ACLS, 2006–09; NEH, 2007; European Research Council, 2012–14; Dutch Research Council for the Humanities, 2012–15; SSHRC, 2013–17; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 2018. Exec. comm. (2004–06) and MacCaffrey Prize Comm. (2006), Intl. Spenser Soc.; council member (2014–17) and Founder’s Book Prize Comm. (2016–17), Sixteenth Century Soc. and Conference; Program Comm., Shakespeare Assn. of America, 2015–17; ch., Nominating Comm., Spain– North Africa Project, 2015–17. MLA activities: exec. comm., Div. on Comparative Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Lit., 2002–06; PMLA Advisory Comm., 2005–08; exec. comm., Div. on 16th- and 17th-Century Spanish Poetry and Prose, 2009–Jan. 2014; Nominating Comm., 2011–12; Program Comm., 2016–19. General ed., UCLA Clark Memorial Library Series, Univ. of Toronto Press, 2011–16; series ed., The Comedia in Translation and Performance, Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, 2017– ; ed., Hispanic Review, 2007–09. Ed. or advisory boards: Hispanic Review, 2003–07; Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2004–07; Exemplaria, 2009–14; Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 2015–19; Renaissance Drama; Bulletin of the Comediantes; Studia Iberica et Americana; Early Modern Exchange, Univ. of Delaware Press; Spanish Golden Age Studies, Peter Lang; Modern Language Quarterly; SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500– 1900; Eighteenth-Century Studies; Postcolonialist. Digital initiatives: dir., Diversifying the Classics, UCLA Working Group on the Comedia in Translation and Performance; Unediting the Teaching Text, Dept. of English, UCLA. Publications include Mimesis and Empire: The New World, Islam, and European Identities (2001), Passing for Spain: Cervantes and the Fictions of Identity (2003), Romance (2004), Exotic Nation: Maurophilia and the Construction of Early Modern Spain (2009; Spanish trans., 2011), The Poetics of Piracy: Emulating Spain in English Literature (2013); ed., The Golden Age of Spanish Drama (2018); ed. and trans., Lope de Vega, Women and Servants (2016); guest ed., Hispanic Review (2009), Republics of Letters (2015); coed., The Norton Anthology of World Literature (3rd ed., 2012; 4th ed., 2018), The Norton Anthology of Western Literature (9th ed., 2014), Representing Imperial Rivalry in the Early Modern Mediterranean (2015); coed. and cotrans., Miguel de Cervantes, The Bagnios of Algiers and The Great Sultana: Two Plays of Captivity (2010), The Abencerraje and Osmín and Daraja: Two Sixteenth-Century Novellas from Spain (2014); guest coed., Modern Language Quarterly (2004, 2006), Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies (2010), Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies (2011); contrib., Postcolonial Moves: Medieval through Modern (2003), Imperialisms: Historical and Literary Investigations, 1500–1900 (2004), Writing Race across the Atlantic World, 1492–1763 (2005), Rereading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires (2008), Material and Symbolic Circulation between Spain and England, 1554–1604 (2008), USA Cervantes: 39 Cervantistas en Estados Unidos (2009), The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond: Departures and Change (2009), Empires of God: Religious Encounters in the Early Modern Atlantic (2011), The Oxford Handbook of Thomas 6 – Candidate Information

Middleton (2012), Approaches to Teaching Cervantes’s Don Quixote (2nd ed., 2015), La Leyenda Negra en el crisol de la comedia: El teatro del Siglo de Oro frente a los estereotipos antihispánicos (2016); articles in eHumanista, Comedia Performance, Modern Language Quarterly, PMLA, Modern Drama, Renaissance Drama, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Revista iberoamericana, MLN, Insula, Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies, CR: The New Centennial Review, Modern Philology, SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, ELH, Shakespeare Quarterly, Cervantes. Statement As a scholar who teaches in both a Spanish and an English department, I would like to see us do more to support languages other than English in a diverse, multilingual United States. The MLA has an important role to play: how can we best assist students who read and write in other languages? How can our organizational structures better facilitate scholarly and pedagogical work across and between languages? I hope to advocate for strong and vibrant PhD programs, despite the now seemingly permanent crisis of the job market. Training and placing PhDs in a wide range of positions across society will not only address the immediate employment crisis but, more important, help us make the case for the humanities from a position of strength. What are the best practices to move us beyond the academic/alt-ac model, and how can we promote them more widely? We also need to begin a conversation about the comparative state of the humanities in public and private, four-year and two-year institutions. What does our teaching look like in each case? Whom do we reach? Who gets access? How might neighboring institutions collaborate to counter public disinvestment while broadening access to the critical thinking and writing skills that are crucial for citizenship in a democracy? How do we keep these skills from becoming luxuries for only certain students? Last but not least, I look forward to helping the MLA promote the public humanities, connecting our scholarly work with broader constituencies for mutual benefit and inspiration.

Margaret R. Higonnet. Prof. emerita English and comparative lit., Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs. PhD, Yale Univ. Previous appointment: George Washington Univ., 1967–68. DAAD fellowship, 1963–64; Woodrow Wilson fellowship, 1964–65; Fulbright scholarship, 1966–67; Rockefeller fellowship, spring 1985; Camargo Foundation grant, spring 1985; NEH fellowship, summer 1988; research fellowship, Instituto Juan March (Madrid), spring 1989; Fulbright travel grant, 1991–92; fellow, Bellagio Center, Rockefeller Foundation, July 1993; visiting fellow, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, spring 1995; Bunting Inst. fellowship, Radcliffe Coll., 1995–96. Visiting appointments: Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität München, 1991–92, 1993, 2000; affiliate, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1998–99; Center for Gender Studies, Western Univ. of Timisoara (Romania), May 2006; Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, May 2008. Article Award, Children’s Lit. Assn., 1987, 1992. Fulbright screening comm., 1984–87. Advisory board, Univ. of Connecticut Humanities Inst., 2000–02, 2009–10; advisory comm., Group for War and Culture Studies, Univ. of Westminster, 2000–16; advisory board, Centre of Comparative Studies, Univ. of Göttingen, 2008–10. Study group coch. (Gender, Society, and Politics), Center for European Studies, Harvard Univ., 1990–2014; conseil scientifique, Institut International Charles Perrault (Paris), 1996–2000; comité scientifique, Historial de la Grande Guerre (Péronne, France), 2008–12. Sec.-treasurer, English Inst., 1976–79; exec. board, Intl. Research Soc. for Children’s Lit., 1991–93; advisory board (1991–95), Harry Levin and René Wellek Prize Comm. (1996–98), Horst Frenz Prize Comm. (ch., 2001–03), vice pres. (2001– 03), and pres. (2003–05), ACLA; advisory board (1993–95) and pres. (1997–99), Amer. Conference on Romanticism; Anne D. Jordan Award Comm., Children’s Lit. Assn., 1994–96; delegate, ACLS, 2001–05; Comm. for Comparative History of Lits. in European Langs. (ch., 2010–13) and Comm. on Gender Studies (ch., 2002–10), ICLA; asst. sec.-general (2005–14), vice pres. (2014–17), and pres. (2017–20), Intl. Federation for Modern Langs. and Lits.; exec. comm., Conseil International de Philosophie et Sciences Humaines, 2017–20. MLA activities: Delegate Assembly, 1989–91, 2014–Jan. 2018; Commission on the Status of Women in the Profession, 1990–93; exec. comm., Div. on Children’s Lit., 1992–96; exec. comm., Div. on Comparative Studies in Romanticism and the 19th Century, 1997–2001; PMLA Ed. Board, 1999– 2001; exec. comm., Div. on Comparative Studies in 20th-Century Lit., 2004–08; Radio Comm., 2005–08; Candidate Information – 7

Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies Selection Comm., 2006–08 (ch., 2007); Elections Comm., 2010–11; Exec. Council, 2014–Jan. 2018; Working Group on K–16 Alliances, 2015–17. Ed. (1985) and coed. (1986–90), Children’s Literature; ed. adviser, Australian Humanities Research Journal, 1998– . Ed. or advisory boards: Children’s Literature, 1991– ; Prisms, 1993–2000; Lion and the Unicorn, 1997–2003; Comparative Literature, 2000–05; International Journal of War and Culture Studies (London), 2006–16; Gender Studies Journal (Romania), 2009– ; Arcadia, 2009– . Publications include ed. and trans., Horn of Oberon: Jean Paul Richter’s School for Aesthetics (1973); ed., The Sense of Sex: Feminist Perspectives on Hardy (1993), Borderwork: Feminist Engagements with Comparative Literature (1994), Nineteenth-Century British Women Poets (1996), Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1998), Lines of Fire: Women Writers on World War I (1999), Nurses at the Front: Writing the Wounds of the Great War (2001), Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native (2005), Guy Adams Cardwell, Stories and Poetry (2005), Letters and Photographs from the Battle Country: The World War I Memoir of Margaret Hall (2014); coed., The Representation of Women in Fiction (1983), Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars (1987), Reconfigured Spheres: Literary Representations of Feminine Space (1994), Antifeminism in the Academy (1996), Girls, Boys, Books, Toys (1999), Comparatively Queer: Interrogating Identity across Time and Cultures (2010); guest ed. or coed., MELUS (2002), Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature (2005–06), Comparative Critical Studies (2009); contrib., Out of Bounds: Male Writers and Gender(ed) Criticism (1990), Germaine de Staël: Crossing the Borders (1991), Death and Representation (1993), Gendering War Talk (1993), Autorschaft: Genus und Genie in der Zeit um 1800 (1994), Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism (1995), Das Volk—Abbild, Konstruktion, Phantasma (1996), L’humour et la littérature enfantine (2000), Bi-Textualität: Inszenierungen des Paares (2000), Savoirs et littérature (2002), Under Fire: Childhood in the Shadow of War (2008), A Companion to Thomas Hardy (2009), Teaching World Literature (2009), Children and Armed Conflict (2011), Hollywood’s Africa after 1994 (2012), First World War Nursing: New Perspectives (2013), The Cambridge Companion to the Poetry of the First World War (2013), Intersections, Interferences, Interdisciplines: Literature with Other Arts (2014), The Cambridge History of the First World War (2014), Children’s Literature and Culture of the First World War (2016), Landscapes and Voices of the First World War (2017), Scotland and the First World War: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Bannockburn (2017), Teaching Representations of the First World War (2017), Imagining Sameness and Difference in Children’s Literature: From the Enlightenment to the Present Day (2017), The First World War: Literature, Culture, Modernity (2018); articles in PMLA, Comparative Literature, Critical Inquiry, Arcadia, Studies in Romanticism, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Poetics Today, Representations, LIT, Studies in the Novel, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Children’s Literature, Lion and the Unicorn, Legacy, Annales Benjamin Constant, L’Esprit Créateur, Modernism/Modernity, Neohelicon, Literature Compass, Cambridge Literary Review, 1616: Anuario de literatura comparada, Miranda, Comparatist, Global South, Journal of War and Culture Studies, 14–18 Aujourd’hui—Today—Heute. Statement The MLA’s purposes are as diverse as its constituents—whether teachers, students, adjuncts, or nonteaching members—in the fields of language, literature, or cultural studies represented by our forums, where some of our most innovative debates take place. Like an umbrella, the MLA must protect our professional values: our desire to explore intellectual avenues, our excitement at encounters with verbal arts, our acquisition of languages for effective communication and access to the world, and the defense of academic freedom that allows us to weigh truth. We must build on prior work to model best practices for tenure criteria in new fields. In a changing economic environment both at my university and on the Executive Council, I collaborated on projects to secure decent working conditions and benefits for non-tenure-track faculty members (Action for Allies), to open career paths outside university teaching for graduate students (Connected Academics), and to build stronger links between schools and colleges (K–16). By fostering early language instruction, we strengthen our college programs in literatures other than English. We can encourage public engagement by taking our work outside the walls of the classroom and by bringing older members of the community back into our institutions. From 1997 to 2010, the MLA’s half-hour radio program, “What’s the Word,” attracted public support; we need more such programs. Our work lies both within academic 8 – Candidate Information

institutions and in the public arena, where we must speak up for the NEH, NEA, and Fulbright-Hays programs. We must continue to defend endangered students and professors.

Part II: Voting for At-Large Members of the Executive Council Three persons will be elected for four-year terms that will begin 7 January 2019 and run through the close of the January 2023 convention. The MLA constitution (article 8.A.5) stipulates that the at- large membership of the council must include at least one and no more than six representatives from each of the following fields: English or American, French, German, Spanish, and other (e.g., other languages and literatures, comparative literature, folklore, linguistics). Since no one representing the field of French will continue on the council in 2019, at least one of the candidates from that field (Bostic, Prabhu) must be elected. Because six continuing council members represent the field of English, there are no candidates from that field this year. Finally, because no non-English designated field is represented by more than one council member, the other two persons elected to the council can come from the same field. A new constitutional provision in the head paragraph of article 8 calls for representation on the council for part-time faculty members. Thus, at least one of the candidates who self-identifies as a part-time faculty member (Kalscheur Suarez, Shoults) must be elected. The same section of the MLA constitution contains one other provision pertaining to the composition of the council: the at- large membership of the council “shall also include at least one representative, but no more than eight, from each of the eligible membership levels (i.e., regular, graduate student, and life), except that the number of regular members on the council shall always be in proportion to the regular membership of the association.” Because regular members compose 63.1% of the membership, they are constitutionally entitled to eight of the twelve at-large council seats. Since only five of the at- large members of the council with continuing terms in 2019 are regular members (see the listing below, in which student members are marked with an * and life members with a §), all three persons elected this year must be regular members. Eric Hayot, comparative literature and Asian studies, Penn State Univ., University Park (2017– 10 Jan. 2021) §Jean Elizabeth Howard, English, Columbia Univ. (2018–9 Jan. 2022) *Amanda Licastro, English, Stevenson Univ. (2018–12 Jan. 2020) Elizabeth Mathews Losh, English, Coll. of William and Mary (2018–9 Jan. 2022) David Tse-chien Pan, German, Univ. of California, Irvine (2016–12 Jan. 2020) *Rafael A. Ramirez Mendoza, Spanish, Univ. of California, Los Angeles (2016–12 Jan. 2020) §Ramon Saldivar, English, Stanford Univ. (2018–9 Jan. 2022) Evie Shockley, English, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick (2017–10 Jan. 2021) Dana A. Williams, English, Howard Univ. (2017–10 Jan. 2021)

Vote for any three nominees.

Santa Arias. Prof. Spanish, Univ. of Kansas. PhD, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison. Ch., Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, Univ. of Kansas, Jan. 2017– . Previous appointments: Florida State Univ., 1996–2008; Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro, 1994–96; Univ. of New Mexico, 1990–92. Participant, NEH summer inst., 1995, 2010; NEH faculty fellowship, 2006–07; research grant, Prog. for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States Univs., summer 2011; Big Twelve Faculty Research Grant, 2011; Fulbright teaching and research fellowship, spring 2012; program grant, Latino Americans: 500 Years of History, NEH–Amer. Library Assn., 2015; scholar in residence, Rachel Carson Center, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Candidate Information – 9

fall 2015; research fellowship, Hall Center for the Humanities, Univ. of Kansas, spring 2016. Jessie Marie Senor Cramer and Ann Cramer Root Faculty Award for Teaching and Research Excellence, Univ. of Kansas, 2014. Panelist, NEH, 2009; panelist, Ford Foundation, 2009. LASA, Soc. of Early Americanists. MLA activities: exec. comm., Div. on Colonial Latin Amer. Lits., 2000–04; Comm. on Honors and Awards, 2010– 13. Asst. ed., Latin American Theater Review, 2009– . Ed. boards: Revista iberoamericana, 2010–13; Hispanic Studies Review, 2016– ; Latinoamericana, Univ. of Toronto Press, 2018– . Publications include Bartolomé de las Casas y la tradición intelectual renacentista (2002); coed., Mapping Colonial Spanish America: Identity, Culture and Experience (2002), Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Bartolomé de las Casas (2008), Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (2008), Coloniality, Religion, and the Law in the Early Iberian World (2013); contrib., Ensayos de cultura virreinal latinoamericana (2007), Encyclopedia of Geography (2010), Estudios postcoloniales transatlánticos (2011), Desplazamientos y disyunciones: Nuevos itinerarios de los estudios coloniales (2011), Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800 (2012), Latin American Research Review (2013), Rivers Run through It: Fluvial Discourses in Spanish American and Latin American Literature (2013), Handbook of Latin American Literature (2015), Cambridge History of Latin American Women’s Literature (2015), Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography (2016), Cambridge History of Mexican Literature (2016), Oxford Bibliographies Online: Renaissance and Reformation (2017); articles in Colonial Latin American Review, Vanderbilt e- Journal of Luso-Hispanic Studies, GeoJournal, Romance Quarterly, Revista iberoamericana, Revista hispánica moderna, Mesoamérica, Revista de estudios hispánicos, Bilingual Review / Revista bilingüe, Cuadernos americanos, Texto crítico, Confluencia: Revista hispánica de cultura y literatura, Hispania, Catholic Historical Review, Church History, Caliope, Rhetorica, Early American Literature, Hispanófila. Statement The MLA has been an important advocate and venue for the free exchange of ideas on scholarship and teaching, a mission superbly carried out by its membership. However, no one doubts that we have entered a new era with difficult challenges that have put the work and values of humanities education at risk. Teaching in difficult times has been a topic of much discussion at my home institution. This year alone, our mission as scholars and teachers has been greatly distracted by deep budget cuts, struggles regarding gun control, and unforeseen policies on migration that threaten our commitment to diversity and the global mission of higher education. As an educator and scholar at a public university, I am concerned with the question of how to move forward. The MLA remains at the forefront of advocacy for the humanities, even as the ground shakes beneath us, driven by new institutional discourses that threaten to displace humanities education as the cornerstone of what it means to be educated. As a prospective member of the Executive Council, I am interested in exploring ways to rethink what we do—for example, by advocating transdisciplinary approaches to literary and cultural studies—and in reiterating the foundational importance of enduring themes and questions to our work. We need to consider new ways to conceive of and support the development of faculty members and graduate students while rethinking the curriculum and scholarship in ways that are attentive to the changing realities impacting the university and global society.

Heidi Bostic. Prof. French, Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham. PhD, Purdue Univ. Visiting Assoc. Provost for Special Projects, Furman Univ., 2018–19. Previous appointments: dean, Coll. of Liberal Arts, Univ. of New Hampshire, 2016–18; Baylor Univ., 2009–16; Michigan Technological Univ. (MTU), 2000–09; Concordia Coll. (MN), 1999–2000; Minnesota State Univ., 1998–99. Rotary Intl. Ambassadorial Scholarship (France), 1995–96; Fulbright Scholar Award (Chile), 2004; Theodore E. D. Braun Research Travel Award, ASECS, 2007; program grant (for community coll. and research univ. partnership), Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2017–19; strategic initiative grant, Univ. of New Hampshire, 2017–19. Award, Innovative Course Design Competition, ASECS, 2001–02; Distinguished Teaching Award, MTU, 2006; Higher Educ. Administrator of the Year Award, Texas Foreign Lang. Assn., 2015. Participant, Acad. for Innovative Higher Educ. Leadership, 2017–18; participant, Millennium Leadership Initiative Inst., June 2019. Panelist (for doctoral fellowships), Fulbright / Comisión Nacional de Invetigación Científica y Tecnológica, 2004; consultant, Fonds de Recherche du Québec—Société et Culture, 10 – Candidate Information

2008. Evaluation comm., Innovative Course Design Competition, ASECS, 2002–03; Council of Colls. of Arts and Sciences; HASTAC; Soc. for Eighteenth-Century French Studies. MLA activities: Comm. on the Status of Women in the Profession, 2015–18. Ed. board, CASA Cadernos de sémiotica aplicada, 2009– . Publications include The Fiction of Enlightenment: Women of Reason in the French Eighteenth Century (2010); guest ed., L’Esprit Créateur (2012); trans., Jacques Fontanille, The Semiotics of Discourse (2006); cotrans., Luce Irigaray, The Way of Love (2002); contrib., The Encyclopedia of Modern French Thought (2004), Semiotics Encyclopedia Online (2007), Academic Leadership in Higher Education: From the Top Down and the Bottom Up (2015); articles in Semiotica: Journal of the International Association of Semiotic Studies, Anthropocene, New Hampshire Business Review, Chronicle of Higher Education, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, French Review, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, Cahiers Isabelle de Charrière / Belle de Zuylen Papers, Women in French Studies, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, Reader: Essays in Reader-Oriented Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy, Dalhousie French Studies, Cultural Studies, Paragraph: A Journal of Modern Critical Theory. Statement The MLA is increasingly responsive to the challenges and opportunities facing our members, the profession, and the world. This trend, which motivates my interest in serving on the Executive Council, includes advocacy for the humanities, outreach to new audiences, attention to working conditions, expansion into new media, and collaboration with other disciplines and organizations. My professional roles have included adjunct, term lecturer, department chair, director of interdisciplinary programs, college dean, and now tenured professor of French and visiting associate provost. I have worked at or with a wide range of institutions and have served on the MLA’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession. I have a demonstrated commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion. I have published in traditional venues and broader outlets. One of my recent publications was coauthored with an anthropologist and another with a community college system chancellor. My current focus is promoting robust interdisciplinary work to address urgent, widely shared problems that call for large-scale, long-term, coordinated responses. This work presupposes questions that are fundamental to the humanities: who are we and how ought we to live? At New Hampshire, I launched the Grand Challenges for the Liberal Arts Initiative. In the words of a colleague, this project “can connect the dots between recruiting students, reassuring their families, serving communities, and transforming lives.” As a member of Executive Council I would help the MLA find resources to fund aspirations and bring our work to bear on both perennial and emerging challenges and opportunities.

Ivonne del Valle. Assoc. prof. Spanish, Univ. of California, Berkeley. PhD, Univ. of California, Berkeley. Previous appointment: Univ. of Michigan, 2004–09. Doctoral fellowship, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Mexico), 2001–03; doctoral fellowship, Univ. of California Inst. for Mexico and the United States, 2003–04; NEH grant, John Carter Brown Library, fall 2007; seminar grant, Ford Foundation–LASA, 2013. Project adviser, John Carter Brown Library, 2015–16; exec. comm., La Patrona Collective for Colonial Latin Amer. Scholarship, 2017; member, Escuelita Comunitaria, 2017– ; member, Intl. Tepoztlán Collective, 2017–18. LASA, ACLA. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LLC Colonial Latin Amer., 2014–Jan. 2019; Delegate Assembly, 2016–Jan. 2019. Ed. or advisory boards: Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 2014– ; Mexican Studies / Estudios mexicanos, 2014– ; Escrituras americanas, 2015– . Publications include Escribiendo desde los márgenes: Colonialismo y jesuitas en el siglo XVIII (2009); guest coed., Política común (2014, 2015), Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana (2017); contrib., Angeli Novi. Prácticas evangelizadoras, representaciones artísticas y construcciones del catolicismo en América (siglos XVII–XX) (2004), La cultura escrita en México y Perú en la época colonial (2010), Estudios transatlánticos postcoloniales (vol. 2 [Mito, archivo, disciplina: Cartografías culturales], 2011), Coloniality, Religion, and the Law in the Early Iberian World (2013), A History of Mexican Literature (2016), The Routledge Research Companion to the Works of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (2017), Imagining Histories of Colonial Latin America: Synoptic Methods and Practices (2017); articles in Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, Calíope, Revista iberoamericana, Hispanic Review, Candidate Information – 11

Revista de estudios hispánicos, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, Nueva revista de filología hispánica, Espelho: Revista machadiana, Estudios del hombre. Statement In the last few years, we all have heard and read debates about the role of the humanities in a world in which pragmatism and technical skills are increasingly valued, a world in which a more thorough idea of education is denigrated. The MLA should be an ideal space to remind us that literature and languages in particular are important components and proponents of and contributors to action. For many of us who are members of this organization, it was probably literature that taught us about a world we had no access to, but also a world that needed to be critiqued and changed. It is only in this spirit that takes literature seriously that I’d like to be part of the Executive Council. Given the current political environment in the country, and the world in general, it seems those of us in privileged positions should support measures that (1) internally protect those in less comfortable situations, such as lecturers and graduate student workers, in our departments, universities, professional organizations and that (2) externally show solidarity with and commitment to causes that require our symbolic participation at least, from human rights to Palestine and the multiple migrant crises.

Licia Fiol-Matta. Prof. Spanish, New York Univ. PhD, Yale Univ. Previous appointments: Graduate Center (2012–17) and Lehman Coll. (2003–17), City Univ. of New York (CUNY); Barnard Coll., 1993–2003. AAUW dissertation fellowship, 1991–92; Ford Foundation dissertation fellowship, 1991–92; Ford Foundation postdoctoral grant, 1996–97; Spencer Foundation grant, 1999; Professional Staff Congress–CUNY research grant, 2005–07, 2008–10, 2011–13, 2014–15; NEH research fellowship, 2005–06; travel grant, Cuban Research Inst., Florida Intl. Univ., May 2006. Crompton-Noll Award (for best essay in lesbian and gay studies), Gay and Lesbian Caucus for the Modern Langs., 2001; Sylvia Molloy Prize, Sexualities Studies section, LASA, 2016. Visiting appointments: New York Univ., fall 2010, 2016–17. Panelist, NEH, 2007. Board of directors, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY, 1998–2003. Selection comm., Alan Bray Memorial Book Award, Gay and Lesbian Caucus for the Modern Langs., 2007; coch., Sexualities and LGBT Studies program track, LASA, 2012; ASA; Puerto Rican Studies Assn. MLA activities: Delegate Assembly, 2004–06; Comm. on the Lits. of People of Color in the United States and Canada, 2008–11; exec. comm., Div. on Women’s Studies in Lang. and Lit., 2010–Jan. 2015. Series coed., New Directions in Latino Amer. Cultures, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2003– ; series coed., New Concepts in Latino Amer. Cultures, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2005–11. Ed. or advisory boards: Revista hispánica moderna, 1993–2001; Nomadías, 1996–2001; Social Text, 1997– ; Revista de estudios hispánicos, 2015– . Publications include A Queer Mother for the Nation: The State and Gabriela Mistral (2002), The Great Woman Singer: Gender and Voice in Puerto Rican Music (2017); guest coed., American Quarterly (2014); contrib., ¿Entiendes? Queer Readings, Hispanic Writings (1995), Obras completas de Margot Arce de Vázquez (1998), Sexualidad y nación (2000), Michel Foucault in Latin America (2001), Latino and Latina Writers, vol. 2 (2004), Cocinando suave: Ensayos de salsa en Puerto Rico (2015), Critical Terms in Latin American and Caribbean Thought: Historical and Institutional Trajectories (2016); articles in Radical History Review, PMLA, Papel máquina: Revista de cultura, Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, Estudos feministas, Debate feminista, Orientaciones, Nepantla: Views from South, Centro: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Revista de crítica cultural, La Torre, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Estudios: Revista de investigaciones literarias y culturales, Social Text, Nomadías. Statement All my academic appointments have been in New York City, where I have navigated widely diverging professional environments. I started my career in a small liberal arts women’s college, connected to (but distinct from) an Ivy League university. In the middle of my career, I taught in a large and beleaguered public university, shuttling between an undergraduate campus in the Bronx and a PhD program in Manhattan. I teach now in a large, privileged, and private research university. My location has allowed access, from multiple standpoints, to discussions about professional issues that I deeply care about. These include immigration and race; gendered relations of labor; protection for all members marked as queer; the 12 – Candidate Information

employment of our graduate students and junior professors; and feminist, fair promotion and retention practices. My guiding, unifying concept has been the right of all students and scholars to “choose intellection” (Ferguson), especially people of color. I’ve served the MLA in various capacities: the Delegate Assembly, the Committee on the Literatures of People of Color in the United States and Canada, and the Division on Women’s Studies in Language and Literature. I have hands-on experience in academic book publishing (a priority for MLA members) as coeditor of the book series New Directions in Latino American Cultures since 2003. Finally, as an interdisciplinary professor of Spanish, Latin American, and Latinx studies, I’m committed to strengthening the role of our departments and programs in the university and the world. Our current moment demands it.

Ann Kalscheur Suarez. Adjunct instructor Spanish, San Diego Mesa Coll. and Irvine Valley Coll., CA. PhD, Univ. of California, Irvine. Previous appointments: Amer. Lang. Inst., San Diego State Univ., 2014; California State Univ., San Marcos, 2013; Soka Univ. of America, 2009–17. Humanities dissertation fellowship, Univ. of California, Irvine, summer 2012. Outstanding teaching award, Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, Univ. of New Mexico, 2006. Participant, Introduction to Online Teaching and Learning, @ONE [Online Network of Educators], summer 2016; participant, Online Faculty Training and Certification Program, San Diego Community Coll. District, fall 2017. AATSP, ACTFL, LASA. Conference presentations: Intl. Congress on Medieval Studies, 2006; Southern California chapter, AATSP, 2008, 2010; LASA, 2012; Kentucky Foreign Lang. Conference, 2016. Statement The MLA is an essential organization for the promotion of the teaching and scholarly study of language and literature. For this reason, it is crucial that it continue to acknowledge the changes in the profession and the challenges our community faces going forward. I view the deterioration of government support for and public interest in the humanities (reflected in low course enrollments, especially for languages), job insecurity for contingent faculty members, the disconnect between the focus of graduate programs and the realities of the job market, and assuring equity and inclusivity in higher education as the main issues that the MLA needs to confront. If I am elected to the Executive Council, I will be honored to have the opportunity to work on these and other crucial matters. We must continue to promote the benefits of the humanities while staying open to new approaches, especially the interdisciplinary possibilities for language and literature and the continued exploration of the digital humanities. As a contingent faculty member for the last nine years at various institutions, I can provide a firsthand perspective on issues such as the need for greater job security, involvement in faculty governance, and support for research and professional development. PhD programs also need to adjust to a shrinking market for tenure-track positions and prepare and train students for multiple career paths; the MLA can contribute important guidance here. Equally as important, we must strive to increase faculty and student diversity, welcoming new perspectives and contributions.

Anjali Prabhu. Prof. French and francophone studies, Wellesley Coll. PhD, Duke Univ. Dir., Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities, Wellesley Coll., 2015–18. Mellon summer research grant, 1996; fellow, African Studies Centre, Cambridge Univ., 2001; senior assoc. member, St. Antony’s Coll., Univ. of Oxford, 2002–03; fellow, Newhouse Center for the Humanities, Wellesley Coll., 2006–07. Whitehead Assoc. Prof. of Critical Thought, Wellesley Coll., 2007–09. African Lit. Assn., African Studies Assn., Soc. for Cinema and Media Studies, ACLA. MLA activities: Comm. on Academic Freedom and Professional Rights and Responsibilities, 2005–08; exec. comm., Div. on Postcolonial Studies in Lit. and Culture, 2010–Jan. 2015; Delegate Assembly, 2011–Jan. 2014; Program Comm., 2011–14; forum exec. comm., LLC African to 1990, 2015–Jan. 2020; Nominating Comm., 2016– 17; PMLA Ed. Board, 2017–18. Ed. boards: Research in African Literatures, 2010– ; Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, 2012– ; Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, 2014– . Candidate Information – 13

Publications include Hybridity: Revisions, Transformations, Prospects (2007), Contemporary Cinema of Africa and the Diaspora (2014); contrib., Feminist Futures: Re-imagining Women, Culture, and Development (2003; rev. ed., 2016), Postcolonial Theory and Francophone Literary Studies (2004), The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature (2011); articles in PMLA, Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, Levinas Studies, Cinema Journal, Oeuvres et critiques, Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, French Forum, International Journal of Francophone Studies, Research in African Literatures, Diacritics, Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature, Romance Languages Annual. Statement Working in a liberal arts institution, serving extensively in the MLA, and heading a humanities center have prepared me to understand our professional and scholarly concerns as we face systemic challenges to sustaining humanistic education. Graduate education and funding and the future of graduates continue to be of utmost concern. With virtually uninterrupted service to the organization, I strongly believe in the MLA’s possibilities and acknowledge its achievements even as I recognize some weaknesses. Our organization is as good as its membership demands and as robust as its members’ participation. My acceptance of this nomination is based on such a belief. I’m also interested in helping to construct better mechanisms for ongoing conversations across fields and convictions beyond the Delegate Assembly, so that, in more immediate and contentious situations, we might benefit from the procedures and culture that are renewed through such continuous debating. Expanding the opportunities for mentoring and new partnerships forms another preoccupation. The MLA could provide explicit space for those who train our future members in high schools, and we might attract less obvious potential members from more community and technical colleges, nonprofit organizations, and the public and private sectors. These interests cohere in my aspiration for the MLA to be relevant to an even more diverse body of people concerned with humanistic thought and to inventively promote the wide-ranging benefits of specialized humanistic knowledge and methods. The bigger picture is a commitment to extending our socially sensitized public culture well beyond the organization.

Julie Shoults. Part-time lecturer German, Muhlenberg Coll. PhD, Univ. of Connecticut. Previous appointments: Moravian Coll., fall 2016; Albright Coll., spring 2016; Kutztown Univ., 2015–16. Fulbright teaching assistantship (Germany), 2005–06; NEMLA summer fellowship, 2012; Zantop Travel Award, Women in German, 2012; DAAD travel grant, 2013, 2014; participant, Fulbright-DAAD Summer Acad., 2016; NEMLA travel grant, 2017; Women in German Professional Development Award for Contingent Faculty, 2018. Award for Excellence in Grad. Teaching, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, Univ. of Connecticut, 2014; Dissertation Prize, Women in Geman, 2016. Conference presentations: ACLA, 2012; Women in German, 2012, 2013, 2014; NEMLA, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017; German Studies Assn., 2014, 2017, 2018. Publications include coed., Women Writing War: From German Colonialism through World War I (2018); article in Women in German Yearbook. Statement Since completing my PhD I have held a number of part-time, temporary positions, at times simultaneously, some with more favorable conditions than others. Such positions tend to be punctuated by precarity and inequity. My own experiences and my conversations with others in similar situations have made me very aware of specific concerns of part-time faculty members—from financial insecurity, lack of benefits, and ineligibility for institutional funding to less obvious impacts on personal lives and professional pursuits. Because contingent faculty members often teach lower-level courses, which feed into upper-level courses and serve a pool of potential majors/minors in a discipline, it is important to invest in these instructors, providing them with fair wages and working conditions and including them in decisions regarding programming and curriculum design. Part-time faculty members are generally not required to attend department meetings, though attending these meetings while at various institutions has shown me that some colleagues do not understand the day-to-day challenges many part-timers face and, therefore, cannot 14 – Candidate Information

adequately advocate for them at higher levels within the institution. Whenever possible, I attend these meetings to represent my own interests and to speak up for other part-timers unable to attend. The MLA has been forward thinking in its initiatives to address the realities of the current job market, providing resources and support for those not in full-time, tenure-track positions. I would welcome the opportunity to join the Executive Council as a part-time faculty member, bringing a voice for these concerns to the table.

Part III: Voting for Professional-Issues Delegates Seventeen persons will be elected to professional-issues seats in the assembly. The term of office will be from 7 January 2019 through the close of the January 2022 convention. The numbers preceding the nominees’ names correspond to the numbers assigned to the nominees on the paper ballot sheet. The names of the professional-issues delegates with continuing terms in 2019 appear at the MLA Web site (www.mla.org/del_assembly_members).

Vote for one nominee in any or all of the seventeen professional-issues contests.

I. Graduate Students (2 contests)

10. Matthew Brauer. Grad. student French, Northwestern Univ. BA, DePauw Univ. Institutional service (Northwestern Univ.): grad. events coord., Dept. of French and Italian, 2013–14; undergrad. research mentor, Paris Program in Critical Theory, 2015; grad. faculty liaison, Dept. of French and Italian, 2016–17; Ad Hoc Comm. for a Weinberg Lang. Initiative, Weinberg Coll. of Arts and Sciences, 2017–18. Morris Goodman Award for Lang. Studies, Program of African Studies, Northwestern Univ., 2014; Ethel Geiger Fellowship, Paris Program in Critical Theory, Northwestern Univ., 2015–16; grad. teaching fellowship, Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching, Northwestern Univ., 2017–18. Sec., North Africa Caucus, African Lit. Assn., 2018–19. Conference presentations: Middle East History and Theory Conference (Univ. of Chicago), 2014, 2018; African Summer Inst. (Northeastern Illinois Univ.), 2015; African Lit. Assn., 2017, 2018; Middle East Studies Assn., 2018; MLA, 2019. Statement As the future leaders of MLA fields, graduate students already face the full range of challenges that lie before the humanities. Our situation requires us to do much more than just write a dissertation. In addition to being students, we are also educators, researchers, and mentors. While pursuing degrees, many of us must also reckon with labor contingency, personal and family care, and obstacles to mobility and migration. I believe the MLA is an essential forum for addressing these concerns, and I will focus on enabling graduate students to engage with these questions from the beginning of our careers onward, both in academia and beyond. As a delegate representing the professional issues of graduate students, I will draw on a range of experiences, from coursework to the academic job market to studying in North America and researching in Europe and North Africa to working in professional translation outside of academia. Throughout my graduate career, I have worked formally and informally with other graduate students and faculty members on a number of issues: support for graduate students acquiring research languages, graduate students’ role in undergraduate language instruction, pedagogical development through teaching observations and workshops, and advocacy on labor issues such as benefits, funding, and continuation fee reform. I have learned most from listening to other graduate students’ experiences and look forward to being able to represent these concerns on a broader scale.

Candidate Information – 15

11. DeLisa Hawkes. Grad. student English, Univ. of Maryland, College Park. MA, North Carolina Central Univ. Institutional service (Univ. of Maryland): coordinating comm., Dept. of English, 2014–15; vice pres., Black Grad. Student Union, 2014–16; sec., Grad. English Organization, 2015–16; Univ. Senate, 2015–16; English Grad. Studies Comm., 2017–18; Dean’s Cabinet, Coll. of Arts and Humanities, 2017– . Jacob K. Goldhaber Travel Award, Univ. of Maryland, spring 2015, spring 2017; grant, NEH summer inst., 2015; grant, Center for Literary and Comparative Studies, Univ. of Maryland, 2016–17, 2018–19; summer seminar grant, Center for Historic Amer. Visual Culture, Amer. Antiquarian Soc., 2017; All-S.T.A.R. Fellowship for Outstanding Scholars and Teaching Assts., Univ. of Maryland, 2017–18; Mary Savage Snouffer Dissertation Fellowship, Univ. of Maryland, 2018–19. Panel ch., Soc. for the Study of Southern Lit., 2018. Conference presentations: Music of the South Symposium (Center for the Study of Southern Culture, Univ. of Mississippi), Apr. 2013; Southern Writers, Southern Writing (grad. conference, Univ. of Mississippi), July 2013; Intl. Conference on Romanticism, 2013; MMLA, 2013; Medieval English Studies Symposium, 2013; Shakespeare 450, Société Française Shakespeare, Apr. 2014; Consent in Early America, 1600–1900 (Rothermere Amer. Inst., Univ. of Oxford), Mar. 2015; Amer. Lit. Assn., 2016; Southeastern Amer. Studies Assn., 2017. Publications include article in Journal of Traditions and Beliefs. Statement Answering the “so what” question in humanities studies has never been more pressing, and graduate students in language and literature are taking that question head-on. Today’s graduate students show the relevance of language and literary studies to audiences beyond the academy by cultivating open-mindedness and critical engagement through their scholarship and teaching. They analyze representations of race, class, and gender while questioning what those representations mean for the communities in which they live. Graduate students think beyond the classroom to imagine a more robust future for language and literary studies. If elected to the Delegate Assembly, I will actively listen to and engage with graduate students to address pressing issues that face our constituency. These include concerns over graduate student stipends, diversity among graduate cohorts, graduate student work in the public humanities, and time to degree completion. I currently address these issues in my work as cofounder of the Humanities beyond the Academy Reading Group, former vice president of the Black Graduate Students Union, and former University Senate representative at the University of Maryland. As scholars of literature and language, MLA members understand the importance of cultivating multiple perspectives and voices. As the next generation of scholars and teachers, graduate students are at the forefront of their fields and will shape the future of the profession. The humanities, unlike other disciplines, are not limited to prescriptive methods of analysis. Rather, the humanities thrive on interdisciplinary collaboration. Therefore, all of its constituents’ perspectives are necessary to positively impact its future. ☼ 12. Tiffany DeRewal. Grad. student English, Temple Univ. MA, Villanova Univ. Writing arts instructor, Rowan Univ., 2015– . Institutional service (Temple Univ.): Webmaster, Grad. English Assn. (GEA), 2012–14; conference coord., GEA, 2013; teaching circle leader, First-Year Writing Program, 2013–14; conference coord., Center for the Humanities, 2014. Lilly Grad. Fellow in Humanities and the Arts, Valparaiso Univ., 2010–14; Advanced Grad. Scholar Award, Coll. of Liberal Arts, Temple Univ., 2014–15. Newton Award (for essay), Dept. of English, Temple Univ., 2012. Conference presentations: Mid-Atlantic Writing Center Assn., 2010; ACLA, 2012, 2014; Popular Culture Assn. / Amer. Culture Assn., 2012; MLA, 2013, 2016; Invasion of the Bodysnatcher: Medical Students, Gothic Novels, and the Contest for the Corpse in Antebellum America, Morbid Anatomy Museum, Aug. 2014; Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies, 2017. Publications include articles in Literature and Medicine, Nabokov Online Journal. Statement Through diverse experiences in research, teaching, professional development, and labor, I have had the opportunity to share with, listen to, and learn from many fellow graduate students, new PhDs, and 16 – Candidate Information

scholars across the academic employment spectrum about the obstacles, demands, and opportunities to be found in the current humanities landscape. Changing employment structures and changing relations between departments and institutions are and continue to be important concerns for scholars in any position but especially for graduate students and contingent faculty members. If elected to the Delegate Assembly, I will strive to be an intentional and gracious representative for the needs and interests of graduate students and will pay particular attention to the economic considerations that are of primary concern to many, if not most, of these students. In the course of my graduate career, I have financed my studies through a wide range of funding sources, including assistantships, fellowship and scholarship programs, freelance work, contingent teaching, and a full-time instructorship, and I believe these experiences provide a useful lens through which to consider the changing shape of humanities scholarship and labor. Furthermore, as an interdisciplinary scholar and instructor, I greatly value the continuing and possible intersections between the various dimensions of research, teaching, and civic discourse that we conduct as humanities specialists. The MLA provides the opportunity for like-minded scholars to create communities, call for change, and take action, and I would be honored to join that mission as a graduate student representative.

13. Rebecca Hogue. Grad. student English, Univ. of California, Davis. MA, Georgetown Univ. Institutional service (Univ. of California, Davis [UC Davis]): grad. ally (2015–16), diversity and inclusion advocate (2016–17), and coch. (2017–18), English Grad. Student Assn.; exec. comm., Designated Emphasis in Native Amer. Studies, 2017–19; vice ch., Chancellor’s Grad. and Professional Student Advisory Board, 2017–19. Margrit Mondavi Grad. Fellowship, UC Davis Humanities Inst., 2018; Professors for the Future Fellowship, UC Davis, 2018–19. Conference presentations: ACLA, 2012; PAMLA, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017; NEMLA, 2013; Popular Culture Assn. / Amer. Culture Assn., 2013; MLA, 2014, 2018; Assn. for the Study of Lit. and Environment, 2015, 2017; ASA, 2015, 2018; Native Amer. and Indigenous Studies Assn., 2018. Publications include contrib., The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies (2016); article in Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature; reviews in Contemporary Pacific, Transmotion. Statement As current and future scholars, teachers, and professionals in the humanities, graduate students are vital participants in the MLA and at our respective institutions. But our liminal status as both student and teacher means that concerns of graduate students often fall by the wayside due to inadequate frameworks to recognize both the professional capabilities of graduate students and our need for mentorship and support. If elected, I will advocate for strengthening the MLA’s attentiveness to the intersecting concerns facing graduate students: financial support, pedagogy training, mentoring, and professional development for both academic and nonacademic careers. I am already highly involved in such advocacy at my own institution, where I currently serve as vice chair of the Chancellor’s Graduate and Professional Student Advisory Board and as cochair of our English Graduate Student Association. In these positions, I have gained invaluable experience in listening to graduate student concerns and advocating on behalf of students to the administration, but I would welcome the opportunity to advocate on a larger scale at the MLA. With the continued decline of the academic job market, it is imperative that the MLA work not only on improving the lives of graduate students in our various institutional roles but also on thinking deeply about the changing nature of our professions and the purpose of doctoral study. Graduate students are essential to the MLA and its mission to further the study of languages and literatures, and I look forward to advocating for our future in humanistic inquiry and work.

II. Full-Time Contingent Faculty Members (1 contest)

14. Andrea Yates. Instructor English, Univ. of Rhode Island. PhD, Univ. of Rhode Island. Douglas Ramos Research Fellowship, Center for the Humanities, Univ. of Rhode Island (URI), 2004; grad. research fellowship, URI Alumni Assn., 2004–05. Dir., Ocean State Summer Writing Conference, 2013. Senior ed., Ocean State Review, 2013; ed. board, Sage Open, 2016– . Candidate Information – 17

Publications include contrib., Perennial Empires: Postcolonial, Transnational, and Literary Perspectives (2011); articles in Virginia Woolf Miscellany, After Beckett / D’après Beckett. Statement While visiting my father in Arizona years ago, I saw a billboard for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign that read, “Don’t think.” It was then that I knew I must commit myself to the opposite dictate and use the classroom to foster future generations of critical thinkers. This attack on critical thought is even more alive today than it was when I saw that billboard, and our response to it is even more vital. The skills we teach in literature, language, and writing classes are the first line of defense against this attack. Though it can be difficult for contingent faculty members to feel valued at our institutions, we are an essential part of this battle. Because we teach many of the general education requirements, we are in a unique position to reach students both within and outside of the humanities and to impart the crucial significance of the humanities to those who may not realize the value, indeed the necessity, of language, literature, and writing courses. I hope to work with the MLA to strengthen and amplify the voices of contingent faculty members, who often feel marginalized in our universities and in the profession.

15. No candidate

III. Part-Time Contingent Faculty Members (1 contest)

16. Michelle Reed. Adjunct prof. English, Broome Community Coll., State Univ. of New York. PhD, Binghamton Univ., State Univ. of New York. Research grant, Amer. Philosophical Soc., summer 2007. Contrib. (to bibliography), Research Soc. for Victorian Periodicals, 2003–05; contrib., Routledge Annotated Bibliography of English Studies, 2007–08. Publications include reviews in George Eliot–George Henry Lewes Studies. Statement Throughout my life, formal education has been integral to providing me with the means to find a niche where I could give back to those who, like me, come from humble means. As a graduate of the doctoral program at Binghamton University, I began with a vision to find a full-time professorship, but my path led to public school and to the community college. I see the role of community colleges and of adjuncts as one that serves to level the playing field for traditional and nontraditional students. I currently work in public school administration and adjunct as an English professor for Broome Community College. I have witnessed the growth of children from kindergarten through high school and of young and older adults at the college level. Working in the community college system has shown me the importance of two-year institutions and how they contribute to a greater social good. However, the voice of adjuncts continues to be a mere murmur. As Halcrow and Olson noted in their research, “adjunct faculty might presently be the invisible underclass of American academia. . . . [I]t is imperative that all institutions understand the adverse effects of excluding such a large portion of their instructional faculty from the mainstream and the critical need for change” (2008). I hope to represent the needs and voices of part-time contingent faculty members as a delegate. Through this role, I will endeavor to present the needs of part-time faculty members and to be a positive representative of our interests.

17. No candidate

IV. Scholars Residing outside the United States and Canada (1 contest)

18. Helene Aji. Prof. Amer. lit., Université Paris Nanterre. PhD, Univ. of Amiens; Habilitation, Université de Paris 3 (Sorbonne Nouvelle). Vice pres. for research, Université Paris Nanterre, 2018– . Dir., Laboratoire de Littératures, Langues et Linguistique des Universités d’Angers et du Mans, 2008–10. Visiting researcher, Mandeville Special Collections and 18 – Candidate Information

Archives, Univ. of California, San Diego, 2003, 2004; research grant, Spanish Ministry of Educ., 2006–12; Prime d’encadrement doctoral et de recherche, French Ministry for Research, 2006– . Visiting appointments: Natl. and Kapodistrian Univ., 2013–17; Univ. of Texas, Austin, Aug.–Dec. 2017. Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques, 2018. Consultant reader, Conseil National du Livre, 2001– ; selection comm. (humanities section), Institut Universitaire de France, 2016– . Treasurer, Association Française d’Études Américaines, 2006–09; pres., Société d’Études Modernistes, 2014– . Publications include Ezra Pound et William Carlos Williams: Pour une poétique américaine (2001), William Carlos Williams: Un plan d’action (2004), The Good Soldier [by] Ford Madox Ford (2005); ed., Ezra Pound and Referentiality (2003); coed., L’impersonnel en littérature: Explorations critiques et théoriques (2009), Revues modernistes, revues engagées (1900–1939) (2011), Selected Poems: From Modernism to Now (2012), H.D. and Modernity (2014), H.D.’s Trilogy and Beyond (2014), Les Amériques au fil du devenir: Écritures de l’altérité, frontières mouvantes (2016); contrib., Can Poetry Make Anything Happen? La poésie dans l’enseignement de l’anglais (2001), The Complete Poems: “and looked our infant sight away” [by] Elizabeth Bishop (2002), La voix dans les littératures de langue anglaise (2005), The Ezra Pound Encyclopedia (2005), The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poets and Poetry (2005), Présence et représentation (2005), Mémoires perdues, mémoires vives (2006), Impersonality and Emotion in Twentieth-Century British Arts (2006), Invectives: Quand le corps reprend la parole (2006), Les formes de l’obsession dans la littérature anglaise et américaine (2006), Revues modernistes anglo-américaines: Lieux d’échanges, lieux d’exil (2006), Modernism Revisited: Transgressing Boundaries and Strategies of Renewal in American Poetry (2007), Poetry and Public Language (2007), Dix études sur Les Raisins de la colère (2007), Désirs et débris d’épopée au XXe siècle (2008), “S’entregloser”: Commentaire et discours dans la littérature anglophone (2009), The Sound of Poetry, the Poetry of Sound (2009), Ford Madox Ford, France, and Provence (2011), A Companion to Poetic Genre (2011), Espaces multiculturels: Sociétés et images (2011), Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises: Entre sens et absence (2012), Poetics in a New Key: Interviews and Essays by Marjorie Perloff (2013), Narrating “Precariousness”: Modes, Media, Ethics (2014), 1913, cent ans après: Enchantements et désenchantements (2015), The Poetry and Poetics of Michael Heller: A Nomad Memory (2015), Dictionnaire des Amériques (2016), La Bible dans les littératures du monde (2016), Dans le signe (2016), The Edinburgh Dictionary of Modernism (2018); articles in Annales du CRAA, Annales du monde anglophone, Cahiers de Charles V, Cahiers du CICLaS, Caliban, Cercles, E-rea: Revue électronique d’études sur le monde Anglophone, Esprit, Études anglaises, Europe, European Journal of English Studies, Golden Handcuffs Review, GRAAT, In’hui, International Pluridisciplinary Studies of American Culture, Jacket, Quinzaine littéraire, Paideuma: A Journal Devoted to Ezra Pound Scholarship, Polysèmes, Revue française d’études américaines, Revue Lisa / Lisa E-Journal, Samlaren (Univ. of Uppsala), Sillages critiques, Sources, Denver Quarterly, European English Messenger, New Review of Literature (Otis Coll. of Art and Design), Review of Contemporary Fiction, Transatlantica, Travaux de l’Institut de Géographie de Reims. Statement I have been a member of the MLA since I was a doctoral student in the 1990s. After four years as a student at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris and several extended periods of research and education abroad, I became highly aware of the internationalization of the humanities and of the necessity for scholars to become part of a global intellectual world. My specialization in American modernist poetry increased my interest in research methods and theories beyond the French explication de texte. Because our promotion system emphasizes mobility, I worked successively for large regional multidisciplinary universities (Amiens and Rennes), a world-famous literary university (the Sorbonne), and a smaller university with a focus on the sciences (Le Mans). When I transferred to Nanterre to a chair in American literature and poetry, I came to a major university based on the social sciences and the humanities in a context of shrinking funding and rarefying tenured positions. I have served as research director, head of department, and dean; I am currently serving as vice president for research. Candidate Information – 19

I would like to take my extensive familiarity with higher education and research systems, my leadership experience, and my commitment to the community of scholars and academics to the Delegate Assembly. I believe in the dynamics of international mobility and exchanges and the crucial value of the humanities to promote peace, diversity, and inclusion among communities and nations. I wish to participate in creating the conditions to enable our profession to work toward these goals.

19. Eleonora Rao. Assoc. prof. English, Univ. of Salerno. PhD, Univ. of Warwick. Research grant, Centre for Comparative Lit., Univ. of Toronto, Apr. 1991– Mar. 1992; research project grant, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 1996–98; Canada Faculty Enrichment grant, Centre for Comparative Lit. (summer 1999) and Dept. of English (Oct.–Nov. 2010), Univ. of Toronto. Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale, 2012. Steering comm., European Network for Short Fiction Research, 2013– ; pres., Margaret Atwood Soc., 2015–17; natl. correspondent, Gender Studies Network, European Soc. for the Study of English, 2016– . Ed. board, Literary Geographies, 2013– . Publications include Strategies for Identity: The Fiction of Margaret Atwood (1993), Heart of a Stranger: Contemporary Women Writers and the Metaphor of Exile (2002); ed. and cotrans., Smaro Kamboureli, In seconda persona (2007), Margaret Atwood, La porta (2011; 2nd ed., 2018); coed., Per una topografia dell’altrove: Spazi altri nell’immaginario letterario e culturale di lingua inglese (1995), Letteratura e femminismi: Teorie della critica in area inglese e americana (2000), Literary Landscapes, Landscapes in Literature (2007), Gender/genre: Saggi in onore di Maria Teresa Chialant (2014), Space and Place in Alice Munro’s Fiction: “A Book with Maps in It” (2018); guest ed., Literary Geographies (2017); contrib., Margaret Atwood: Writing and Subjectivity (1994), Margaret Atwood: The Shape Shifter (1998), Intersections: La narrative canadese tra storia e geografia (1999), L’impulso autobiografico: Inghilterra, Stati Uniti, Canada e altri ancora (2005), The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood (2006), Critical Insights: The Handmaid’s Tale (2010); articles in Italian Americana, Doris Lessing Studies, Humanities, Etudes de stylistique anglaise, Commonwealth Essays and Studies, Cuadernos de literatura inglesa y norteamericana, Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate, Testi e linguaggi, Textus: English Studies in Italy, Michigan Feminist Studies, British Journal of Canadian Studies, Margaret Laurence Review. Statement I have been a member of the MLA since the early nineties, when I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. I have attended quite a few conventions, where I organized sessions and gave papers. As a scholar residing outside the United States and Canada with strong links to European and Canadian universities, I hope to be able to support international networks and improve collaborations between institutions and among scholars. I would like to contribute to the growing debate about the importance and value of the humanities across cultural borders, and I would promote a more explicit recognition of their valuable contributions to the university and to the broader academic community.

V. Race and Ethnicity in the Profession (1 contest)

20. Melissa Adams-Campbell. Assoc. prof. English, Northern Illinois Univ. PhD, Indiana Univ., Bloomington. NEH summer inst. fellowship (Newberry Library), 2010; Horatio Alger Soc. fellowship, 2017. Schriber Scholar Award, Northern Illinois Univ., 2015. Publications include New World Courtships: Transatlantic Alternatives to Companionate Marriage (2015); introd., Susanna Rowson, Trials of the Human Heart (2017); contrib., Transatlantic Literature and Transitivity, 1780–1850: Subjects, Texts, and Print Culture (2017); articles in Settler Colonial Studies, Studies in American Fiction, QSE: International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Statement Grounded in critical race and feminist theories, my research interests in transnational early American studies begin with place and the stories told by and about peoples occupying specific lands. To better understand those stories, I have journeyed to Native American communities to interview faith keepers and clan mothers and learned to listen carefully to marginalized communities. In the classroom I share the value I 20 – Candidate Information

place on knowledge producers and knowledge structures frequently overlooked by those in power as my students and I connect the land we occupy in northern Illinois to histories of enslavement, Indian removal, and continuing colonialism here and abroad. If elected to represent Race and Ethnicity in the Profession, I hope to draw attention to two areas of concern: expanding graduate studies and other professional opportunities for students of color and other marginalized groups and advocating robust institutional support for contingent and tenure-line faculty members from diverse backgrounds and for programs that advance the study of race and ethnicity, including foreign languages. As universities struggle with free speech debates, hate groups on campus, and a divisive political climate, the MLA should continue to advance language and literature studies, and the humanities more broadly, as a means of producing more informed, empathetic global citizens and future leaders. Race and ethnicity should play a determining role in this advocacy work.

21. Patricia Akhimie. Assoc. prof. English, Rutgers Univ., Newark. PhD, Columbia Univ. Ford Foundation Diversity Dissertation Fellowship, Natl. Research Council, 2009–10; residential fellowship, Villa La Pietra, New York Univ. Florence, 2018; Hakluyt Soc. research grant, 2018–19; NEH fellowship, Folger Shakespeare Library, 2018–19. Coach, Faculty Success Program, Natl. Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, 2017– . Sexual Harassment Taskforce, Shakespeare Assn. of America, 2015–16. Publications include Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference: Race and Conduct in the Early Modern World (2018); contrib., The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment: Gender, Sexuality, and Race (2016), Early Modern Diplomacy, Theatre, and Soft Power: The Making of Peace (2016); articles in Shakespeare Bulletin, Studies in Travel Writing.

VI. LGBTQ in the Profession (1 contest)

22. Grace Lavery. Asst. prof. English, Univ. of California, Berkeley. PhD, Univ. of Pennsylvania. Manuscript miniconference grant, Inst. for Intl. Studies, 2016. A. Owen Aldridge Prize (for essay by a grad. student), Comparative Literature Studies / ACLA, 2012. Publications include articles in Modernism/Modernity, ELH, Novel: A Forum on Fiction, Comparative Literature Studies, Studies in the Novel, Journal of Modern Literature. Statement As a scholar, activist, and transsexual woman, I have long been dedicated to examining how queer and trans experiences inhabit institutions. My first book, Quaint, Exquisite: Victorian Aesthetics and the Idea of Japan (Princeton, 2019), considers queerness as a function of Victorian aesthetic theory’s confrontation with the idea of Japan. My current research draws connections between Victorian realism and the discourse of “realness” immanently theorized in contemporary trans lives. In an era of increasing trans visibility and renewed erosion of LGBTQ protections, I believe universities need to explore ways to promote tolerance and to provide material, measurable support for LGBTQ faculty members, students, and staff members. I am committed to defending academic freedom for all, more so than ever in an era when a well-funded campaign to demonize the university disguises a far-reaching repression of progressive speech and a broad assault on the liberal values that underpin our work. At Berkeley, I have worked to enrich our contemporary discourse on the fraught issue of free speech, especially working to understand the differences between hate speech (which is legally protected) and harassment (which is not). It is necessary for faculty members and administrators to establish careful, rigorous, and dynamic policies to reflect these differences. I am also interested in how LGBTQ concerns intersect with those of underserved and marginalized communities. If elected, I hope to build coalitions with delegates representing other professional issues to ensure that any platform in the interest of LGBTQ members serves the larger academic ecosystem as well.

Candidate Information – 21

23. Michael D. Snediker. Assoc. prof. English, Univ. of Houston. PhD, Johns Hopkins Univ. Previous appointments: Queen’s Univ., 2008–13; Mount Holyoke Coll, 2005–07. Yaddo residency, summer 2013; Porter Fellowship (2014), Sundell Residency for Special Assistants (summer 2015), and Philip Guston and Musa Mc Kim Fellowship (summer 2016), Corp. of Yaddo. Poets Out Loud Editor’s Prize (for New York Editions), Fordham Univ., 2016. Exec. ed., The Offing: A Literary Magazine, 2015–16. Publications include Queer Optimism: Lyric Personhood and Other Felicitous Persuasions (2009), The Apartment of Tragic Appliances (poems, 2013), The New York Editions: Poems (2017); contrib., Clinical Encounters in Sexuality: Psychoanalytic Practice and Queer Theory (2017); articles in J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, Qui Parle, Postmodern Culture, Henry James Review, ELH, Criticism. Statement For the past ten years, I’ve taught courses in antebellum, modern, and contemporary American literature, poetry and poetics, queer theory, disability theory, and affect theory, at a small liberal arts college (Mount Holyoke Coll.), a private research university (Queen’s Univ.), and a large state research university (Univ. of Houston). It’s my conviction that the work of our profession—both the rigor of inquiry and the patience of sustained attention—comprises a mode of activism in its own right, not least in the intellectually allergic culture of our present intolerable political climate. As a delegate in these precarious times, I’d be committed to protecting and advancing the institutional conditions under which our work as researchers, theorists, and professors takes place, especially when it comes to enriching and defending the intellectual livelihood of our LGBTQ undergraduates, graduate students, and junior colleagues. I’m invested in the prospect of an MLA able to answer to and serve as a resource for queer and trans faculty members and students for whom experiences of precarity and institutional disavowal far too frequently adumbrate and exhaust their passionate investment in our shared calling.

VII. Women and Gender in the Profession (1 contest)

24. Pamela Lothspeich. Assoc. prof. South Asian studies, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. PhD, Columbia Univ. Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellowship, 2012–13; senior research fellowship, Amer. Inst. of Indian Studies / NEH, fall 2017. Sec., Ecumenica: Journal of Theatre and Performance, Jan. 2017– . Publications include Epic Nation: Reimagining the Mahabharata in the Age of Empire (2009); contrib., Interpreting Homes in South Asian Literature (2007), Popular Culture in a Globalised India (2009); articles in TDR: The Drama Review, Modern Asian Studies, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Postcolonial Text, Journal of Vaishnava Studies. Statement I am a strong supporter of the MLA and passionate about mitigating gender-based inequities in academic culture. I have seen how culture and structure conspire to create an unlevel playing field and unwelcoming environments for female faculty members and graduate students, where their expertise and ideas are routinely questioned or ignored. But I have also seen how transparency and data can be used to create pressure for institutional change. Issues I feel strongly about: (1) Salary disparities based on gender and race. In my field, I have noticed that subfields with higher numbers of white and male faculty members tend to have higher salaries than other subfields. (2) The baby penalty faced by mothers. Some men use paternity leave as a sabbatical and are rewarded for it, while women’s commitment to the profession is often questioned after they or their partners give birth or adopt. (3) Student evaluations that systematically hurt women, especially those from underrepresented groups. Student evaluations weigh too heavily in decisions about salary allocations and reviews for promotion. 22 – Candidate Information

(4) The disproportionate share of service that falls on women, especially those from underrepresented groups. Many faculty members see women as the natural caretakers of departmental business and as nurturers of students. The service burden often falls more heavily on those with the least power to say no. In my own scholarship on Ramlila, a form of Indian theater where men traditionally play all roles, I constantly engage with issues of gender and highlight that in my writing.

25. Ellen MacKay. Assoc. prof. English and theater and performance studies, Univ. of Chicago. PhD, Columbia Univ. Mellon postdoctoral fellowship, Soc. for the Humanities, Cornell Univ., 2006; Mellon Innovating Intl. Research, Teaching, and Collaboration Award, 2016. Robert Schanke Essay Award, Mid America Theatre Conference, 2007; Oscar G. Brockett Essay Prize, Amer. Soc. of Theatre Researchers, 2015. Head scholar, NEH Teaching Shakespeare Inst., Folger Shakespeare Library, summer 2014, summer 2016, summer 2018; dir., Inst. for Digital Arts and Humanities, Indiana Univ., Bloomington, 2016–17; principal investigator, Shakespeare stream, Critical Editions for Digital Analysis and Research, Univ. of Chicago, 2017– . Coch., Workshop for Directors of Grad. Studies in English, ADE, 2014, 2015. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LLC 16th-Century English, 2014–Jan. 2019; Delegate Assembly, 2015–Jan. 2018. Coed., Modern Philology, 2017– . Publications include Persecution, Plague, and Fire: Fugitive Histories of the Stage in Early Modern England (2011); digital ed., Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Folger Luminary Shakespeare App, launched Dec. 2013); contrib., Teaching British Women Playwrights of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century (2010), Theater Historiography: Critical Questions (2010), Early Modern Theatricality (2013), Historical Affects and the Early Modern Theater (2015), A Cultural History of Theatre in the Early Modern Age (2017); articles in Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies, Shakespeare Survey, Theatre Survey, Theatre History Studies. Statement As a graduate of a women’s college (Barnard), I have always understood academic work as intrinsically gendered and enriched by an open engagement with identity and difference. As a specialist in the history of theater and performance, I have continually sought to address the relation of cultural expression to the structural entailments and subjective idiosyncrasies of embodied life. I seek to represent Women and Gender in the Profession because these orientations of my professional life feel increasingly quaint. In my final semester as director of the Institute for the Digital Arts and Humanities at Indiana University, I devised and orchestrated a series of workshops and talks entitled “Rewiring Consent.” My aim was to dig into the politics of digitization by using the university’s Title IX and Clery Campus Security Reports to discuss how highly charged, incomplete, and politically complex information is turned (or fails to turn) into data. This programming, and the knowledge it required me to gain of campus climates across the country, brought home with brutal clarity how much work still needs to be done to support diversity, inclusivity, and equity within the academy. In the present political moment, Title IX guidelines have been reversed, and the unequal treatment of students, staff members, and faculty members threatens to bend back into a norm. My objective is to maintain the MLA’s persistent and resistant voice against this contortion of justice and to help build paths, standards, and resources to protect those who have been told they do not count.

VIII. Composition, Rhetoric, and Writing Programs (1 contest)

26. Donnie Sackey. Asst. prof. rhetoric and writing, Univ. of Texas, Austin. PhD, Michigan State Univ. Previous appointment: Wayne State Univ., 2013–18. Coinvestigator, Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors grant, 2014–16; coinvestigator, Natl. Institutes of Health grant, 2016–18. Heart and Soul Award, Michigan Campus Compact, 2011; President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, Wayne State Univ., 2017. Exec. board, Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, Candidate Information – 23

Aug. 2013– . Technical and Scientific Communication Awards Comm. (2014–15), Stonewall Service Award Comm. (2014–15), Resolutions Comm. (2015–16), James Berlin Memorial Outstanding Dissertation Award Comm. (2015–16), LGBT Awards Comm., (ch., 2016–17), and Exec. Comm. (2017–20), CCCC; Amer. Soc. for Environmental History; Assn. of Teachers of Technical Writing; Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication; Forest History Soc.; NCTE. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., RCWS History and Theory of Rhetoric, 2016–Jan. 2021. Responses and special issues ed., Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture. Publications include guest coed., Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society (2015); contrib., Ecology, Writing Theory, and New Media: Writing Ecology (2012), Cultures of Copyright (2014), Rhetoric, through Everyday Things (2016), Circulation, Writing, and Rhetoric (2018); articles in Rhetoric Review, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, Computers and Composition, Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society, Lore: An E-Journal for Teachers of Writing.

27. Reva Sias. Asst. prof. English and rhetoric and writing studies, California State Univ., Fresno. PhD, Syracuse Univ. Previous appointment: Univ. of Oklahoma, 2015–16. Award for Academic Excellence and Professional Achievement as a Grad./Teaching Asst., Univ. of Central Oklahoma, 2002. Scholars for the Dream Award, CCCC, 2011. Advisory board, Promising Young Writers Program, NCTE, 2006–09; Constitutional Governance Comm., NCTE/CCCC Black Caucus, 2007–11; advisory board, Achievement Awards in Writing, NCTE, 2009–12, 2012–15; Coll. Section Steering Comm., NCTE, 2017– 21; ch., Richard Ohmann Award Comm., NCTE, 2018. Publications include ed., CSUF Sourcebook for Writing Teachers, 3rd ed. (2017); guest ed., Reflections: A Journal of Public Rhetoric, Civic Writing, and Service Learning (2011); article in New Plains Review. Statement As a member since 2004, I have looked to the MLA’s leadership as a premier organization for teachers, scholars, researchers, and students. I am deeply honored to accept this nomination for the Delegate Assembly. If I am elected, I will work tirelessly for the MLA’s continued success through public and private educational platforms, where its goals and vision may mirror the desires of the membership. I will push to provide a space and voice for diversity, identities, cultures, languages, literacy, rhetorical inquiry, and other ways of knowing. I have had the pleasure of teaching at two-year colleges, universities, and adult learning sites. I contend that rhetoric and writing pedagogy facilitates students’ rhetorical agency and voices in writing spaces through the examination of rhetorical tools, visual literacy, cultural identities, civic engagement, and social justice redress and activism. As a delegate, I will support the continued use of innovative and best pedagogical practices, which speak to MLA resolutions and policies. Along with the examination of rhetoric and composition scholarship, I value personal interaction and engagement at and beyond the annual MLA meetings and look forward to conversations with and guidance from senior scholars and master teachers. With that in mind, I am committed to the continued growth and professional development of MLA members. If elected, I will champion mentorship and professional outreach programs for graduate students, underrepresented teacher-scholars, and early-career scholars and professionals. I welcome the opportunity to serve as a delegate for the Composition, Rhetoric, and Writing Programs community.

IX. Creative Writing Programs (1 contest)

28. Bryan Hurt. Asst. prof. English and creative writing, Capital Univ. PhD, Univ. of Southern California (USC). Tin House Scholar, Tin House Summer Workshop, 2011; Walter E. Dakins Fellow, Sewanee Writers Conference, 2017. Award for Excellence in Teaching, Center for Excellence in Teaching, USC, 2010; finalist, Calvino Prize, Univ. of Louisville, 2013; Starcherone Prize for 24 – Candidate Information

Innovative Fiction (for Everyone Wants to Be Ambassador to France), Starcherone Books, 2014. Judge, Edward W. Moses Undergrad. Creative Writing Competition, USC, 2014; judge, Prism Review Short Story Competition, Univ. of La Verne, 2015; judge, Los Angeles Review Short Fiction Award, 2017. Mentor, Young Storytellers Foundation, 2011. Conference coch., Assn. of English Grad. Students, USC, 2009. Fiction ed., Joyland Magazine, 2016– . Publications include Everyone Wants to Be Ambassador to France (short stories, 2015, 2018); ed., Watchlist: 32 Stories by Persons of Interest (2016); coed., The Loudest Voice (2010); articles in Los Angeles Review of Books, Electric Literature, Catapult, Hobart, Literary Hub, Full Stop; stories in Denver Quarterly, Recommended Reading, Los Angeles Review, Joyland, Guernica, Toast, Tin House, Kenyon Review Online, American Reader, Tikkun, New England Review, TriQuarterly. Statement I am an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. Previously, I have been a visiting assistant professor at Colorado College and St. Lawrence University. In all of my positions, I’ve experienced firsthand the way that creative writing programs energize and sustain literature and language departments, the humanities, and the liberal arts across the curriculum. As a member of the Delegate Assembly, I will advocate for the important role creative writing programs play in attracting students and increasing diversity in the humanities by opening the discipline up to new and distinct voices. Students are drawn to creative writing programs because they seek the tools to express themselves artfully, assertively, and with empathy, and they perceive that creative writing allows them to read and create increasingly diverse bodies of literature. Creative writing exemplifies what makes the study of the humanities so necessary and exciting. As a discipline, we encourage empathy, curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking—all things that are in short supply nowadays—and we do so with rigor and endless optimism. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Delegate Assembly to continue cultivating and spreading these values both inside and outside the institution.

29. Jason A. Schneiderman. Assoc. prof. English, Borough of Manhattan Community Coll., City Univ. of New York. PhD, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York; MFA, New York Univ. Resident fellow, Yaddo, 2002, 2007; winter fellow, Fine Arts Work Center, Oct. 2003–May 2004; fellow, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, 2006; fellow, Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, June 2010. The Writer Magazine / Emily Dickinson Award, Poetry Soc. of America, 2004; Richard Snyder Prize (for Striking Surface), Ashland Poetry Press, 2009. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., RCWS Creative Writing, 2016–Jan. 2019. Assoc. ed., Painted Bride Quarterly, 2010– ; poetry ed., Bellevue Literary Review, spring 2011– . Publications include Sublimation Point (poems, 2004), Striking Surface (poems, 2010), Primary Source (poems, 2016); ed., Queer: A Reader for Writers (2016); contrib., The Penguin Book of the Sonnet (2001), Collective Brightness (2011), The Incredible Sestina Anthology (2013), The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry (2013), The Room and the World: Essays on the Poet Stephen Dunn (2013), Best Gay Stories 2014 (2014), Wingbeats II: Exercises and Practice in Poetry (2014), The Book of Scented Things (2014), Humor: A Reader for Writers (2015), Rabbit Ears: TV Poems (2015), Still Life with Poem (2016), A Sense of Regard (2016), How Did This Happen?: Poems for the Not So Young Anymore (2017), Mad Heart Be Brave: Essays on the Poetry of Agha Shahid Ali (2017), Reading Queer: Poetry in a Time of Chaos (2018); articles or poems in American Poetry Review, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, Columbia Journal, Court Green, Forklift, Ohio, Gay and Lesbian Review World Wide, Harvard Review, Lambda Literary Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, MiPOesias, Painted Bride Quarterly, Plume, Poetry London, Prairie Schooner, Redivider, Spork, Teachers and Writers, Cortland Review, Literary Review, Poetry Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Washington Square. Statement Creative writing has long been a kind of shadow presence in the MLA—certainly we know how many of critics of literature also engage in the production of literature—and yet the presence of creative writing in the MLA has been tacitly accepted and not actively nurtured. As one of the founding members of Candidate Information – 25

the RCWS Creative Writing forum, I hope that the values of creative writing (e.g., peer review, careful analysis of aesthetic response, revision) can be seen as necessary and complementary to the critical work that we engage in. As a professional-issues delegate, I will be representing creative writing as a necessary and long-standing aspect our work.

X. Language Programs (1 contest)

30. Stephanie Ravillon. Senior lecturer French, Brown Univ. Doctorat, Université de Bourgogne. Alliance Française fellowship, New Zealand–France Friendship Fund, 1996; research fellowship, French Ministry for Higher Education and Research, 1998–2001. Harriet W. Sheridan Award for Distinguished Contribution to Teaching and Learning, Brown Univ., 2014; Karen T. Romer Prize for Undergrad. Advising and Mentoring, Brown Univ., 2015. Publications include contrib., The Global and the Particular in the English-Speaking World (2002), Par humour de soi (2004), Towards a Transcultural Future: Literature and Society in a ‘Post’-Colonial World, vol. 2 (2005); articles in French Review, Commonwealth Essays and Studies. Statement I have been teaching French at Brown University since 2003, first as a teaching associate, then as a visiting lecturer and full-time lecturer, and now as a senior lecturer. As a member of the language committee of our department, I regularly participate in discussions about how to maintain students’ interest in languages and respond to the challenges that language programs, especially in languages other than Spanish, are currently facing. I believe it is essential for departments to defend languages by bringing them more visibility on campuses. It is also critically important for us to reflect collectively on issues pertaining to declining enrollments and study abroad, staffing, and the supervision and training of graduate teaching assistants. Teaching at different levels, in different settings, and to different students—from teaching American history to a group of 300 first-year students at the University of Burgundy, to teaching a French beginners’ class at MIT, to working with a single student determined to translate a whole novel in a semester at Brown—has inspired me to constantly rethink my teaching methods and goals. Taking into account the needs, interests, and personalities of my students as well as the evolution of the field is what encourages me to strive to be innovative and to continue to defend the value of language teaching and learning. Being able to do so within the Delegate Assembly would be an honor.

31. Constance Sherak. Senior lecturer French, Yale Univ. PhD, Stanford Univ. Dissertation research grant, French gov’t., 1985; Whiting Foundation grad. fellowship, Stanford Univ., 1987; Chateaubriand Fellowship, Embassy of France in the United States, 1994; ACLS travel grant, 1996. Asst. dir., Academic Programs Abroad (APA), 2003–07; advisory comm., Sweet Briar Junior Year in France, 2011–13; advisory comm. and admissions officer, APA, 2013– . Publications include contrib., Christo. The Pont Neuf Wrapped. Paris, 1975–1985 (1993), So Rich a Tapestry: The Sister Arts and Cultural Studies (1995), Masterplots II: Short Story Series Supplement (1996), The Feminist Encyclopedia of French Literature (1999); articles in Romance Languages Annual, Art Bulletin, Stanford Literature Review, Constructions. Statement Thank you for considering me as a candidate for the Delegate Assembly. I have been a member of Yale’s nonladder instructional staff since 2006, first as a lector and then as a full-time senior lector. I previously taught French and Italian language and literature at Dartmouth College, the University of Hawai‘i, and Connecticut College. Teaching at a variety of institutions has given me a sense of our shared commitments and concerns. At each of these institutions, I have worked on curriculum development in the French language program, specifically on updating the cultural content of all courses to reflect global concerns and interdisciplinary approaches. My interest is in promoting and strengthening foreign language curricula in an era when the foreign language requirement is being reduced or foreign language departments are being cut out altogether. I have a strong commitment to promoting study abroad as a way 26 – Candidate Information

for students to develop as global citizens. I am also interested in promoting curricula that bridge the divide between language and literature instruction.

XI. Less Commonly Taught Language Programs (1 contest)

32. Davinder Bhowmik. Assoc. prof. Japanese, Univ. of Washington, Seattle. PhD, Univ. of Washington. Japan Foundation research fellowship, 1988; Monbusho research scholarship, Japanese govt., 1988; FLAS fellowship, 1995–97; grant, Institutional Project Support Program, Japan Foundation, 2010–13. Advisory board (2012– ) and treasurer (2015– ), Journal of Japanese Studies. Publications include Writing Okinawa: Narrative Acts of Identity and Resistance (2008); coed., Landscapes Imagined and Remembered (2005), Islands of Protest: Japanese Literature from Okinawa (2016); contrib., Ōe and Beyond: Fiction in Contemporary Japan (1999), Reading Colonial Japan: Text, Context, and Critique (2012), The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature (2016), The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies (2016); articles in International Journal of Okinawan Studies, Journal of Japanese Studies, Journal of Asian Studies, Japan Forum, Positions: Asia Critique, Japanese Language and Literature. Statement Much has changed since I began teaching at the university level. My state university has been greatly impacted by the local government, which, without revenue from a state income tax, cannot adequately fund higher education. Despite having a long history of teaching Asian languages, the bread and butter for graduate programs in Asian studies, there is precious little to financially support graduate students. Proximity to Asia, the continuing interest in Asian popular culture, and a dramatic increase in international, mostly Asian, students bring students to our classrooms, but the administration is still hard pressed to make graduate student funding a priority. To add insult to injury, under our current national government, Title VI centers, vital for language support, face threatening cuts. As a delegate I plan to advocate for languages and literature in the humanities, particularly Asian languages and literatures. Despite occupying forty percent of the world and including some of the world’s largest populations, Asia figures too little in the humanities in North America. The MLA amply represents the West and must pay more than lip service to the rest. Born and raised in Asia and involved in teaching about Northeast Asia for over twenty years, I take seriously the MLA’s mission to advocate for in-depth language study beyond English. Such study is vital in our increasingly globalized world.

33. Patricia A. Sieber. Assoc. prof. Chinese, Ohio State Univ., Columbus. PhD, Univ. of California, Berkeley. Research grant, Center for Chinese Studies, Natl. Central Library (Taiwan), 1995; Chiang Ching Kuo Foundation research grant, 1997; NEH research grant, 2004; DAAD research grant, 2004; ACLS–Library of Congress research grant, 2005; FLAS grant, 2005–09, 2009– 13; Natl. Resource Center (NRC) grant, US Dept. of Educ., 2005–09, 2009–13; ACLS conference grant, 2015; Chiang Ching Kuo conference grant, 2016. NRC Technical Advisory Group, US Dept. of Educ., 2012–13. Reviewer (for residency grants), Stanford Humanities Center, 1997–2000, 2003, 2005, 2007–09, 2011; natl. screening comm., Fulbright Student Program, 2008; reviewer, Mellon/ACLS fellowships, 2008, 2009, 2010. Program ch., Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs annual meeting, 2010; program coch., NRC Evaluation Conference, 2013. Assoc. ed., East Asian Publishing and Society, 2013– . Ed. boards: Contemporary Buddhism, 2001– ; Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, 2012– . Publications include Theaters of Desire: Authors, Readers, and the Reproduction of Early Chinese Song-Drama, 1300–2000 (2003); ed., Red Is Not the Only Color: Contemporary Chinese Fiction on Love and Sex between Women, Collected Stories (2001); contrib., Lesbian Histories and Cultures (2000), Who’s Who in Contemporary Women’s Writing (2001), Encyclopedia of Modern Asia (2002), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance (2003), The Magnitude of Ming: Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture (2005), Encyclopedia of Asian Theatre (2007), Berkshire Encyclopedia of China (2009), The Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography (2013), The Cambridge History of Gay and Lesbian Candidate Information – 27

Literature (2014), Sinologists as Translators in the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries (2015), 1616: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu’s China (2016); articles in Fanyi shi yanjiu [Studies in Translation History], Representations, Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, East Asian Publishing and Society, Chinoperl: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, Monumenta Serica, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Journal of Chinese Religions, Contemporary Buddhism. Statement The humanities are under assault from many directions. In this climate, it is important for us to build bridges across divides within the humanities in order to advocate more effectively for ourselves and our students, who are one group among our many stakeholders. As a two-time recipient of US Department of Education Title VI funds for East Asia (2005–13), I became acquainted with the needs and aspirations of the congressional, business, and nonprofit sectors with an interest in language education. I also became aware of the potential for interuniversity collaboration to enhance language instruction in less and least commonly taught languages. If elected to serve in the MLA assembly, I will seek to forge dialogue and alliances among different less and least commonly taught language groups. Potential objectives include but are not limited to the following: identifying ways to work with university administrators to build language instruction and adequate faculty support into the cultural DNA of the institution; devising strategies to enhance curricular options for languages, particularly at the upper levels; finding ways to expand instructional access for underrepresented groups of language learners through innovative outreach projects; and forging closer ties between the MLA and region-based professional associations to address chronic funding shortages and to counter misinformation campaigns.

XII. Community Colleges (2 contests)

34. Thomas Geary. Assoc. prof. English, Tidewater Community Coll., VA. PhD, Univ. of Maryland, College Park. Faculty Senate, Virginia Beach campus, Tidewater Community Coll., 2013–17 (ch., 2016–17). Lilly fellowship, Center for Teaching Excellence, Univ. of Maryland, 2009–10; Chancellor’s Faculty Fellowship, Virginia Community Coll. System, 2015. Reward for Professional Excellence in Institutional Responsibility (2015) and Reward for Professional Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Engagement (2017), Tidewater Community Coll. Participant, Early Career Symposium, Assn. for Educational Communications and Technology, 2017. Publications include contrib., Amplifying Soundwriting: Theory and Practice in Rhetoric and Writing (2018); article in Teaching and Learning News (Center for Teaching Excellence, Univ. of Maryland). Statement In all aspects of my role as a faculty member—instruction, research, and institutional responsibilities—I foreground compassion, as it fosters an environment conducive for student success through critical thinking, academic writing, and humanistic inquiry. In the light of budgetary crises, subordination of the humanities to STEM, and labor issues, that ideal environment is increasingly challenged; consequently, listening to and addressing the needs of all students and faculty members becomes essential. Our marginalized community college students face many adversities; they are often disadvantaged economically, housing and food insecure, or academically underprepared. The contingent humanities faculty members they look to for guidance strive to help students succeed yet face their own hardships: heavy workloads, a lack of tenure, layoffs, and low adjunct wages. Community colleges are uniquely positioned to support the needs of our communities with a low-cost, accessible education; I strongly advocate for meaningful actions that preserve two-year colleges as foundational to higher education and improve conditions for learning. We must voice our concerns and protect the humanities during organizational and curricular restructuring and the shift to performance-based funding models. I am honored to be considered for the Delegate Assembly. The importance of the MLA’s influential advocacy for literature, composition, and the humanities cannot be overstated, and I recognize the impact of assembly debates on policy decisions and the gravity of this professional responsibility. I vow to embrace the 28 – Candidate Information

rich diversity of the MLA community and my two-year colleagues and to listen to all voices in addressing our shared concerns.

35. No candidate ☼ 36. Kasey Bass. Prof. English, Lone Star Coll. CyFair, TX. PhD, Univ. of Tennessee. NEH summer seminar participant, 2009; NEH Humanities Initiative participant, 2010–11. K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award, Assn. of Amer. Colls. and Univs., 2007; Student Recognition Award for Teaching Excellence, Texas A&M Univ. System, 2011. Contrib., 19th- century lit. section, Routledge Annotated Bibliography of English Studies. Publications include articles in Victorian Poetry, Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning; review in Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Statement The two most important matters of professional concern related to community colleges are supporting the part-time faculty and shaping pedagogical frameworks in the midst of dramatic change. For example, Texas House Bill 2223 has created a required cocurricular model for Texas English and mathematics courses. If students test below a particular threshold score, they are not directed to transitional or developmental courses, as they were in the past. Instead, they are put into cocurricular classes that link credit courses to “non-credit-based options,” like workshops. Last year, Texas Senate Bill 11 provided for campus carry, allowing students to carry concealed handguns into public buildings of higher education (except for exclusionary zones). In my experience, faculty members have risen to the occasion wonderfully, by creating pedagogical models that can be successful. However, top-down changes to course design and campus policies prove challenging in a variety of ways, especially regarding the timing for implementation. The Delegate Assembly has the unique opportunity to keep a close eye on legislation that restructures how and what we teach and to provide guidance accordingly. Faculty senates and other collegiate bodies can, in turn, provide the necessary support to faculty members, particularly to part-time faculty members. As a long-time member of the MLA, I would be honored to represent community colleges in these discussions.

37. Margaret Carson. Asst. prof. Spanish, Borough of Manhattan Community Coll., City Univ. of New York. PhD, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York (CUNY). Senator, CUNY Faculty Senate, 2016–19; Faculty Development Comm. (ch., 2016–17) and Student Affairs Comm. (ch., 2017–18), Borough of Manhattan Community Coll. (BMCC) Acad. Senate. Exec. comm., BMCC chapter, Professional Staff Congress–CUNY. Coch., Translation Comm., PEN America, 2014–16. Publications include trans., José Tomás de Cuéllar, The Magic Lantern (2000), Sergio Chejfec, My Two Worlds (2011), Sergio Chejfec, Baroni: A Journey (2018); trans. coord., Stages of Conflict: A Critical Anthology of Latin American Theater and Performance (2008); translations in BOMB Magazine, Words without Borders, Asymptote, Scofield, 4Columns, Almost Island. Statement I have taught for over twenty-five years at community colleges within the City University of New York, in both foreign language and ESL programs, as an adjunct instructor and more recently as a tenure- track professor at Borough of Manhattan Community College. As at most community colleges, there is no typical student at BMCC. Many are from racial minorities or other groups underrepresented in higher education and are the first in their families to attend college. Students who in previous generations may have been excluded from higher education, such as the disabled, are welcome. The diversity at BMCC and at virtually every community college makes for a rich and challenging classroom environment in which approaches to teaching must be constantly rethought and reimagined to meet students’ needs. Candidate Information – 29

But while community college faculty members are at the front line in helping students attain their educational goals and a better future, we are faced with heavy course loads of up to four or five courses per semester with thirty or more students in each class. Adjunct faculty members continue to be underpaid and overworked. Expanding full-time teaching lines and significantly increasing adjunct pay is a top priority. (Having adjuncted for many years, I wholeheartedly support the $7,000 per course contract demand of my union, PSC-CUNY.) As a member of the Delegate Assembly, I will support improved working conditions for full-time and contingent community college faculty members and increased institutional support for our scholarly research and creative activities.

XIII. Academic Labor (1 contest)

38. Yolanda Flores. Assoc. prof. Spanish, Univ. of Vermont. PhD, Cornell Univ. Workshop cofacilitator, AAUP summer inst., 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018. MLA activities: Delegate Assembly, 2002–04. Publications include The Drama of Gender: Feminist Theater by Women of the Americas (2000); coed., Claiming Home, Shaping Community: Testimonios de los valles (2017); contrib., Latinas on Stage: Practice and Theory (2000), Women of Color in Leadership: Taking Their Rightful Place (2010); articles in Revista iberoamericana, Ollantay Theater Magazine, Feministas Unidas, Letras femeninas, Latin American Theatre Review, US Latina and Latino Oral History Journal. Statement Over the past decade, I have served United Academics, the University of Vermont’s faculty union. Five of these years, I have served as a member of the union’s Executive Council. In addition, for the last five summers, I have cofacilitated a workshop on social justice unionism, civil rights, and minority faculty members for the summer institute of the American Association of University Professors. In serving these two organizations, I have acquired in-depth knowledge of the complex, interrelated issues that affect faculty members teaching in the academy. I am grateful to United Academics and to the AAUP for giving me the opportunity to convert this knowledge into concrete actions and initiatives that secure better working conditions for all faculty members, and I welcome the opportunity to bring this experience to bear in the service of the MLA and its members. Thank you for the kind consideration of your vote.

39. Zsuzsanna Varga. Lecturer Hungarian, Univ. of Glasgow. PhD, Edinburgh Univ. Elisabeth Barker Fund travel grant, British Acad., 1999–2000; Hungarian Book Foundation grant, 2007; Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland travel grant, 2008; Royal Soc. of Edinburgh Intl. Fellowship, 2009; British Acad. small grant, 2012; Klebelsberg Scholarship, Balassi Inst., 2014. Exec. board, European Network for Comparative Literary Studies, 2013–17; judge, Dryden Translation Competition, British Comparative Lit. Assn., 2016– . MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LLC Hungarian, 2013–Jan. 2018. Coed., Slavonica, 2015– ; assoc. ed., CompLit: Journal of European Literature, Arts, and Society, 2018– . Publications include ed., Antal Szerb, Reflections in the Library: Selected Literary Essays 1926– 1944 (2016); coed., Babel Guide to Hungarian Literature in English Translation (2001), Skót bárdok, magyar költők [Scottish Bards, Hungarian Poets] (2007), Worlds of Hungarian Writing: National Literature as Intercultural Exchange (2016), Popular Cinemas in East Central Europe: Film Cultures and Histories (2017); guest ed., Cencrastus (2005); contrib., Scotland in Europe (2006), The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, vols. 3 and 4 (2007), Exchanges and Correspondence: The Construction of Feminism (2010), User Studies for Digital Library Development (2012), National Mythologies in Central European TV Series: How J.R. Won the Cold War (2013), Transnational Identities of Women Writers in the Austro- Hungarian Empire (2013), Critical Insights: Henry James (2016), Frauenbildung und Emanzipation in der Habsburger Monarchie (2016); articles in Hungarian Cultural Studies, Fiction and Drama (Taiwan), Textualities, Hungarian Studies.

30 – Candidate Information

Statement Since the beginning of my MLA membership in 2012, I have been passionate about two issues in contemporary academia: the endangered position of literatures and languages in the battlefield of general humanities and the working conditions and job security of contingent faculty members, with special regard for women attempting to enter an increasingly insecure labor market. These interests have also been shaped by my own long history of post-PhD working conditions. Despite being employed by prestigious universities (including UCL, De Montfort Univ., and Oxford Univ.), I have experienced major insecurities. As a Delegate Assembly representative for Academic Labor, I intend to take a structural approach to the condition of working mothers in humanist academia. Thanks to my background in social science research, I intend to provide a structured and reflected review of current research on these issues, which will then be the basis of further actions and activism with the support of the MLA. The research is expected to highlight the differences between scholarly concerns and the general daily experience of the MLA membership, and it will lead to a two-pronged approach of encouraging vital and cutting-edge research, which then will be the intellectually sound basis of MLA-led activism.

XIV. Politics and the Profession (1 contest)

40. Sarah Henzi. Asst. prof. lit. and world langs., Univ. of Montreal. PhD, Université de Montréal. Doctoral fellowship (2007–10) and postdoctoral fellowship (2013–14), Fonds de Recherche du Québec—Société et Culture; visiting scholar, Inst. for the Study of Canada, McGill Univ., 2015–16; postdoctoral award, Assn. for Canadian Studies in German-Speaking Countries, 2017. Early career representative (2015–17) and sec. (2017– ), Indigenous Literary Studies Assn. Asst. ed. for francophone writing, Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review, 2016– ; area coed. for native Canadian lit. and culture, The Literary Encyclopedia, 2017– ; ed. board, Studies in American Indian Literatures, 2017– . Publications include contrib., The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature (2014), The Routledge Companion to Native American Literature (2015), Learn, Teach, Challenge: Approaching Indigenous Literatures (2016); articles in Canadian Literature, Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, Québec Studies, London Journal of Canadian Studies, Studies in Canadian Literature, Australasian Canadian Studies. Statement It is an honor to be nominated for the Politics and the Profession category in the Delegate Assembly. Organizations like the MLA are crucial for us as intellectuals, critical thinkers, and teachers, perhaps even more so now given the stresses under which the humanities are increasingly placed. As a Canadian scholar whose work focuses on the Indigenous literatures of North America, I believe that I can contribute different, hopefully new, perspectives to the pressing concerns and expectations of our association and its members. Based on my experience at the 2018 convention, I would like to advocate for more space and scholarship to be given to Indigenous studies and will aim to recruit more members in this field, whose research and interests are directed not only at borders that separate and contain but also at the need for transnational critique. At a time when we hear numerous calls to decolonize, or to indigenize, within and beyond the walls of our institutions and classrooms, I think about my students who are increasingly aware of race, citizenship, dispossession, and violence as, to borrow from the Mohawk scholar Audra Simpson, enduring “grammar[s] and posture[s]” (2015: 329). As academics, we thus hold a privileged position and a responsibility to question and challenge the limits—all of which are intrinsically political, whether disciplinary, institutional, linguistic, or national—that influence the spaces in which we work, to find ways to transcend these limits, and, as suggested by the Cherokee scholar Daniel Justice, to “imagine otherwise” (2018).

41. Lisa Lowe. Distinguished prof. English and humanities, Tufts Univ. PhD, Univ. of California, Santa Cruz. Dir., Center for the Humanities, Tufts Univ., 2016–18. Previous appointments: Univ. of California, San Diego, 1986–2012; Yale Univ., 2007–08. ACLS Candidate Information – 31

fellowship, 1989–90; resident fellow, Univ. of California Humanities Research Inst. (UCHRI), 1991–92, 2004–05; Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, 2003–04; Sawyer Seminar grant, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2015–16. Visiting appointments: Rockefeller Foundation Distinguished Faculty Visitor, Univ. of California, Riverside, 2002; School of Advanced Study, Univ. of London, 2011–12; R. Ross Johnson- Connaught Distinguished Visitor, Univ. of Toronto, 2012; Bebe Koch Petrou Distinguished Visitor, Univ. of Maryland, 2017. AAAS Book Award (for Immigrant Acts), 1997; Chancellor’s Associates Excellence in Grad. Teaching Award, Univ. of California, San Diego, 2010; Award for Distinguished Contribution to Ethnic Studies, MELUS, 2013; Nicolás Guillén Outstanding Book Award (for Intimacies of Four Continents), Caribbean Philosophical Assn., 2018. Ch., Board of Governors, UCHRI, 2002–05; steering comm., Univ. of California Center for New Racial Studies, 2010–12. Plenary faculty member, Future of Amer. Studies Inst., Dartmouth Coll., 2013–15, 2017. Supervising Comm., English Inst., 1998–99; Natl. Council, ASA, 2001–04; Advisory Council, Amer. Lit. Section, 2002–05. MLA activities: exec. comm., Div. on Sociological Approaches to Lit., 2002–06; Delegate Assembly, 2006–08. Series coed., Perverse Modernities, Duke Univ. Press, 2001– ; assoc. ed., American Quarterly, 2006–10. Ed. or advisory boards: Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, 1993–2015; American Literature, 1997–99; Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 1998–2001, 2006–10; Journal of Asian American Studies, 2012–18. Publications include Critical Terrains: French and British Orientalisms (1991), Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics (1996), The Intimacies of Four Continents (2015); coed., The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital (1997), New Formations, New Questions: Asian American Studies (1997); contrib., Macropolitics of Nineteenth-Century Literature: Nationalism, Exoticism, Imperialism (1991), Ethics, Politics, and Difference in Julia Kristeva’s Writing (1993), Writing Self, Writing Nation: Essays on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee (1994), The Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States (1995), The Ethnic Canon: Histories, Institutions, and Interventions (1995), Cultural Institutions of the Novel (1996), Mapping Multiculturalism (1996), Contemporary Asian America: A Multidisciplinary Reader (2000; 3rd ed., 2016), Orientations: Mapping Studies in the Asian Diaspora (2001), The Futures of American Studies (2002), Theorizing Diaspora (2003), Literary Theory: An Anthology (2nd ed., 2003), Haunted by Empire: Geographies of Intimacy in North American History (2006), American Studies: An Anthology (2009), The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism (2nd ed., 2010), Interdisciplinarity and Social Justice: Revisioning Academic Accountability (2010), A Concise Companion to American Studies (2010), Keywords for American Cultural Studies (2nd ed., 2014), Harbors, Flows, and Migrations: The USA in/and the World (2017), Flashpoints for Asian American Studies (2017); articles in Kenyon Review, Comparative Literature Studies, Cultural Critique, Yale French Studies, SubStance, Diaspora, Amerasia, Rethinking Marxism, Modern Language Quarterly, Ethnicities, Small Axe, Social Text, Scholar and Feminist Online, American Quarterly, Cultural Dynamics. Statement We are at a historical crossroads, where it has become necessary to defend the basic premise that education in languages, literatures, arts, and humanities is of central importance to society and that, in the broadest sense, one must be able to read and interpret the various texts, discourses, and media of public life in order to constitute, to be a participant in, a public. The MLA has an important role and responsibility in the crucial defense of languages, literatures, arts, and humanities as well as in efforts to maintain academic freedom, achieve professional accessibility and equity, and safeguard robust faculty governance, all of which contribute to the necessary vitality of universities, libraries, access to information, ethics, and more. I am committed to affirming the values of literacy, translation, critical thinking, and interdisciplinary humanities at a time when they are as imperiled by anti-intellectual instrumentalism as they are by university restructuring in the service of budget cuts or revenue increases. I have been a faculty member, department chair, program director, and humanities center director in public and private university settings; a member of the MLA; and an elected member of various committees and councils. I believe I understand many of the challenges faced by our profession at this current moment.

32 – Candidate Information

XV. Publishing Issues in the Profession (1 contest)

42. Beth Bouloukos. Senior acquisitions ed., Amherst Coll. Press and Lever Press. PhD, Cornell Univ. Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship (Argentina), 2008; Future Faculty Fellowship, Cornell Univ., 2009–10. Participant, Natl. Workshop on Student Assessment, Council of Grad. Schools, 2010. Application review comm. (for central New York region), New York State Master Teacher Program, 2014. Translator, New Sanctuary for Immigrants (Albany, NY), 2013– . Acquisitions Editorial Comm., Assn. of Amer. Univ. Presses, 2017–19. Publications include contrib., LGBTQ America Today: An Encyclopedia (2008), 1960s Gay Pulp Fiction: The Misplaced Heritage (2013); translation in Medieval Encounters. Statement Publishing in our field exists in a state of flux that is both daunting and exciting. The market supports fewer books in literary studies. Commercial presses increasingly dominate the fields of linguistics and language pedagogy. Nevertheless, the new affordances of digital publication and open access have begun to revolutionize how we think about publishing within our field and within the world of traditional university presses. The Delegate Assembly is well positioned to advocate for more diverse forms of publication that are useful for scholars and students. My approach to these topics combines my unique experience with building lists at a traditional university press and my recent work developing a digitally native, open-access press model funded by the library. As I regularly teach one course that combines my expertise in Spanish language with my interests in literature and culture, I am also acutely in tune with the kinds of texts that are relevant for students and that inform our pedagogy. In this changing landscape, the Delegate Assembly must engage in an evaluation of peer-review standards. In order for these emerging forms of publication to be taken seriously, they must maintain a policy of rigorous peer review. If these publications have undergone thorough review, then we need to advocate for their inclusion in promotion cases. This issue pertains not only to new modes but also to all scholarly publishers, who are increasingly called on to agree on a set of shared peer-review standards that better systematizes the process.

43. Diane E. Marting. Assoc. prof. Spanish, Univ. of Mississippi. PhD, Rutgers Univ. Fulbright dissertation grant, 1984–85; Fulbright senior lecturer fellowship, July– Nov. 1988, June–July 1989; ACLS fellowship, spring 1992; Mississippi Humanities Council minigrant, 2003–05, June 2005–Jan. 2007, fall 2005, summer 2006, fall 2006, Oct. 2015; Yoknapatawpha Arts Council grant, Jan. 2004. Philip and Ruth Hettleman Award for Distinguished Teaching, School of General Studies, Columbia Univ., May 1991; Distinguished Service Award, Mississippi Foreign Lang. Assn., Nov. 2016. Advisory board, ACLA, 1983–84; Honorary Members Comm., AATSP, 1995–97; pres., Mississippi Foreign Lang. Assn., 2004–06; judge, SCMLA Book Prize, 2012; judge, Premios Victoria Urbano (for a critical monograph, a critical essay, or academic achievement), Asociación Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femenina Hispánica (AILCFH), 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018; exec. board, Asociación de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades (formerly AILCFH), 2017–19. MLA activities: Delegate Assembly, 1977–79. Book review ed., Letras femeninas, 2014–18. Ed. boards: Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature, 1987–88; Revista hispánica moderna, 1990–95; Journal of Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, 1993–98; Romance Monographs, Univ. of Mississippi, 2002– ; L’érudit franco-espagnol, 2011– . Publications include The Sexual Woman in Latin American Fiction: Dangerous Desires (2001); ed., Women Writers of Spanish America: An Annotated Bio-bibliographical Guide (1987), Spanish American Women Writers: A Bio-bibliographical Source Book (1990; Spanish trans., 1991), Clarice Lispector: A Bio- bibliography (1993); guest ed., Journal of Interdisciplinary Literary Studies (1998); contrib., Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 113 (1992), Love, Sex, and Eroticism in Contemporary Latin American Literature (1993), Singular Like a Bird: The Art of Nancy Morejón (1999), Encyclopedia of Literary Translation into English (2000), Notable Twentieth-Century Latin American Women: A Biographical Dictionary (2001), Narrativa femenina en América Latina: Prácticas y perspectivas teóricas (2003), Humor in Latin American Candidate Information – 33

Cinema (2016), Postmodern Parody in Latin American Literature: The Paradox of Ideological Construction and Deconstruction (2018); articles in Latin American Research Review, Argus-a, Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature, Global South, Alba de América, Hispanic Review, Letras femeninas, Chasqui: Revista de literatura latinomaericana, MLN, World Literature Today, Journal of Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, Brújula/Compass, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Boletín de literatura comparada (Argentina), Hispanic Studies. Statement Publishing issues in the profession remain central to our intellectual lives and our work. In 2002, when an MLA ad hoc committee reported on the future of scholarly publishing, fears about the disappearance of the scholarly monograph were paramount as universities reduced their support for libraries and presses. The committee’s recommendations must be reevaluated, and the new forces in play examined. Have e-books reduced the difficulties for presses and authors of publishing critical monographs, especially in the hard-pressed foreign languages? Is it true that journals now face an economic dilemma similar to that of academic presses, since the costs of belonging to a content distributor are increasing while subscriptions are falling? Free Web platforms for sharing our work and the greater acceptance of electronic publishing formats have facilitated accessibility and growth for articles. But how can academic book publishers and academic journals economically survive—and thrive—when academia.edu and other platforms provide free content? Aggregators and digital archives of content have gained enormous power. What about open access resources and the high price of textbooks? Predatory journals and presses may have always existed, but at present they invade our communications with astonishing frequency. As authors we receive remuneration less and less as Wikipedia becomes a model for the free dissemination of knowledge. In sum, many of us still feel pressured and constrained—as publishers, authors, editors, and readers—by technology and market forces beyond our control. It would be good to understand better the contemporary state of affairs in publishing.

Part IV: Voting for Regional Delegates Seventeen persons will be elected to regional seats in the assembly. The term of office will be from 7 January 2019 through the close of the January 2022 convention. The numbers preceding the nominees’ names correspond to the numbers assigned to the nominees on the paper ballot sheet. The names of the regional delegates with continuing terms in 2019 appear at the MLA Web site (www.mla.org/del_assembly_members).

Vote in only one region but in any or all of the contests within that one region.

I. New England and Eastern Canada (2 contests) Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont; New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Québec

100. Francisco Fernández de Alba. Assoc. prof. Hispanic studies, Wheaton Coll., MA. PhD, Cornell Univ. Coord., Latin Amer. and Latinx Studies, Wheaton Coll., 2016–19. Mellon Foundation summer research grant, 2008; Mellon Foundation course development grant, 2018. Visiting appointment: Brown Univ., spring 2017. Ed. boards: Diacritics, 2002–04; Dissidences: Hispanic Journal of Theory and Criticism, 2004– . Publications include guest coed., Iberoamericana (2006); contrib., Toward a Cultural Archive of La Movida: Back to the Future (2013), Postnational Perspectives on Contemporary Hispanic Literature (2017); articles in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Dissidences, Iberoamericana, Hispanófila, Nuevos hispanismos, Revista de estudios hispánicos, Symposium.

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Statement Improving communications between the membership and the members of the Delegate Assembly is my goal in running for this MLA regional seat. The concrete threats to the humanities and higher education that we are witnessing are better confronted when the lines of communication between the MLA and its members are open and fluid. It is therefore my pledge to be a representative of the membership in New England and eastern Canada. To this end, if elected, I plan to reach out to the members in my region both to keep them informed of the work the MLA does on their behalf and to poll them on their ideas and aspirations for the MLA and the humanities at large.

101. Andrea Malaguti. Assoc. prof. Italian, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst. PhD, Harvard Univ. Certificate for Excellence in Teaching, Harvard Univ., spring 1998. Series ed. board, Stile Rana, Aras Edizioni. Publications include La svolta di Enea: Retorica ed esistenza in Giorgio Caproni (1932–1956) (2008), Straniere a se stesse: Identità femminili e stilistica visual nel cinema di Michelangelo Antonioni degli anni cinquanta (2018); contrib., Pirandello’s Visual Philosophy: Imagination and Thought across Media (2017), Il pensiero della poesia (2017), Finkfest. Letteratura, cinema e altri mondi: Guido Fink nei luoghi del sapere (2017); articles in Italian Studies, Narrativa, Quaderni d’italianistica, Romanic Review. Statement Teaching in both private and public institutions has given me a strong sense of our profession as a public service. For that reason, being selected as a candidate to the Delegate Assembly is indeed a great honor. If elected, I will resolutely advocate for the crucial role of the humanities in academia and the dignity of professional educators, too frequently endangered by the conversion of permanent positions into temporary contracts. The humanities are extremely practical, since they constantly redefine our relation to reality and inform our most crucial decisions. Here lies, I think, the core of our advocacy for the humanities’ international and multilingual dimension, which has become essential to all who live and work in the global context of nowadays. Pursuing this advocacy, however, requires a stable academic workforce that can establish and consolidate programs for the sake of our students’ future. To the work of the Delegate Assembly I bring my competence in the rhetoric of literature and film (for example, how symbolic forms create or question social values), my experience in advising students on their careers, and my extended interest in world cultures. ☼ 102. Katherine Sugg. Assoc. prof. English, Central Connecticut State Univ. PhD, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana. Program coord., Latino and Puerto Rican Studies, Central Connecticut State Univ., 2009–15. Previous appointments: Stony Brook Univ., State Univ. of New York, 2002–04; Univ. of California, Davis, 1999–2001; San Francisco State Univ., 1997–99. Connecticut State Univ.–AAUP research grant, 2007–08, 2008–09. MELUS Best Essay Award, 2004. Comparative lit. area dir., NEMLA, 2018–21; Cormac McCarthy Soc.; Southwest Popular/Amer. Culture Assn.; Latina/o Studies Assn.; Assn. for the Study of the Arts of the Present; Intl. Soc. for the Study of Narrative; LASA; ACLA; ASA; MELUS. Publications include Gender and Allegory in Transamerican Fiction and Performance (2008); contrib., Latino History and Culture: An Encyclopedia (2010); articles in Journal of American Studies, Aleph, MELUS, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, Narrative, CR: The New Centennial Review, Chasqui: Revista de literatura latinomaericana. Statement As an associate professor teaching mostly literature and film in the English department of a regional, MA-granting public institution in New England, I appreciate the key role of the MLA and believe that role is particularly important at this moment of ongoing, or at least widely perceived, crisis in the humanities and in higher education more widely. My own background and interests are in comparative literature and Candidate Information – 35

comparative cultural studies of the Americas as well as postcolonial, gender, and Latinx and critical race studies. I value greatly the opportunities I’ve had to teach and write in my disciplinary fields and the community provided by the MLA. And even more, I value and want to defend the opportunities available to our undergraduate and graduate students while advocating for the value of what we do and of their education in the humanities. If elected, I would work to continue the efforts of the MLA to address a public audience in the United States and to make our profession more equitable, international, and supportive for all—especially considering the ongoing professional challenges for those on the part-time or adjunct track (to which I belonged for many years). As a regional delegate, I would work to contribute productively to the work of the organization, participate in the intellectual and institutional activities of the MLA, and foster increased and more effective outreach and support, for the professional development of and career options for graduate students, younger scholars, and independent or underemployed researchers and teachers.

103. No candidate

II. New Jersey and New York (2 contests)

104. Aaron Barlow. Prof. English, New York City Coll. of Technology, City Univ. of New York. PhD, Univ. of Iowa. Senior Fulbright lectureship (Burkina Faso), 1985–86, 1986–87; fellow, Punch Sulzberger Exec. Leadership Program, Columbia School of Journalism, 2007. Faculty ed., Academe, 2012– 18; exec. ed., Academe Blog, 2012–18. Publications include Cuánto te asusta el caos?: Política, religión y filosofía en la obra de Philip K. Dick (2003), The DVD Revolution: Movies, Culture, and Technology (2005), The Rise of the Blogosphere (2007), Blogging America: The New Public Sphere (2008), Quentin Tarantino: Life at the Extremes (2010), The Cult of Individualism: A History of an Enduring American Myth (2013), Hard as Kerosene (2013), The Depression Era: A Historical Exploration of Literature (2016); coauthor, Beyond the Blogosphere: Information and Its Children (2012); ed., One Hand Does Not Catch a Buffalo: 50 Years of Amazing Peace Corps Stories (2011), Star Power: The Impact of Branded Celebrity (2014), Doughboys on the Western Front: Memories of American Soldiers in the Great War (2017); coed., The 25 Sitcoms That Changed Television: Turning Points in American Culture (2018); contrib., The Blade Runner Experience: The Legacy of a Science Fiction Classic (2005), Film and Television Stardom (2008), Web Journalism: A New Form of Citizenship? (2010), Public Journalism 2.0: The Promise and Reality of a Citizen-Engaged Press (2010), Cult Pop Culture: How the Fringe Became Mainstream (2011), News with a View: Essays on the Eclipse of Objectivity in Modern Journalism (2012), Critical Insights: Technology and Humanity (2012), Orbiting Ray Bradbury’s Mars: Biographical, Anthropological, Literary, Scientific, and Other Perspectives (2013), Critical Insights: Fahrenheit 451 [by] Ray Bradbury (2013), Invasion of the MOOCs: The Promises and Perils of Massive Open Online Courses (2014), Cultures of Copyright: Contemporary Intellectual Property (2014), Class in the Composition Classroom: Pedagogy and the Working Class (2017), Mental Illness in Popular Culture (2017); articles in Intermezzo, Otaku. Statement My activism has been primarily editorial; it is time for me to expand it. Given the current political and social climate of the United States, it is no longer sufficient to sit at a keyboard and expect others to be in the conference rooms and on the streets. Over my six years of editing and writing for Academe, I have become quite familiar with the hopes, dreams, fears, and frustrations of my colleagues throughout the professoriat. As a member of the Delegate Assembly, I would work to help meet the first two and allay the second pair. As one who once worked as an adjunct at a number of institutions and who has extensive experience outside of academia (I did not make this my career until in my fifties), I offer a wide perspective and would hope to represent the views of people in varied roles across our diverse field.

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105. Manu Samriti Chander. Assoc. prof. English, Rutgers Univ., Newark. PhD, Brown Univ. Carl H. Pforzheimer, Jr., Research Grant, Keats-Shelley Assn. of America, 2007; fellow, Center for Cultural Analysis, Rutgers Univ., 2016–17; Antronette Yancey Memorial Scholarship, Natl. Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, 2017; Fulbright US Scholar grant, 2018–19. Publications include Brown Romantics: Poetry and Nationalism in the Global Nineteenth Century (2017); ed., Egbert Martin, Scriptology (2014); contrib., Philosophy and Culture (2008), Outrage: Art, Controversy, and Society (2012), A History of Indian Poetry in English (2016); articles in Keats-Shelley Journal, Coleridge Bulletin. Statement My scholarly work, which reflects on and works to disrupt canonization, and my pedagogical practice are grounded in the highest democratic ideals of Romanticism, my area of expertise. I teach at the most diverse campus in the country and am committed to the idea that the humanities belong to my students: first-generation college students, those underrepresented in the academy, those who, in brief, have been told in often subtle ways that the humanities are for the cultural elite. At Rutgers, Newark, I have labored to counteract the process whereby this belief is continually reinforced. In addition to helping develop a new degree program in global humanities and serving as an LGBTQ Safe-Zone provider, I have served on a working group that aimed to encourage our many multilingual students to capitalize on their talents rather than, as they often do, hide them. We initiated a program that created internships across Newark that allow students to work as translators and interpreters; we are planning symposia on translation studies; and we are developing a degree certificate in translation studies. As an MLA delegate I wish to continue to help increase access to the humanities for my students and students like mine, who I hope will come to lead our profession in the decades ahead. ☼ 106. Grisel Y. Acosta. Assoc. prof. English, Bronx Community Coll., City Univ. of New York. PhD, Univ. of Texas, San Antonio. Wye Faculty Seminar fellowship, Aspen Inst., 2014; Can Serrat Intl. Art Residency, 2015; Kweli workshop fellowship, Poets House, 2016; Creative Capital artist fellowship, 2016; participant, Theater Works! Performance/Playwriting Workshop on Caregiving, Center for the Humanities, City Univ. of New York, 2018. Faculty Member of the Year, Assn. of Latino Faculty and Staff, Bronx Community Coll., 2017. Publications include contrib., Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees (2006), Encyclopedia of Hispanic-American Literature (2008), The Nineties in America (2009), African American Women’s Language: Discourse, Education, and Identity (2009), The Handbook of Latinos and Education: Theory, Research, and Practice (2010), The Routledge Companion to Latino/a Literature (2012); articles or reviews in VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, Diálogo (DePaul Univ.), Western American Literature; creative writing in Paterson Literary Review, American Studies Journal, Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, Nineteen Sixty Nine: An Ethnic Studies Journal, San Antonio Express News, Voices de la Luna, Pembroke Literary Magazine, MiPOesias, Private International Review, Latino Artists Round Table, After Hours: A Journal of Chicago Writing and Art. Statement This nomination is an honor. I have taught writing and literature classes at four- and two-year institutions in Chicago, San Antonio, Jersey City, and New York City for the past twenty-two years. My focus is creative writing and Latino literature, and I have presented and performed my work throughout the United States and in London, England, Barranquilla, Colombia, and Barcelona, Spain. Themes in my work include Afro-Latinidad, Latino subculture, queer Latinidad, and ecocriticism. I chose to teach at Bronx Community College to provide my expertise in teaching at a Hispanic-serving institution. There, I have been a key member in a diversity task force, initiated by the college president and charged with overseeing diversity initiatives—hiring faculty members of color, offering adjunct faculty members more job security, and encouraging diverse leadership in governance, with a focus on female leadership. Through the Association of Latino Faculty and Staff, I created a scholarship for graduating Latino students in the social Candidate Information – 37

sciences, which is in its third year, and I regularly plan events that bring innovative Latino leaders to campus to engage the students. In my capacity as secretary of BCC’s Committee on Instruction and Professional Development, I oversaw the revision of course surveys, based on information gathered from every department on campus. In sum, I have worked to serve the needs of an extremely diverse population of faculty members and students while complying with administrative requirements. These skills will allow me to listen, understand, and serve well, if elected.

107. Kathleen Robin Hart. Assoc. prof. French, Vassar Coll. PhD, Univ. of Pennsylvania. Publications include Revolution and Women’s Autobiography in Nineteenth-Century France (2004); ed. and cotrans., George Sand, Gabriel [French text and English translation] (2010); contrib., The Play of Terror in Nineteenth-Century France (1997), Corps/décors: Femmes, orgie, parodie (1999), Women Seeking Expression: France 1789–1914 (2000); articles in Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture, French Forum, Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Style, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Evolution: Education and Outreach. Statement I am an associate professor of French and francophone studies who has worked for twenty-five years at a liberal arts institution; a close family member works as a contingent faculty member in the SUNY system. I am acutely aware of the extent to which increasing financial and other hardships affect today’s students and make it even more important as well as daunting for us to meet the challenge of balancing teaching with scholarship, committee work, extracurricular service, and service to the profession. Much of my scholarship has focused on expressive forms used or inspired by movements to improve the lives of poor and working-class people and to protect civil rights and liberties. I’m very concerned about the current threats to democracy, public education, and higher education both public and private. If elected, I’ll dedicate myself to listening to the concerns of colleagues of all ranks and employment levels, will promptly respond, and will bring their concerns to discussions in the Delegate Assembly, while doing my best to propose solutions and courses of action.

III. Middle Atlantic (2 contests) Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia

108. Thomas Chen. Asst. prof. Chinese, Lehigh Univ. PhD, Univ. of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Sino-Foreign Doctoral Program scholarship, Confucius Inst., UCLA, 2013–14. Publications include contrib., Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller (2014), China’s Contested Internet (2015); articles in China Perspectives, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Chinese Literature Today. Statement I am nominated for a seat in the Delegate Assembly because of the efforts of many others who have made the MLA a more welcoming space for scholarly exchange. As a scholar with a background in comparative literature whose research and teaching focus on modern Chinese literature and cinema, I am a direct beneficiary of the recent restructuring of fields in the association that has opened up participation. If elected, I will carry on the work to include languages and literatures that have traditionally occupied a space outside the association’s purview. I applaud the MLA’s internationalization initiative, which has made symposia in Düsseldorf and Lisbon possible. But I will argue for holding the 2021 symposium in Latin America, Africa, or Asia. My experiences at my own institution, Lehigh University, will guide me in the endeavor. I am on the Humanities Center’s steering committee and am one of three drafters of a foreign language requirement proposal. As a Delegate Assembly member, I would continue to fight for the dignity of languages and the 38 – Candidate Information

humanities in a larger educational environment consumed with deliverables. At Lehigh I am also a signatory to a statement against sexual harassment and misconduct in the academy. I intend to bring up a similar motion in the Delegate Assembly for debate.

109. Daniel García-Donoso. Assoc. prof. Spanish, Catholic Univ. of America. PhD, Yale Univ. Junior visiting fellowship, Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory, School of Advanced Study, Univ. of London, 2011. Ed. boards: ConSuencias: A Journal of Spanish Criticism (Boston Coll.), 2017– ; EduSer: Revista de educação (Portugal), 2017– . Publications include Escrituras postseculares: Sedimentos de la religion en la narrativa española (1950–2010) (2018); coed., The Sacred and Modernity in Urban Spain: Beyond the Secular City (2016); contrib., Hispanismos del mundo: Diálogos y debates en (y desde) el Sur (2016); articles in Afro-Hispanic Review, Revista de estudios hispánicos, Romance Studies. Statement It is an honor to be nominated for the position of regional delegate. In my research, instruction, and service I am guided by a deep commitment to the value of language as a vehicle for productive dialogue, ethical criticism, and civil opposition, especially in contexts where language is perceived to be under threat by different forms of violence and coercion. Within the profession, I am particularly concerned with the marketization of college education and its impact on a growing profit-oriented mentality among administrators, faculty members, and students. And I believe that academic freedom and job security are essential to the effective maintenance of colleges and universities as our society’s foremost space for advanced learning and the robust exchange of ideas. The Delegate Assembly is an extraordinary platform seeking to provide practical answers to the perceived decline in the value of a humanities-based education. If elected, I will work to strengthen collaboration between national and regional actors and to further the MLA’s commitment to the advancement of the humanities. For this, it is of the utmost importance that we devise and incorporate new ways of emphasizing the value of sustained research in the fields of language and culture, recognize the need for more dynamic and inclusive undergraduate curricula, and address the challenges facing graduate education in the humanistic fields. ☼ 110. Pedro Larrea Rubio. Asst. prof. Spanish, Lynchburg Coll. PhD, Univ. of Virginia. Previous appointments: Randolph-Macon Coll., 2015–17; Emory Univ., 2014–15; Hollins Univ., 2013–14. Ed., Poéticas: Revista de estudios literarios, 2016– ; editorial asst., Dieciocho, 2007–13. Publications include La orilla libre (poems, 2013), Federico García Lorca en Buenos Aires (2015), La tribu y la llama (poems, 2015), Manuscrito del hechicero (poems, 2016; English trans., 2017); trans., Kevin Young, Libro de horas (2018); contrib., Palabra heredada en el tiempo: Tendencias y estéticas en la poesía española contemporánea (1980–2015) (2016), Piedras para una poesía trasatlántica (2017); articles in Cuadernos hispanoamericanos, Cuadernos de ALDEEU, Revista de literatura, Letral, Trans-: Revue de littérature générale et comparée. Statement In my more than ten years as an educator in the field of Spanish language and culture in American higher education, I have been most concerned about two general issues in Spanish/Hispanic departments. The first is a quite amateurish approach to selecting workers who do not possess a PhD or a master’s degree or who are not professionally trained for the job of a full-time modern language professor in all its features. Inconceivable in most English departments, it is only too often the case that quality standards are noticeably lower in Spanish. The second issue is a notoriously unjust perception about some non-English departments, conspicuously Spanish: they are considered by other academic disciplines to be a mere service branch within the liberal arts. According to this prejudiced view, some languages are labeled “practical,” in the most menial of senses. If elected to represent the Middle Atlantic region, I will devote myself to raising awareness about the necessity of strengthening the standard qualifications for a job in a modern language department and Candidate Information – 39

work toward the much needed recognition of our profession in terms of both faculty compensation and regard within the whole of the liberal arts.

111. Seth Michelson. Asst. prof. Spanish, Washington and Lee Univ. PhD, Univ. of Southern California. Lit. translation fellowship, NEA, 2018. MLA activities: Delegate Assembly, 2016–Jan. 2019. Poetry ed., Latin American Literature Today; reviewer panel, New York Journal of Books. Publications include Maestro of Brutal Splendor (poems, 2005), Kaddish for My Unborn Son (poems, 2009), House in a Hurricane (poems, 2010), Eyes Like Broken Windows (poems, 2012), Swimming through Fire (poems, 2018); ed. and trans., Dreaming America: Voices of Undocumented Youth in Maximum-Security Detention (2017); trans., Rati Saxena, Dreaming in Another Land (2014), Victoria Estol, roly poly (2014), Zulema Moret, Poems from the Disaster (2016), Rati Saxena, Scripted in the Streams (2017), Tamara Kamenszain, The Ghetto (2018), Melisa Machado, The Red Song (2018), Amir Or, Wings (2018); contrib., Images of Life: Creative and Other Forms of Writing (2015), Objective Illumination: A Study of T. S. Eliot’s Prose Writings (2018); contrib. of translation, Evangelina Arce, Para mi hija Silvia (2014); articles in Revista hispánica moderna, Western American Literature, Pacific Coast Philology, Innisfree Poetry Journal. Statement As a proud and long-standing advocate of the humanities and a Spanish professor specializing in the poetry of the hemispheric Americas, I would be honored to serve as a delegate for the Middle Atlantic region, and I thank you for your consideration of my candidacy. I have greatly enjoyed professional service to and through the MLA as a regional delegate since my election to the position in 2015, and I very much hope to continue that work. I believe deeply in the democratic importance of the commitments and activities of our students and colleagues at all levels across the humanities, and I also pride myself on being an available and receptive representative. If elected, I would continue to advocate for the MLA to strive to be as open, inclusive, supportive, and progressive an institution as possible. Thank you.

IV. Great Lakes (3 contests) Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin

112. Jeffry C. Davis. Prof. English, Wheaton Coll., IL. PhD, Univ. of Illinois. Dean, Div. of Humanities, and dir., Interdisciplinary Studies Program, Wheaton Coll., IL. Leland Ryken Humanities Teacher of the Year Award, Wheaton Coll., IL, 2006; Oleg Zinam Award for Best Essay, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 2013; Senior Teaching Achievement Award, Wheaton Coll., IL, 2015. Founder and first pres., Assn. of Christians in Writing Centers, 2015–17. Publications include Interdisciplinary Inclinations (2016); coed., Liberal Arts for the Christian Life (2012); contrib., The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity (2010); articles in Expositions, Journal of Camus Studies, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Journal of Teaching Writing, Pedagogy, Praxis, Synergy, WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship. Statement I am encouraged by the MLA’s concern about the homogenization of higher education. At the same time, I regret the ongoing political disparagement of institutional distinctives representing the liberal arts, both secular and religious. Coming from a residential liberal arts college that takes the scholarship of teaching seriously, I want to address matters of formative practice in relation to language and literature. How might we, as professionals, reconsider the ways in which academic literacy skills influence students in their word-praxis beyond the classroom, especially insofar as social engagement with the other is concerned? And what responsibilities do MLA members have in promoting academic civility, particularly through written and oral discourse? Liberal democracy depends on liberal education, which has always used words to explore matters of freedom and obligation, all the while raising questions of value and complexity. As someone who 40 – Candidate Information

started out as an adjunct, moved into a tenure-track position, and now serves as an administrator, I have always believed that words, rightly considered and thoughtfully used, can humanize us, making us more empathic individuals.

113. Daniel D. Ding. Prof. English, Ferris State Univ. PhD, Illinois State Univ. Grant for Chinese-Amer. scholars, Chinese Consulate General, 2000; Fulbright senior scholarship (Hungary), CIES, 2013. Guest lecturer, Zhengzhou Univ., 2010. Publications include contrib., Essays in the Study of Scientific Discourse: Methods, Practice, and Pedagogy (1998), In Our Own Voice (1999), Hostile Corridors: Advocates and Obstacles to Educating Multicultural America (2003), Culture, Communication, and Cyberspace: Rethinking Technical Communication for International Online Environments (2011); articles in Technical Communication, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, China Today. Statement I have been a member of the MLA for more than twenty years, and in all those years I have been teaching professional and technical writing. I have also taught classes in quite a few international settings and performed research involving history or multiculturalism and technical writing. One issue that stands out is that not many English or other language departments worldwide give sufficient attention to technical writing as a university discipline. As the largest professional language organization in the world, one that has members from all over the world and that perhaps represents every single major language in the world, the MLA surely should play an important role in promoting technical writing as a university discipline. First, the MLA might consider fostering or promoting dialogues among the members, especially between technical writing faculty members and other faculty members. The MLA might consider inviting the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing to join our dialogues. Second, I encourage the MLA to find every possible way to sharpen our understanding that we can do a lot to help create better and more effective communication in the workplace. The MLA should perhaps also reach out to (not just contact) other sectors of higher education in this respect. ☼ 114. Chad A. Barbour. Asst. prof. Amer. lit., Lake Superior State Univ. PhD, Univ. of Kentucky. Publications include From Daniel Boone to Captain America: Playing Indian in American Popular Culture (2016); articles in Journal of Popular Culture, International Journal of Comic Art. Statement As a faculty member at a small, rural, teaching university, I am particularly aware of the concerns and issues unique to such an environment, especially in regard to decreasing resources for and emphasis on the humanities. In recent years, I have witnessed the increasing devaluation and defunding of our humanities programs at my institution, culminating this year in the suspension of most of these programs, literature included. This experience has become more norm than exception in the current climate of diminishing resources and regard for the study of literatures and languages. Such areas of study and education are inherently important for a variety of reasons, but the stakes of their survival are more urgent now in the current national and political climate, one in which hostility to diversity and difference has increased. As a delegate, my focus would be on advocating for ways to protect and maintain our programs, especially in those higher education environments that are not naturally conducive to such programs. We must maintain and protect these programs across the board, from the small schools to the large ones, wherever they may fall on the spectrum of funding or institutional focus.

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115. Jason D. Fichtel. Prof. English, Joliet Junior Coll., IL. PhD, Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Pres., Board of Trustees, Westmont Public Library, 2010– . Publications include contrib., Fifty Years after Faulkner (2016); articles in Time-sense: An Electronic Quarterly on the Art of Gertrude Stein, William Faulkner Society Newsletter, Rectangle; reviews in Review of Contemporary Fiction. Statement In a March 2018 speech in Richfield, Ohio, the president of the United States stated: When I was growing up, we had what was called vocational schools. They weren’t called community colleges, because I don’t know what that means—a community college. To me, it means a two-year college. I don’t know what it means. . . . Call it vocational, and technical, perhaps. But use vocational, because that’s what it’s all about. People know what that means. We don’t know what a community college means. The lack of understanding of what community colleges do is more pervasive than we think, and the devaluing of the humanities and the academic role of the two-year college existed before March. Humanities requirements and electives for the two-year degree have been reduced; “guided pathways” initiatives urge eliminating developmental reading and writing courses and find the composition sequence to be another “barrier” to student success; STEM and vocational programs urge humanities programs to tailor course content to workforce development goals. My goal, should I have the honor as serving as a delegate, will be to work with the MLA to seek out ways it can further assist our two-year schools in preserving the value of a liberal arts education for all students at any level of higher education—to remind my fellow MLA delegates and members at large not to forget our colleagues who have dedicated their careers to preparing our most vulnerable and underserved students. ☼ 116. Hadji Bakara. Asst. prof. English, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor. PhD, Univ. of Chicago. Dissertation research fellowship, Harry Ransom Center, Univ. of Texas, Austin, 2014; Mellon dissertation completion fellowship, 2015–16; postdoctoral fellowship, Univ. of Chicago, 2016–17. Winner (doctoral level), Ignacio Martín-Baró Human Rights Essay Competition, Pozen Center for Human Rights, Univ. of Chicago, 2016. Publications include article in American Literary History. Statement I am a new junior faculty member in English, beginning my career in an uncertain institutional, national, and global climate and amid dramatic changes in my home discipline and the humanities in general. Having begun my career on this shaky ground, I hope to act as a bridge between the MLA and my generation of junior scholars, who will shape the future of the discipline––from the classroom, to research, to public collaborations––in a time of imminent transformation. Part of this task will be working to make sure that all tenure-track and non-tenure-track junior faculty members are provided with the resources and support to be equal members of a democratic constituency within the MLA. Over the coming years, with the pressure of market-driven expectations only growing, it will be all the more incumbent upon institutions and departments of higher learning to lead the way as ethically accountable employers and network builders. As I see it, my role as a delegate will be to help the MLA to provide a forum for young scholars of modern languages to organize and give voice to their visions of equitable and dynamic disciplinary and institutional futures. I am especially interested in leveraging the energy and creativity of young scholars for the purposes of rethinking research and pedagogy in modern languages at a moment when modern language is both increasingly distorted (for political and corporate ends) and embedded in media other than the printed or electronic book.

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117. Matthieu Dupas. Asst. prof. French, Northwestern Univ. PhD, Université de Paris 3 (Sorbonne Nouvelle); PhD, Univ. of Michigan. Postdoctoral lectureship, Dept. of Romance Langs. and Lits., Univ. of Michigan, 2016–17. Publications include cotrans., David Halperin, Que veulent les gays?: Essai sur le sexe, le risque, et la subjectivité (2010); contrib., Héros ou personnages? Le personnel du théâtre de Pierre Corneille (2013); articles in Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, Contemporary French Civilization. Statement I joined the Department of French and Italian at Northwestern University in fall 2017, and I am eager to become an active member of the Delegate Assembly. I wish to bring my experience as an interdisciplinary scholar who teaches early modern literature as well as gender and queer studies to demonstrate the value of critical understanding and academic freedom and to advance the study of literature, language, and culture in academia.

V. South (2 contests) Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virgin Islands

118. Stephanie L. Batkie. Assoc. teaching prof. English, Univ. of the South. PhD, Univ. of Michigan. Dir., Writing across the Curriculum Program, and dir., Sewanee Writing Center, Univ. of the South, 2016– . Previous appointment: Univ. of Montevallo, 2009–16. Research fellowship, Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Oxford), 2013; NEH summer seminar participant, 2016. Grad. teaching award, Univ. of Montevallo, 2013. Faculty Senate, Univ. of Montevallo, 2013–16. Steering comm., Intl. John Gower Soc., 2017– . Publications include contrib., John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition (2010), The Politics of Ecology: Land, Life, and Law in Medieval Britain (2016), John Gower: Others and the Self (2017), The Routledge Research Companion to John Gower (2017); articles in Chaucer Review, Studies in the Age of Chaucer. Statement It has become almost impossible to think of the humanities as anything but a field existing in a state of crisis—the humanities are perennially under attack in the public consciousness, in legislative action, and in the current political climate in general. We are told this again and again, and it has become a fact that structures not only our professional lives but also the perspective our students bring with them into our classrooms. As members of the MLA, it is tempting for us to respond to such attacks by establishing defensive positions that nevertheless participate in the same discourses that critique our field. But in so doing, we cannot seem to find the traction we need to assert our value (and values) to those outside our community. As a delegate and as a representative coming to this service from a small liberal arts institution and as a newly contingent faculty member whose position (like so many others’) is dependent on our response, I want to see us develop a position that seriously considers not only the narrative we need to construct but also the pragmatic ways we can circulate this narrative beyond our own walls and outside our own conversations. We must look to the labor structures and the multiple forms of marginalization that shape the profession for us and for our students as well as create avenues for advocacy outside the familiar committee discussions and referenda—indeed, avenues that stretch and even begin beyond our institutional walls.

119. Nina Morgan. Assoc. prof. English, Kennesaw State Univ. PhD, Univ. of California, Riverside. Fellow, Univ. of California Humanities Research Inst., 1993; Regensburg European Amer. Forum fellow, Universität Regensburg, spring 2016; fellow, Obama Inst. for Transnational Amer. Studies, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, 2017. Visiting appointments: Josai Univ. (Japan), 1990–91; Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, 1994. Women’s Comm. (coch., 2010–11; ch., Candidate Information – 43

2011–12) and Intl. Comm. (2016– ), ASA. Ed. in chief (2017– ) and reprise ed. (2009– ), Journal of Transnational American Studies; review ed., Asian America: Journal of Culture and the Arts, 1992–95; ed. board, East-West Connections, 2001; advisory board, Synthesis (Natl. and Kapodistrian Univ. of Athens), 2008– . Publications include coed., Edward Said and Jacques Derrida: Reconstellating Humanism and the Global Hybrid (2008); guest ed., Review of Japanese Culture and Society (Josai Univ.), 1991; contrib., San Francisco and Northern California in Fiction (1995), Extending the Boundaries: Approaches to World Literature (2000), Asian American Writing: The Diasporic Imagination (2000), Asian American Autobiographers: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook (2001), Asian American Poets (2001), Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature (2007), The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Works (2010), Obama and Transnational American Studies (2016); articles in Journal of Transnational American Studies, Anthropos, Moroccan American Studies, East-West Connections: Review of Asian Studies, Review of Japanese Culture and Society. Statement As a scholar located in the South for over twenty years, I believe that, because the university is a global nexus working in the midst of often rigid communities, we need MLA regional delegates who are committed to engaging local constituencies and whose work is interdisciplinary and transnational. Yet such representatives must also be vigilant in the face of institutionalized corporatism that seeks to expropriate the humanities. As an Obama Institute fellow in Germany, the editor in chief of the open-access Journal of Transnational American Studies, and a collaborator on multiple research, teaching, and publishing projects (most notably in Morocco, Greece, Japan, Mexico, and Germany), I know that we, as active members of our professional organizations, must provide one another with the best counsel, mentoring, and creative opportunities to both sustain and grow the scholarship in and the professionalism of our fields. After all, we are collaborators—not colluders! I am a strong proponent of open-access research and transnational approaches to both teaching and research, believing that there are indeed more of us who choose education over alienation, expertise over ease, and discourse over division. I am excited by the prospect of working with my MLA colleagues to strengthen the disciplines we’ve spent our lives building by serving as advocates for one of humankind’s greatest inventions. ☼ 120. Brantley Nicholson. Asst. prof. Spanish and Latin Amer. studies, Georgia Coll. PhD, Duke Univ. Founder and dir., Georgia Coll. in Santiago, 2017– . Previous appointment: Univ. of Richmond, 2011–15. ACLA, LASA, NEMLA. Assoc. ed., Chiricú, 2004–06. Publications include coed., The Generation of ’72: Latin America’s Forced Global Citizens (2013); guest coed., Cuadernos de literatura (2015); contrib., Critical Insights: Roberto Bolaño (2015); articles in Hispania, Cincinnati Romance Review, Studies in Social and Political Thought, Calle 14: Revista de investigación en el campo del arte, Céfiro: Enlace hispano cultural y literario (Texas Tech Univ.). Statement At the heart of my academic interest is keeping critical thinking muscular. Open, respectful, and free debate is the best way to let good ideas thrive and bad ideas wither in the open air. I finished my PhD in 2011 and entered into an ideologically fragmented academy. Personal projects and preconceived notions, ones that shoehorn reality into trend-narratives, have been the backdrop of my academic career so far. As a relatively young scholar with decades of a career ahead of me, I hope for a more intellectually robust future. In my own courses, I have begun to experiment with pedagogies, such as Reacting to the Past, that challenge students to role-play from perspectives with which they disagree. In class, students flip the script mid-discussion to argue the opposite perspective. This has led to lively, yet respectful, debate that causes everyone in the room to leave with an enriched perspective on thorny subject matter. In sum, my professional interests and concerns are: pedagogies that will keep pace with technological advancement and the socioeconomic demands of the postindustrialized workforce, maintaining humane working conditions despite the economic reality facing state legislatures and private governing 44 – Candidate Information

boards, and intellectual production that embraces the energy of contemporary communication but remains larger than social-media culture.

121. Ben Post. Asst. prof. Spanish, Murray State Univ. PhD, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison. Publications include articles in Hispania, Hispanófila. Statement Colleges and universities ought to be tools to help local communities flourish holistically while redistributing knowledge, cultural capital, and vocational opportunity to the people who are being left behind by an increasingly unequal society. As an assistant professor at a regional public university, I’ve witnessed the fruits that this mission can bear for first-generation and low-income students in an out-of-the-way corner of the United States. But like many of us across the continent, I’ve also encountered the forces that increasingly threaten our ability to carry out this work. State governments are leaving us more and more vulnerable to economic contractions because they’re coming to see us as factories for producing workers, not as institutions that hold regions together. Parents are looking at us with suspicion because they’re coming to see us as members of an alien tribe, not as members of the same community. And students are increasingly subservient to the new tech monopolists, increasingly convinced that knowledge and language skills come from corporate voice assistants and AI instead of from local human labor and relationships. To the extent that we can resist these trends—in the hope of reversing society’s course or at least conducting a long rearguard action until broader cultural conditions change—we in the MLA need to be focusing on community building outside our walled gardens, advocacy that builds bridges and sustains communities, and daily outreach to students that gets them excited about participating in the shared human task of learning.

VI. Central and Rocky Mountain (1 contest) Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Wyoming

122. Daniel E. Bivona. Assoc. prof. English, Arizona State Univ. PhD, Brown Univ. Previous appointments: Rowan Univ., 1995–96; Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1988–95; Rhode Island Coll., 1987–88. Arizona Board of Regents grant, 2003–09. Preparing Future Faculty Mentoring Award, Arizona State Univ., 1999, 2000. Local arrangements comm. (coch., 2009–11), Electronic Communications Comm. (ch., 2013–15), and Article Prize Comm. (2017–20), Nineteenth Century Studies Assn.; board member (2014–16), local arrangements and program comm. coch. (2014–16), and local conference organizer (2018–24), North Amer. Victorian Studies Assn.; Joseph Conrad Soc.; British Assn. for Victorian Studies; Soc. for Lit., Science, and the Arts; Dickens Universe. Publications include Desire and Contradiction: Imperial Visions and Domestic Debates in Victorian Literature (1990), British Imperial Literature, 1870–1940: Writing and the Administration of Empire (1998); coauthor, The Imagination of Class: Masculinity and the Victorian Urban Poor (2006); coed., Culture and Money in the Nineteenth Century: Abstracting Economics (2016); contrib., The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Prose, 1832 to 1901 (2012), BRANCH: Britain, Representation, and Nineteenth-Century History (2012), The Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature (2015), Philanthropic Discourse in Anglo-American Literature, 1850–1920 (2017), Replication in the Long Nineteenth Century: Re-makings and Reproductions (2018); articles in Novel, Victorian Studies, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Nineteenth-Century Prose, Prose Studies, Yearbook of English Studies, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, Nineteenth Century Studies.

123. Dennis Denisoff. McFarlin Prof. of English, Univ. of Tulsa. PhD, McGill Univ. Codir., Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Univ. of Tulsa, 2017–19; faculty member, Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English, New Mexico. Previous appointment: Ryerson Univ. Candidate Information – 45

Postdoctoral fellow, Princeton Univ., 1996–97; SSHRC research grant, 1999–2003; 2000–04; 2004–08, 2007, 2008–12, 2011–14, 2016–21; Canadian Media Research Consortium grant, 2014–16; Curran Fellowship, Research Soc. for Victorian Periodicals, 2015–16. Visiting appointments: Univ. of Exeter, 2007; Univ. of Oxford, 2014. President’s Award, Nineteenth Century Studies Assn. (NCSA), 2010; Sarwan Sahota Distinguished Scholar Award, Ryerson Univ., 2011. Exec. officer, NEMLA, 1994–97; pres., Victorian Studies Assn. of Ontario, 2004–07; exec. officer (2005–07) and pres. (2007–09), NCSA; exec. officer, Intl. Walter Pater Soc., 2014–18; vice pres. (2015–16) and pres. (2017–19), North Amer. Victorian Studies Assn. Series ed., Among the Victorians and Modernists, Routledge, 2014– ; coed., Yellow Nineties Online, 2012– 17. Ed. or advisory boards: Essays on Canadian Writing, 2000–06; Victorian Review, 2001–07; Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net, 2007– ; Nineteenth Century Studies, 2008–15; COVE: Central Online Victorian Educator, 2016– ; Volupté: Interdisciplinary Journal of Decadence Studies, 2016– ; Feminist Modernist Studies, 2016– . Publications include Dog Years (novel, 1991), Tender Agencies (poems, 1994), Aestheticism and Sexual Parody (1840–1940) (2001), The Winter Gardeners (novel, 2003), Sexual Visuality from Literature to Film: 1850–1950 (2004); ed., Queeries: An Anthology of Canadian Gay Male Prose (1993), The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Short Stories (2004), The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture (2008), Arthur Machen: Decadent and Occult Works (2018); coed., George Du Maurier, Trilby (1998), Perennial Decay: On the Aesthetics and Politics of Decadence (1999); guest ed., Victorian Review (2011); contrib., Performing Gender and Comedy: Theories, Texts, and Contexts (1998), Victorian Sexual Dissidence (1999), Victorian Women Writers and the Woman Question (1999), Mapping Male Sexuality: Nineteenth-Century England (2000), Women and British Aestheticism (2000), Reality’s Dark Light: The Sensational Wilkie Collins (2003), Maschilità decadenti (2004), Robert Louis Stevenson: Writer of Boundaries (2006), Vernon Lee: Decadence, Ethics, Aesthetics (2006), The Cambridge Companion to the Fin de Siècle (2007), The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Culture (2010), A Companion to Irish Literature (2010), Approaches to Teaching the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (2012), The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Prose: 1832– 1901 (2012), BRANCH: Britain, Representation, and Nineteenth-Century History (2013), Decadent Poetics: Literature and Form at the British Fin de Siècle (2013), The History of British Women’s Writing, 1880–1920 (2016); Late Victorian into Modern (2016), COVE: Central Online Victorian Educator (2018), The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875–1947 (2018); articles in Victorian Literature and Culture, Studies in Walter Pater and Aestheticism, Nineteenth Century Studies, Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens, Victorian Review, Modernism/Modernity, Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, Journal of Stevenson Studies, Victorian Poetry, Open Letter, Essays on Canadian Writing, College Literature, Mosaic. Statement As an MLA member for two decades, I am keen to give back to the association that has nurtured and supported my research and teaching. I have benefited greatly from the MLA’s efforts to address not only members’ diverse concerns and rights but also the political issues affecting the lives and aspirations of people around the world (for example, lgbtq+ rights). A scholar and teacher in Oklahoma and New Mexico, I am eager to address the damage to academics in less populated regions, smaller institutions, and marginalized positions that has been wrought by recent global shifts to insular, protectionist models sanctioned by abuse and dehumanizing practices. Coupled with the ongoing threats to NEH and NEA funding and the corporatization of education, these political acts of alienation threaten to undermine our sense of ourselves as humanities scholars, educators, and defenders of academic freedom. I want to help foster practices that enhance awareness of the transcultural migration of ideas, values, and lives and to build robust public engagement around these issues. I also wish to develop further support for the careers of graduate students and contingent faculty members. And connected to this, I would draw on my recent administrative experience to promote MLA policies and practices that are both environmentally responsible and cost efficient, while creating opportunities for engagement and participation for all our members, regardless of region, income, or access.

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VII. Western United States and Western Canada (3 contests) Alaska, California, Guam, Hawai‘i, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Washington; Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan

124. Margaret E. Johnson. Prof. English, Idaho State Univ. PhD, Univ. of Oregon. Board of directors (2014– ) and exec. comm. (2016– ), Idaho Humanities Council; board member, Idaho Center for the Book, 2016– . MLA activities: Delegate Assembly, 2004–06. Ed. board, Relevant Rhetoric: A New Journal of Rhetorical Studies, 2010– . Publications include coauthor, Literary Studies: A Practical Guide (2014); contrib., The Encyclopedia of Novels into Film (1998), The Geographical Imagination of Annie Proulx: Rethinking Regionalism (2009); articles in Genre, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, CEA Forum, Rendezvous, Film- Philosophy Quarterly, Popular Culture in Libraries. Statement I am honored to be nominated to represent the western United States and western Canada. Having lived and worked in California, Oregon, and Idaho, I am deeply committed to working on the issues relevant to the region as well as to the profession. During my last nineteen years in Idaho, I have become very aware of the variety of challenges faced by colleges and universities in the region: not only have we experienced dramatic budget cuts and decreasing enrollments, we have also seen our students and their educational goals change. While these changes have at times made our work as educators more difficult, they have also encouraged us to be more creative with our programs, more committed to the importance of the humanities, and more attentive to the needs of our increasingly more diverse student bodies. If elected to the Delegate Assembly, I would actively support innovations in teaching and research, promote the value of the humanities to both internal and external audiences, help to foster a more supportive atmosphere for our students, and advocate for improved conditions for all faculty members doing this important work to enhance and enrich the lives of our communities. The MLA provides an excellent forum for discussing issues of importance in our discipline and for communicating these ideas to our larger society, and it would be my pleasure to represent my colleagues by serving in the Delegate Assembly.

125. Priti Joshi. Prof. English, Univ. of Puget Sound. PhD, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick. James Dolliver NEH Distinguished Teaching Prof., Univ. of Puget Sound, 2017–20. Mellon fellowship, 1988–93; Curran Fellowship, Research Soc. for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP), 2011. Curran Fellowships Comm. (2012), Gale Dissertation Research Fellowships Comm. (2012), and board of directors (2016–17), RSVP; Advisory Board, North Amer. Victorian Studies Assn., 2017–19. Publications include coed., Frances Trollope, The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong, the Factory Boy (2009); contrib., Frances Trollope and the Novel of Social Change (2002), Charles Dickens in Context (2011), Global Dickens (2012); articles in Amodern, Museum History Journal, Victorian Periodicals Review, Dickens Studies Annual, Literature Compass, SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Victorian Literature and Culture. Statement Whether the current crisis in the humanities is the real deal or another of the blips of the last forty years, the issues facing us require overhauling some of our professional practices and infrastructure. Graduate programs have already reduced the size of incoming PhD cohorts, and the number of PhDs granted each year has started to decline. PhDs are also increasingly trained in pedagogy to meet changing job prospects. These are positives steps. Our next steps are to continue to support and develop programs that encourage—and reward—those who teach jointly with colleagues in science and technology (Ecology and Lit, the Anthropocene, Technological Utopias and Dystopias, Machine Learning and Facts, etc.) and who teach courses that have the dreaded mark of gen-ed or the like on them. Nothing makes the case for the study

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of literature (and the humanities and liberal arts more broadly) better than a broad swath of students across campus who have found their most challenging and thought-provoking class with us. ☼ 126. Russell A. Berman. Walter A. Haas Prof. in the Humanities, Stanford Univ. PhD, Washington Univ. in St. Louis. Ch., Faculty Senate, Stanford Univ., 2014–15. Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities (Harvard Univ.), 1982–83; Alexander von Humboldt fellowship, 1988–89; senior fellow, Hoover Inst., 2007– ; Teagle Foundation grant, 2010–11, 2012–14; Gregory Amadon Family Univ. Fellow in Undergrad. Educ., Stanford Univ., 2010–15. Visiting appointment: Univ. of Pittsburgh, 2013. Outstanding Book Award, German Studies Assn., 1988 (for The Rise of the Modern German Novel), 2000 (for Enlightenment or Empire); Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, Stanford Univ., 1988; Bundesverdienstkreuz, Federal Republic of Germany, 1997; Max Kade Prize (for best article in German Quarterly), AATG, 1998; Phi Beta Kappa Undergrad. Teaching Award, Stanford Univ., 2013; Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for Distinctive Contributions to Undergrad. Teaching, Stanford Univ., 2013; Dean’s Award for Excellence in Grad. Educ., Stanford Univ., 2014. Codir., Islamism and the Intl. Order Working Group, Hoover Inst., 2015– . Dir., NEH summer seminar, 1993, 2007, 2009; codir., NEH summer seminar, 2005, 2010. Advisory board, Rosetta Stone, 2011– . Exec. Comm., ADFL, 1998–2000; AATG; German Studies Assn.; ACLA; ACTFL; Assn. of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers. MLA activities: Delegate Assembly, 1985–87, 2009–Jan. 2012, 2016–Jan. 2019; Comm. on Resolutions, 1987; exec. comm., Div. on 19th- and Early-20th-Century German Lit., 1988–92, 2002–06; Program Comm., 1992–95; PMLA Ed. Board, 1995–97; Nominating Comm., 1998–99; vice pres., 2009–Jan. 2011; pres., 2011–Jan. 2012; ch., Task Force on Doctoral Study in Modern Lang. and Lit., 2012–14. Ed., Telos, 2004– ; consulting ed., Fora: A Literary Journal, 2014– ; ed. board, German Quarterly, 1978–94. Publications include Between Fontane and Tucholsky: Literary Criticism and the Public Sphere in Imperial Germany (1983), The Rise of the Modern German Novel: Crisis and Charisma (1986), Modern Culture and Critical Theory: Art, Politics, and the Legacy of the Frankfurt School (1989), Cultural Studies of Modern Germany: History, Representation, and Nationhood (1993), Enlightenment or Empire: Colonial Discourse in German Culture (1998), Anti-Americanism in Europe: A Cultural Problem (2004), Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty, and Western Culture (2007), Freedom or Terror: Europe Faces Jihad (2010), In Retreat: America’s Withdrawal from the Middle East (2014); ed., Ernst Jünger, The Adventurous Heart: Figures and Capriccios (2012), Ernst Jünger, The Forest Passage (2013), Ernst Jünger, Eumeswil (2015); coed., Political and Religious Ideas in the Works of Arnold Schoenberg (1999), Schoenberg and Words: The Modernist Years (2000), Carl Schmitt, Land and Sea: A World-Historical Meditation (2015); articles in New German Critique, Zeitgeschichte, Cornell Review, Telos, Modern Language Studies, Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse und Gesellschaftskritik, Stanford Italian Review, Cultural Critique, German Politics and Society, Theory, Culture, and Society, ADFL Bulletin, German Quarterly, Rivista teologica fiorentina, European Studies Journal, Modern Language Quarterly, PMLA, ADE Bulletin, South Central Review, Democratiya, Inside Higher Ed, Politics and Culture, Defining Ideas, Chronicle of Higher Education, Academe, German Studies Review, Profession, European Review, Dibur Literary Journal, Handelsblatt, Strategic Assessment, New Republic, Wall Street Journal, Advancing a Free Society, International Politics Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, Politico. Statement The study of the humanities is under siege. The mission of the MLA at this point in the history of our profession is therefore to make the strong case for the value of humanistic learning and to advocate its support. We must explain to the public how literature enhances our culture, how strong reading and writing skills benefit us as individuals and as a society, and how the humanities disciplines contribute to the vitality of our traditions and their transformations. All these aspects are inherent in the MLA’s core mission as set out in its constitution, a mission around which we should unify. Promoting the humanities also means using our organizational strength to defend the status and working conditions of scholar-teachers of all ranks. It is urgent to stand together to address the challenges faced by our colleagues who work off the tenure track: the diminishing number of tenure-track positions in the academic labor market is a sign of the crisis. To stand 48 – Candidate Information

together however also means avoiding divisive issues with little relevance to our core mission. We must face the fact that the Delegate Assembly has repeatedly adopted controversial and sectarian resolutions that promote radical political programs and that have garnered only negligible support from the membership. Such political posturing damages the reputation of the MLA and alienates members. The Delegate Assembly should not be misused by extremists to promote their sectarian political agenda at the expense of weakening the professional solidarity we need to defend the humanities today.

127. David D. Kim. Assoc. prof. German, Univ. of California, Los Angeles. PhD, Harvard Univ. Previous appointment: Michigan State Univ., 2008–15. Fred Grubel Research Fellowship, Leo Baeck Inst., 2003; NEH summer seminar fellowship, 2009; MLA International Bibliography fellowship, 2007–10; Lilly teaching fellowship, Michigan State Univ., 2013–14. MLA activities: Delegate Assembly, 2016–Jan. 2019. Publications include Cosmopolitan Parables: Trauma and Responsibility in Contemporary Germany (2017); ed., Georg Simmel in Translation: Interdisciplinary Border Crossings in Culture and Modernity (2006; 2nd rev. ed., 2009); coed., Imagining Human Rights (2015), The Postcolonial World (2017); contrib., Imagining Germany Imagining Asia: Essays in Asian-German Studies (2013), German Literature as World Literature (2014); articles in Journal of Translation Studies, TRANSIT: A Journal of Travel, Migration, and Multiculturalism in the German-Speaking World, MLN, Austrian Studies, German Studies Review, Colloquia Germanica. Statement My scholarly interests range from the age of Enlightenment to the present day with an emphasis on postcolonial and translation studies, digital humanities, human rights, political and cultural theories, and narratives of citizenship, solidarity, and animality. I am currently working on projects that explore global histories of German literature and narratives of international solidarity. ☼ 128. Abigail Droge. Postdoctoral scholar, WhatEvery1Says Project, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara. PhD, Stanford Univ. Institutional service (Dept. of English, Stanford Univ.): Berkeley-Stanford Conference Comm., 2012–13; Poetry Out Loud Comm., 2012–15; Pedagogy Comm., 2013–15; research asst., 2013–17. Irma Curtis Anzini Fellowship, Stanford Univ., 2012–16; Weiland Fellowship, Stanford Univ., 2015–17; Preparing Future Profs. Fellowship, Stanford Univ. and San Jose State Univ., 2017. Rosemary VanArsdel Essay Prize, Research Soc. for Victorian Periodicals, 2016. Conference presentations: Amer. Lit. in the World (grad. conference, Yale Univ.), Apr. 2013; Berkeley-Stanford Grad. Student Conference, 2014; Soc. for Novel Studies, 2014; Dickens Project Winter Conference, Mar. 2016; Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies, 2016; British Assn. for Victorian Studies, 2016; North Amer. Victorian Studies Assn., 2016; MLA, 2018. Publications include articles in Victorian Periodicals Review, Journal of Literature and Science. Statement As a delegate, I will advocate for these core values: integrating research and teaching rather than segregating certain publications or conference panels as either related to pedagogy or dedicated to scholarship; emphasizing the public humanities and finding new opportunities for community engagement; communicating more deeply with scholars from the sciences and social sciences; and encouraging conversations across all levels of humanities education, from primary education to graduate studies. My experiences have uniquely prepared me to tackle these challenges. My first book project includes teaching chapters alongside archival research and literary analysis, which helps me to understand the necessities and challenges of uniting pedagogy and scholarship. I am a recent graduate from Stanford and am well versed in finding common ground with those in STEM fields. I have been a member of the Stanford Literary Lab for many years and have a firm background in interdisciplinary work. I have collaborated with Silicon Valley designers and social scientists. I have organized several public humanities projects with local Candidate Information – 49

schools and nonprofits and have used service learning in my teaching. I have worked collaboratively to institute new teaching opportunities for graduate students in the Stanford English department. And I am a postdoctoral scholar for the WhatEvery1Says Project at UC, Santa Barbara, a digital humanities initiative that seeks to understand how the humanities have been portrayed in recent public media and to use that research to inform advocacy work and provide tools for humanists of all levels, from students to policy makers.

129. Anne Sullivan. Lecturer English, Univ. Writing Program, Univ. of California, Riverside. PhD, Univ. of California, Riverside (UCR). Institutional service (UCR): Ch., Publicity Comm., (Dis)Junctions Conference, 2012; pres., Grad. Students in English Assn., 2012–13; peer mentor, Grad. Student Mentorship Program, 2014–15. Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship, UCR, 2010–11; teaching fellow and asst. dir. for English 1A/B/C, Univ. Writing Program, 2013–14. Outstanding Teaching Asst. Award, Dept. of English, UCR, 2012–13; Outstanding Teaching Award, Univ. Writing Program, UCR, 2014. Grad. student dir., Dickens Universe, Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, 2015; Advisory Board (grad. student representative), North Amer. Victorian Studies Assn., 2016–18. Ed., Eaton Journal of Archival Research in Science Fiction (UCR), 2012–13. Conference presentations: Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies, 2014, 2018; Dickens Project Winter Conference, Feb. 2015; Midwestern Victorian Studies Assn., 2015; North Amer. Victorian Studies Assn., 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018; MLA, 2016. Publications include guest coed., 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century (2017). Statement My commitment to professional service that enhances inclusivity in academia is evidenced by my recent position on the North American Victorian Studies Association advisory board. I worked alongside my two fellow graduate student representatives to advocate on behalf of our American, Canadian, and international graduate student members by designing a survey that identified how NAVSA can support their professional goals as they navigate institutional and financial obstacles. As an MLA delegate, I would remain committed to inclusive and transparent advocacy, and I would be honored to represent my region while working with the larger assembly to think broadly and creatively about the multiple crises facing our profession. I share the sense of urgency evidenced in Eric Hayot’s “The Sky is Falling,” the recent proliferation of “quit lit” articles, the Me Too movement, and my students’ reports of struggling with anti-immigration and similarly discriminatory government policies. The MLA can and should do more to eliminate all forms of discrimination and sexual harassment within our profession and in our larger communities. As a PhD candidate and non-tenure-track lecturer at a public university, I believe the MLA must increase its efforts to foster excellent scholarship, professionalization, and collegiality without excluding any of its members. In addition to more thoroughly addressing the financial and emotional precariousness of members with contingent employment, the MLA must rectify the inherent economic privilege of in-person job interviews at its annual convention. I look forward to collaborating with my fellow delegates as we propose revised policies and creative initiatives.

Part V: Voting for Forum Delegates Only the forums listed below are holding delegate elections this year. Eligibility to vote in these elections is determined by voters’ primary forum affiliations, as recorded in their membership profiles. The term of office of those elected will be from 7 January 2019 through the close of the January 2022 convention. The numbers preceding the nominees’ names correspond to the numbers assigned to the nominees on the paper ballot sheet.

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Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies Global Portuguese Caribbean Romanian Global Jewish Global South Sephardic Nordic Russian and Eurasian Medieval Iberian Genre Studies 16th- and 17th-Century Spanish and Iberian Drama Children’s and Young Adult Literature 16th- and 17th-Century Spanish and Iberian Poetry Comics and Graphic Narratives and Prose Life Writing 20th- and 21st-Century Spanish and Iberian Poetry and Poetics Prose Fiction Language Studies and Linguistics Speculative Fiction Applied Linguistics Global English Higher Education and the Profession Linguistics and Literature Part-Time and Contingent Faculty Issues Romance Linguistics

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies 20th- and 21st-Century American Creative Writing Chicana and Chicano Jewish American Theory and Method Latina and Latino Bibliography and Scholarly Editing South Asian and South Asian Diasporic Language Theory Dutch Libraries and Research Literary and Cultural Theory English Romantic 16th-Century French Transdisciplinary Connections 18th-Century French Digital Humanities 19th-Century French Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities 20th- and 21st-Century German Law and the Humanities Memory Studies Irish Popular Culture 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-Century Italian Postcolonial Studies Japanese to 1900 Race and Ethnicity Studies Religion and Literature Colonial Latin American Science and Literature 19th-Century Latin American

If you have established a primary affiliation with any of the forums listed above, find the relevant contest(s) below and vote for one nominee in each contest.

CLCS Caribbean

200. Guillermina De Ferrari. Prof. Spanish, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison. PhD, Columbia Univ. Vilas Faculty Mid-Career Investigator Award, Univ. of Wisconsin (UW), Madison, 2017–19; senior fellow, Inst. for Research in the Humanities, UW, Madison, 2018–22. Fellowship selection comm., ACLS, 2010–13; fellowship reviewer, SSHRC, 2014. Editorial team for state of the Candidate Information – 51

discipline report, ACLA, 2014–17; LASA. MLA activities: exec. comm., Discussion Group on Cuban and Cuban Diaspora Cultural Production, 2008–Jan. 2013; exec. comm., Discussion Group on Romance Literary Relations, 2013–Jan. 2016; forum exec. comm., CLCS Caribbean, 2017–Jan. 2020. Series coed., Literature and Contemporary Thought, Routledge, 2010– ; ed. board, Letras femeninas, 2003–05. Publications include Vulnerable States: Bodies of Memory in Contemporary Caribbean Fiction (2007), Apertura: Photography in Cuba Today (exhibition catalog, 2015); Community and Culture in Post- Soviet Cuba (2014; Spanish trans., 2017); guest ed., 1616: Anuario de literatura comparada (2012); guest coed., A contracorriente: Una revista de estudios latinoamericanos (2015); contrib., Nuevas lecturas de Alejo Carpentier (2004), Alejo Carpentier ante la crítica (2005), Cuba (2012), Latin American and Iberian Perspectives on Literature and Medicine (2015), Futures of Comparative Literature: ACLA State of the Discipline Report (2017), Latin American Cultural Studies: A Reader (2017); articles in InVisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture, Comparative Literature Studies, Habana elegante, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Latin American Literary Review, Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, Hispanic Review, A contracorriente.

201. Kaiama L. Glover. Assoc. prof. French and Africana studies, Barnard Coll. PhD, Columbia Univ. NEH digital humanities grant, 2015–16; scholar in residence, Schomburg Center, 2015–16; PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant, 2016–17; NEA translation grant, 2016–17; fellowship, Columbia Inst. for Ideas and Imagination, 2018–19. Visiting appointments: Stanford Univ., 2007; Univ. of Virginia, 2017–18. Panelist, NEA, 2018. Project codir., In the Same Boats: Toward an Afro-Atlantic Intellectual Cartography, 2017– . Assn. for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora, Caribbean Studies Assn., Conseil International d’Études Francophones, Soc. for Francophone Postcolonial Studies. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., CLCS Caribbean, 2018–Jan. 2023. Founder and coed., sx archipelagos: A Small Axe Platform for Digital Practice, 2016– ; editorial comm., Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 2012– . Publications include Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Canon (2010); guest ed., Romanic Review (2004), Scholar and Feminist Online (2008); coed., The Haiti Exception: Anthropology and the Predicament of Narrative (2016); guest coed., Transition (2013), Small Axe (2013, 2014), Yale French Studies (2016); trans., Frankétienne, Ready to Burst (2014), Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Dance on the Volcano (2016), René Depestre, Hadriana in All My Dreams (2017); contrib., Écrire en pays assiégé— Haïti—Writing under Siege (2004), Imagining, Writing, (Re)Reading the Black Body (2009), Violence: “Mercurial Gestalt” (2008), A New Literary History of America (2009), Écrits d’Haïti: Perspectives sur la littérature haïtienne contemporaine (1986–2006) (2011), Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women (2015), Transnational Hispaniola: New Directions in Haitian and Dominican Studies (2018); articles in Public Culture, sx salon, Legs et littérature: Revue de littérature contemporaine, Francosphères, Small Axe, French Forum, French Review, Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, Research in African Literatures, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Journal of Haitian Studies. Statement I am deeply honored to be nominated for the CLCS Caribbean seat in the Delegate Assembly. My primary professional concerns relate to diversity and inclusion in the academy, at once with respect to those researching and teaching, the objects/subjects of our scholarship and pedagogy, and the modes and methods of those engagements. I hope to use this platform to advocate for the rights of contingent faculty members as well as faculty members and graduate students from resource-challenged institutions or in noninstitutional contexts; to support greater breadth in our humanistic inquiry, especially as regards the so-called Global South, through collaboration with colleagues beyond our national borders; and to promote digital humanistic work and the theory and practice of translation through the development of more pathways for inclusion and clear guidelines for evaluation. Also important to me during my tenure in the Delegate Assembly will be preserving this organization as a forum for rigorously informed engagement with matters political and social that affect our colleagues and students both locally and internationally.

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CLCS Global Jewish

202. Laini Kavaloski. Asst. prof. English, State Univ. of New York, Canton. PhD, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison. Innovation and technology grant, State Univ. of New York, 2017. Innovation in Teaching Award, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, 2015. HASTAC scholar, 2012. Board member, St. Lawrence County (NY) branch, AAUW, 2017– ; NWSA. Publications include contrib., The Good Life and the Greater Good in a Global Context (2015), Teacher Pioneers: Visions from the Edge of the Map (2016); articles in Critical Studies on Security, Studies in Comics; review in Comparative Drama. Statement My research explores the construction of Jewish identity and nation building in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries through literature and emerging media forms. Anchored in feminist and critical theory, my work advocates for a Jewish studies that is situated within a wider critical literary studies. Jewish literary and cultural concerns are often inseparable from global narratives of victimization, power, and militarism, and thus I would support the MLA’s interest in developing critical, historical, and theoretical discussions across fields. So, too, my commitment to broadening knowledge production by and about marginalized communities is integral to my scholarship in Jewish studies and to my teaching and community work and would guide my interests as an MLA delegate. In my advocacy for CLCS Global Jewish, I would ensure that the MLA assembly continues to address issues of intellectual diversity, academic freedom, the future of area- specific programs, and the academic job market.

203. Zoe Roth. Asst. prof. French, Durham Univ. PhD, King’s Coll. London. Publications include contrib., Jewish Aspects in Avant-Garde: Between Rebellion and Revelation (2017); articles in Journal of Modern Literature, Word and Image, Philip Roth Studies.

CLCS Global South

204. Stacey Balkan. Asst. prof. English and environmental humanities, Florida Atlantic Univ. PhD, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York. Previous appointment: Bergen Community Coll., NJ (BCC), 2010–17. Faculty fellow, Coll. Consortium for Intl. Studies, 2006; STEM grant, US Dept. of Educ., 2016; fellow, Center for Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation, BCC, 2016–17. Distinguished Faculty Scholar, BCC, 2017. Representative Assembly delegate, Natl. Educ. Assn., 2009, 2017; Assn. for the Study of Lit. and Environment; Postcolonial Studies Assn.; ACLA; NEMLA; Soc. for Lit., Science, and the Arts; South Asian Literary Assn. Publications include contrib., Wretched Refuge: Immigrants and Itinerants in the Postmodern (2010), Companion to Comparative Literature, World Literatures, and Comparative Cultural Studies (2013); articles in ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Global South, Social Text Online, CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, Public Books, Global South Studies. Statement I am honored to be nominated for the Global South seat in the Delegate Assembly. At Florida Atlantic University (FAU), where I teach courses in postcolonial environments and anglophone world literatures, I was recently elected to the Faculty Senate. I joined the faculty at FAU in the fall of 2017 after completing my PhD in English at the CUNY Graduate Center and after teaching anglophone world literature and contemporary Latin American literature at Bergen Community College (BCC) in New Jersey for several years. At BCC, I worked to create cross-disciplinary curricula in Latin American studies in addition to designing the college’s first course offerings in environmental literature and the environmental humanities. I also worked as a fellow for the college’s Center for Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation and as a labor Candidate Information – 53

advocate in my role as an elected delegate for the Representative Assembly of the National Education Association. I am eager to continue my work as an advocate within the MLA. In the face of persistent attacks on both the academy and the communities that constitute the Global South, I see such work as vital. As an environmental humanist, I also see the work of Global South studies as increasingly critical to the broader mission of global environmental justice. And as a scholar of, and teacher in, both Global South studies and the environmental humanities, I am dedicated to representing our interests at both the institutional and national levels.

205. Katherine Hallemeier. Asst. prof. English, Oklahoma State Univ. PhD, Queen’s Univ. Canadian Grad. Scholarship, SSHRC, 2007–10; Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement, SSHRC, 2009; Ontario Grad. Scholarship, 2010. Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, English Grad. Student Assn., Oklahoma State Univ., 2017. African Studies Assn., ACLA, Assn. for Commonwealth Lit. and Lang. Studies, Assn. for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities. Publications include J. M. Coetzee and the Limits of Cosmopolitanism (2013); contrib., Postcolonial Audiences: Readers, Viewers, and Reception (2012); articles in Journal of Commonwealth Literature, MFS: Modern Fiction Studies, Studies in the Novel, English Studies in Africa, Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, Culture, Theory, and Critique, Victorian Literature and Culture, Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature, Scrutiny2: Issues in English Studies in Southern Africa, Proteus: A Journal of Ideas. Statement As a member of the Delegate Assembly representing CLCS Global South, I would work toward creating an association that condemns racism and state violence in both word and deed. I join Lenora Hanson and David Palumbo-Liu in hoping that the MLA might become “an organization able to truly serve the interests of teachers and scholars of language and literature, without exception, and form the kinds of lines of solidarity with those who are denied academic freedom and the material means with which to enjoy that freedom” (“Why We Resigned”). Accordingly, I would vote for progressive candidates and for initiatives in support of efforts to improve labor conditions for academic workers as well as those advocating for institutional equity and justice that resists ongoing colonial and imperial histories.

CLCS Nordic

206. Claus Elholm Andersen. Asst. prof. Danish and Scandinavian studies, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison. PhD, Univ. of Helsinki. Pres., Danish Academic Network in America. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., CLCS Nordic, 2018–Jan. 2023. Publications include “På vakt skal man være”: Om litterariteten i Karl Ove Knausgårds Min kamp (2015); ed., Så tæt på livet som mulig. Perspektiver på Karl Ove Knausgårds Min kamp (2017); guest coed., Spring: Tidsskrift for modern dansk litteratur (2018); article in Critical Quarterly. Statement Having been a lecturer in several Scandinavian studies programs both here in the United States and in Scandinavia, I know the issues we face in Scandinavian studies firsthand. As a delegate, I will work for more visibility of Nordic studies and address some of the most pressing issues affecting our field of studies. These issues include, first and foremost, the budgetary challenges Scandinavian studies are facing everywhere, with drastic cuts to programs, downsizing of the faculty, and mergers with other departments. I will work for more cooperation among our institutions and between Scandinavian studies and other fields, and I will also work for increased diversity within our programs, including efforts to recruit and retain a more diverse faculty. Thank you for your consideration.

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207. Olivia Noble Gunn. Asst. prof. Scandinavian studies, Univ. of Washington, Seattle. PhD, Univ. of California, Irvine. Soc. of Scholars Faculty Fellowship, Simpson Center for the Humanities, Univ. of Washington (UW), 2017–18; Royalty Research Fund grant, UW, 2018–19. Pres., Ibsen Soc. of America, 2017– . MLA activities: forum exec. comm., CLCS Nordic, 2017–Jan. 2022. Publications include articles in Scandinavian Studies, Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, Ibsen Studies, Modern Drama. Statement One area of particular concern for me is enrollments in language courses (other than English). Faculty members at my institution are asked to have high enrollments, but no institutional support is provided for our courses in the Nordic languages. I do not believe that individual and departmental “marketing,” or even the sharing of evidence concerning the benefits of language learning for the brain and for life satisfaction, is sufficient for drawing students into classes. Our current labors to recruit are inefficient without institutional support. We need creative, innovative, and, perhaps most important, realistic plans for supporting instruction in other languages.

GS Children’s and Young Adult Literature

608. Meghann Meeusen. Faculty specialist II English, Western Michigan Univ. PhD, Illinois State Univ. (ISU). Previous appointment: Univ. of Tennessee, Chattanooga, 2014–15. Teaching and Learning Comm., Children’s Lit. Assn., 2015– . MLA activities: forum exec. comm., GS Children’s and Young Adult Lit., 2018–Jan. 2023. Assoc. ed., Grassroots Writing Research Journal (ISU), 2013–14; ed. board, Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts, 2017– ; staff reviewer, VOYA Magazine, 2011– . Publications include contrib., The Politics of Panem: Challenging Genres (2014), Graphic Novels for Children and Young Adults: A Collection of Critical Essays (2017); articles in Children’s Literature in Education, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, SIGNAL Journal, Grassroots Writing Research Journal. Statement I seek to align my professional goals and interests with those of the wider field of children’s literature studies, including contemporary concerns related to social justice. In particular, I believe it is important to consider an in-depth, theory-driven, and critical approach to questions of multiculturalism, diversity, and cultural representation, drawing on contemporary movements such as #WeNeedDiverseBooks or #OwnVoices to engage students, colleagues, and the greater scholarly community with issues and concerns of contemporary importance. In our globalized society, it is essentially important to interrogate the ideologies that permeate our culture as well as the power structures and institutions that reinforce problematic cultural norms. The study of children’s literature, which has long asked scholars to explore the indoctrination of belief systems and values within society, sits at the foreground of these discussions. It is my hope that as our understanding of ideology and power evolves, such questioning and discussions will continue to grow in importance in the realms of both teaching and scholarship.

209. Jan Christopher Susina. Prof. English, Illinois State Univ. PhD, Indiana Univ., Bloomington. NEH summer seminar fellowship, 1989, 1995. Board of directors (1993–98), Article Award Comm. (1997–2000), Anne Devereaux Jordan Award Comm. (2002–06), and Edited Book Award Comm. (2014–17), Children’s Lit. Assn. MLA activities: exec. comm., Div. on Children’s Lit., 1993–97; Delegate Assembly, 2010–Jan. 2013; forum exec. comm., GS Children’s and Young Adult Lit., 2014–Jan. 2019. Book review ed. (1992–2002) and ed. (2003–06), Lion and the Unicorn. Publications include The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children’s Literature (2010); contrib., Little Women and the Feminist Imagination (1999), Voices of the Other: Children’s Literature and the Postcolonial Context (2000), E. Nesbit’s Psammead Trilogy: A Children’s Classic at 100 (2006), The Candidate Information – 55

Japanification of Children’s Popular Culture (2009), Critical Approaches to Food in Children’s Literature (2009), George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind (critical edition, 2011), Time of Beauty, Time of Fear: The Romantic Legacy in Literature of Childhood (2012); articles in PMLA, Children’s Literature, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Children’s Literature in Education, Lion and the Unicorn, Marvels and Tales. Statement As a faculty member in an MA- and PhD-granting English department, one of my concerns is the decline of new tenure-line positions available for individuals completing their degrees. Given this reduction of available academic positions, the MLA needs to continue to argue forcefully for the value of tenure-line positions. The MLA should promote the value of studying language and literature beyond its own membership, to a wider nonacademic audience. At the same time, the MLA needs to continue to increase the number of sessions and workshops that will aid individuals to use the skills acquired in graduate school to seek alternative careers both inside and outside the academic world. The MLA should continue its effort to make the annual convention affordable for graduate students and faculty members. If the increased use of technology continues to reduce the practice of in-person job interviews during the annual convention, then the MLA should consider changing convention dates and strive to schedule future conventions in more affordable and easily accessible locations.

GS Comics and Graphic Narratives

210. Katherine Kelp-Stebbins. Asst. prof. English, Univ. of Oregon. PhD, Univ. of California (UC), Santa Barbara. Previous appointment: Palomar Coll., CA, 2014–18. Outstanding Teaching Asst. Award, Academic Senate, UC, Santa Barbara, 2012–13; Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, Palomar Coll., CA, 2016–17. Publications include contrib., Horrors of War: The Undead on the Battlefield (2015), The Laughing Dead: The Horror-Comedy Film from Bride of Frankenstein to Zombieland (2016), Comic Studies Here and Now (2018); articles in Feminist Media Histories, Media Fields Journal, Studies in Comics. Statement I am grateful for the nomination to the GS Comics and Graphic Narratives seat in the Delegate Assembly. I believe that the emergence of the field of comics studies both engenders and foregrounds a plethora of new critical and practical approaches to scholarship in the humanities. I plan to participate in the Delegate Assembly by honoring our field’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and collaborative practice. Comics studies is an interdisciplinary field that draws together scholarship from literary and artistic disciplines and that engages issues of political economy, translation, sexuality, race, gender, and representation. Among my discipline-specific goals as a delegate is to continue my predecessors’ efforts to build the field by supporting projects—such as teaching volumes and pedagogy panels—devoted to further incorporating comics into college curricula in ways that complement and complicate canons. More generally, I want to insist on the MLA’s role as a body that supports higher learning as a matter of social justice. Our role as standard bearers for the humanities requires us to advocate for openness and inclusivity throughout the academy; for projects and policies that reflect ethnic, gender, and sexual diversity; and for activist approaches that challenge political hierarchies and to refute traditions of patriarchal white supremacy. Given this role, I also plan to advocate for the rights and opportunities of graduate students and for the affordability of higher education. Finally, and most important, I would reach out, as a delegate, to be responsive to your scholarly and political concerns.

211. Tahneer Oksman. Asst. prof. academic writing, Marymount Manhattan Coll. PhD, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York (CUNY). Writer in residence, Wertheim Study, New York Public Library, 2010–11, 2014–15; Blanksteen Fund Fellowship in Jewish Studies, Graduate Center, CUNY, 2011–13; Hyman Mentorship Program Scholar, Women’s Caucus, Assn. for Jewish Studies (AJS), 56 – Candidate Information

2014–15. AJS, AJS Women’s Caucus, Children’s Lit. Assn., Comics Studies Soc., MELUS, WPA. Graphic narratives review ed., Cleaver Magazine, 2013–18; ed. board, Journal of Comics and Culture, 2015– . Publications include “How Come Boys Get to Keep Their Noses?”: Women and Jewish American Identity in Contemporary Graphic Memoirs (2016); contrib., Graphic Details: Jewish Women’s Confessional Comics in Essays and Interviews (2014), Visualizing Jewish Narrative: Jewish Comics and Graphic Novels (2016); articles in Studies in American Jewish Literature, Studies in Comics, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. Statement I am honored to be nominated to represent GS Comics and Graphic Narratives in the Delegate Assembly. My priorities are to support contingent academic labor and graduate students and to consider how we can champion all faculty members in their efforts to maintain meaningful and balanced connections to research, teaching, and service. My professional concentrations have been in visual memoir, Jewish and women’s literatures, and the teaching of writing. I have also spent time addressing broader publics, particularly in relation to women’s visual narrative and literature, and I hope to bring to the table my investments in building bridges between academics and wider audiences and in expanding which authors and texts are generally given due consideration in and out of the classroom.

GS Life Writing

212. Helga Lenart-Cheng. Assoc. prof. modern langs., St. Mary’s Coll. of California. PhD, Harvard Univ. Fellow, Inst. for Advanced Study, Collegium Budapest, 2005–06; participant, Fulbright-DAAD Summer Acad., 2015; Fulbright scholarship (France), 2019. Vice pres., Amer. Hungarian Educators Assn., 2018–20. Publications include coauthor, Lénárd Sándor: Világok vándora (2016); contrib., Childhood and Schooling in (Post)Socialist Societies: Memories of Everyday Life (2017); articles in a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, Amerikastudien / American Studies, Hungarian Cultural Studies, Cultural Politics, Biography, New Literary History. Statement I am a comparatist by training (PhD in comparative literature) because I believe firmly in the value of dialogue not only between languages and literatures but also between disciplines and various groups of the humanities workforce. I studied in several countries, and I maintain my professional ties both in Europe and in the United States, which means that I can mediate between scholars, universities, and professional organizations of various nationalities. I chose my research field (life writing) with the same commitment to mediation: the reason why the genre of auto/biography fascinates me is that it requires us to move between definitions and disciplines that are often too entrenched. We are all concerned about the devaluation of the humanities, not just in the form of the defunding of the NEH and the NEA but also in terms of prestige and acknowledgement. I believe that the burden of proof is on us—that we must continue making the case for the value of studying languages and literatures—and that the best way to do this is to learn to speak the language of those who think differently. I am fully committed to this task, and I will serve all my colleagues in the MLA in this spirit of dialogue.

213. Lisa Marie Ortiz-Vilarelle. Prof. English, Coll. of New Jersey. PhD, Wayne State Univ. Fellowship, School of Criticism and Theory (Cornell Univ.), 1998; visiting scholar, Center for Biographical Research, Univ. of Hawai‘i, summer 2018. Hogan Prize (for outstanding essay submitted to a/b: Auto/Biography Studies), Autobiography Soc., 2018. Timothy Dow Adams Travel Grant Comm., a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, 2018. MLA activities: Delegate Assembly, 2003–05. Publications include contrib., Inhabiting La Patria: Identity, Agency, and Antojo in the Work of Julia Alvarez (2013); articles in a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, European Journal of Life Writing, Journal of Haitian Studies, Life Writing Journal. Candidate Information – 57

Statement I am grateful for the nomination to represent GS Life Writing in the Delegate Assembly and would be honored to serve on behalf of those members who write, teach, and study life writing. My research, teaching, and professional service in life writing studies have prepared me for the work of promoting and advancing the field across nations, languages, and media. I am particularly dedicated to scholarship and scholarly communication on the intersection of human rights and social justice–centered areas of life writing. Work on the relations among voices, lives, and texts resides at the very center of our shared concerns about our profession. This work is particularly vital in areas of the world where the prospect of telling the stories of lived experience has become impossible and where the MLA is most needed to promote diversity and engagement of voices across all cultures, disciplines, and levels of the profession. While I have been a member of the MLA for more than twenty years, I feel it is increasingly important to explore and support practices for mentoring graduate students and early-career faculty members who are just entering our profession. I have experience as a regional member of the 2003–05 Delegate Assembly and look forward to participating in initiatives that take up the growth and expansion of the association’s support for these populations. If elected, I would help our community of educators, scholars, and practitioners shape the MLA’s advocacy for the profession and for the humanities more broadly.

GS Poetry and Poetics

214. Andrew Epstein. Prof. English, Florida State Univ. PhD, Columbia Univ. Whiting Fellowship in the Humanites, 1999–2000. Univ. Grad. Teaching Award, Florida State Univ. (FSU), 2007–08; Univ. Undergrad. Teaching Award, FSU, 2013–14; Choice Outstanding Academic Title (for Attention Equals Life), 2017. Judge, Penumbra Poetry Contest, Tallahassee Writers’ Assn., 2002. Assoc. ed., Southeast Review, 2002–05; contributing ed., ASAP/Journal, 2015– . Publications include Beautiful Enemies: Friendship and Postwar American Poetry (2006), Attention Equals Life: The Pursuit of the Everyday in Contemporary Poetry and Culture (2016); guest coed., Comparative Literature Studies (2014); ed., Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets (Web site, 2013– ); contrib., World Poets, vol. 2 (2000), Who’s Who in Twentieth-Century World Poetry (2000), The Scene of My Selves: New Work on New York School Poets (2001), Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century (2001), Don’t Ever Get Famous: Essays on New York Writing after the New York School (2006), Encyclopedia of the New York School Poets (2009), The Routledge Companion to Experimental Literature (2012), Among Friends: Engendering the Social Site of Poetry (2013), The Cambridge Companion to American Poets (2015), The Cambridge History of Postmodern Literature (2016), Wallace Stevens in Context (2017); articles in Account: A Journal of Poetry, Prose, and Thought, Jacket2, Wallace Stevens Journal, Contemporary Literature, Jacket, Fulcrum: An Annual of Poetry and Aesthetics, W. H. Auden Society Newsletter, Lingua Franca, Raritan, Keats-Shelley Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books; poems in Denver Quarterly, Wildlife, Mississippi Review, Conduit, Western Humanities Review, and others. Statement I am honored to be nominated for a position in the Delegate Assembly representing GS Poetry and Poetics. Especially at a moment when the humanities and literary study are in grave peril, I believe more strongly than ever in the core mission of the MLA and the profession it represents. I am eager to work with colleagues across the discipline to promote the value of the humanities, critical thinking, and the study of language, literature, and art. More specifically, as a forum delegate for GS Poetry and Poetics, I would advocate in particular for the profound importance of poetry at a time when it is increasingly marginalized and devalued, both within the academy and without. My own work has long been dedicated to addressing multiple audiences, both scholarly and public, and I believe the MLA has an important role to play in bridging that divide. I would also use my role in the Delegate Assembly to encourage the ongoing reconceptualization of poetry as an inclusive, diverse, multicultural, multilingual, and transnational art form. As the director of a large graduate program, I’ve been deeply invested in problems facing graduate students, and I would be a strong supporter of graduate student interests within the Delegate Assembly. In general, I 58 – Candidate Information

believe the MLA has a key role to play in promoting and protecting our profession’s most important activities, literary scholarship and the teaching of literature and writing, and I would be eager to support that mission as a delegate.

215. Dorothy J. Wang. Prof. Amer. studies, Williams Coll. PhD, Univ. of California, Berkeley. Previous appointments: Northwestern Univ., 2000–06; Wesleyan Univ., 1998–99; Univ. of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1999–2000; Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship for Recently Tenured Scholars, ACLS, 2017–18. Visiting appointments: Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, Columbia Univ., summer 2008, June 2009–Dec. 2010; Grad. School of Global Studies, Doshisha Univ. (Kyoto, Japan), fall 2014. Faculty Member of the Year Award, Multicultural Center, Williams Coll., 2008; honorable mention (for Thinking Its Presence), Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism, Poetry Foundation, 2014; Book Award for Literary Criticism (for Thinking Its Presence), AAAS, 2016. Invited faculty member, NMPoetics, summer 2018. Poetry judge, Asian Amer. Literary Awards, Asian Amer. Writers’ Workshop (AAWW), 2009, 2013, 2017. Advisory comm., Natl. Asian Amer. Poetry Initiative, AAWW, 2003; cofounder, Race and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics in the UK (research group), 2015– ; Modernist Studies Assn.; Assn. for the Study of the Arts of the Present; AAAS; ACLA; Assn. of Writers and Writing Programs; ASA; Soc. for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas. MLA activities: exec. comm., Div. on 20th-Century Amer. Lit., 2001–05; Comm. on the Lits. of People of Color in the United States and Canada, 2005–08. Publications include Thinking Its Presence: Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry (2014); contrib., June Jordan’s Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint (1995), Asian American Literature in the International Context: Readings on Fiction, Poetry, and Performance (2002), Essays on Ethnic Chinese Abroad, vol. 3 (2002), Nests and Strangers: On Asian American Women Poets (2015), The Cambridge History of Asian American Literature (2016); articles in Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, Journal of Asian American Studies, Journal of Australian Studies; poems in Shantih, Tea Leaves. Statement It is time to remake our ideas of what poetry, that most “literary” of genres, is and to demystify poetry’s ahistorical aura while also valuing its literary properties. Poetry has never been exempt from history, despite its long having been taught in literature and writing classes as if it were. Poems are too often treated as museum objects, to be analyzed solely by means of literary critical methodologies. Poetic concepts are presumed to be neutral, objective, and universal— terms like “craft” and “voice” are deployed in workshops without a thought as to their imbedded assumptions. English-language poetry derives as much of its luster from the might of the empire as it does from the prowess of Shakespeare. It takes nothing away from a poem’s aesthetic power to acknowledge that issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, and imperialism, among others, have influenced the content and forms of poetry and the most foundational poetics concepts. Poetry studies needs to be brought more fully into dialogue with recent exciting ideas in nonliterary fields, such as critical race studies, performance studies, queer studies, and diaspora studies. My own work has helped to spark a change in thinking about the relation between aesthetics and politics (specifically, race and poetics). Poems can change people’s consciousnesses and consciences, even—or especially—in perilous times. Poetry speaks to our moment and to the longer arc of history. I want to make poetry relevant to a much wider audience in this country and abroad. How we teach poetry matters.

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GS Prose Fiction

216. Jonathan Grossman. Prof. English, Univ. of California, Los Angeles. PhD, Univ. of Pennsylvania. Eby Award for the Art of Teaching, Academic Senate, Univ. of California, Los Angeles, 2013. Faculty member, Dickens Project, 2002– . MLA activities: forum exec. comm., GS Prose Fiction, 2016–Jan. 2021. Coed., Nineteenth-Century Literature, 2012– . Publications include The Art of Alibi: English Law Courts and the Novel (2002), Charles Dickens’s Networks: Public Transport and the Novel (2012); articles in Critical Inquiry, Novel, Victorian Studies, Raritan, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Studies in the Novel. Statement I will work diligently as the delegate representing GS Prose Fiction. I view my task as both to try to fathom the most ethical and intelligent position on the issues presented to the delegates for a vote and to represent GS Prose Fiction’s interests whenever they arise.

217. Jennifer Wicke. Visiting prof. English, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara. PhD, Columbia Univ. Previous appointments: Univ. of Virginia, 1998–2016; New York Univ., 1991–98; Yale Univ., 1982–91. Faculty member, Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English, Vermont, 2008– . MLA activities: exec comm., Div. on Sociological Approaches to Lit., 1994–98; Program Comm., 1996–2000; exec. comm., Div. on Late-19th- and Early-20th-Century English Lit., 1999–2003; Delegate Assembly, 2000–02, 2009–Jan. 2012, 2012–Jan. 2015, 2016–Jan. 2019; exec. comm., Div. on 20th-Century English Lit., 2006–Jan. 2011; PMLA Advisory Comm., 2006–09; Delegate Assembly Organizing Comm., 2012–Jan. 2015 (ch., 2013–Jan. 2014); forum exec. comm., GS Prose Fiction, 2014–Jan. 2019. Publications include Advertising Fictions: Literature, Advertisement, and Social Reading (1988); coed., Feminism and Postmodernism (1994); coed. (of vol. on the 20th century), The Longman Anthology of British Literature (1999; 4th ed., 2006); contrib., Centuries’ Ends, Narrative Means (1996), Marketing Modernisms: Self-Promotion, Canonization, Rereading (1996), Tess of the D’Urbervilles (Bedford critical edition, 1998), Feminism, the Public and the Private (1998), A Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture (1999), The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce (2nd ed., 2004); articles in Modernism/Modernity, ELH, Profession, South Atlantic Quarterly, Boundary 2, Annals of Scholarship, Novel, Critical Quarterly, James Joyce Quarterly. Statement There is no more academic business as usual. At a time when not just the humanities require our defense and support but also the very notion of humanity, ideally the MLA becomes a laboratory for devising methods of academic survival, facilitating critical exchanges, articulating sustaining pedagogies at all levels, and envisioning literary, linguistic, and critical agency on behalf of truth, justice, and equality in a global framework. A member of the MLA since graduate school, I have been a delegate four times and as chair of the DAOC sought increased transparency for the DA and heightened its democratic potential. It’s an honor to represent GS Prose Fiction, to help extend the dynamic role of the DA, and to further its importance as the voice of the membership—a membership where contingent faculty members, vulnerable faculty members at all levels, both community colleges and research universities, and, above all, graduate students, whose every situation is precarious, are the MLA’s core constituency and constitute our collective future. I see the DA as a unique resource within the MLA for fostering this collective voice, working in tandem with the president and the Executive Council on key challenges we face and offering its own goals as we move forward. The DA should represent active solidarity across all these facets of the MLA membership and with the publics we serve as educators: that is how, to paraphrase Trollope, we must live now.

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GS Speculative Fiction

218. Sandra Marie Grayson. Prof. English, Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. PhD, Univ. of California, Riverside. Ed., Network 2000: In the Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance; ed., Langston Hughes Colloquy. Publications include Symbolizing the Past: Reading Sankofa, Daughters of the Dust, and Eve’s Bayou as Histories (2000), Visions of the Third Millennium: Black Science Fiction Novelists Write the Future (2003); ed., A Literary Revolution: In the Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance (2008); coed., Sparks of Resistance, Flames of Change: Black Communities and Activism (2005); contrib., Sharpened Edge: Women of Color, Resistance, and Writing (2003), African Spirit and Black Nationalism: A Discourse in African and African American Studies (2003); articles in International Journal of Humanities Education, International Journal of Civic, Political, and Community Studies, Research in African Literatures, American National Biography, CLA Journal. Statement It is an honor to be nominated to serve in the Delegate Assembly. Issues of diversity and interdisciplinarity are central to my scholarship, teaching, and service. In addition to continuing to support the mission of MLA, I would look forward to working collaboratively with members of the Delegate Assembly to help address pressing concerns in higher education.

219. Gary Wilkens. Assoc. prof. English, Norfolk State Univ. PhD, Univ. of Southern Mississippi. Breakthrough Poetry Prize (for The Red Light Was My Mind), Texas Review Press, 2006; third place, InterBoard Poetry Competition, May 2006; finalist, Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, Passages North, 2006; third place, Adult Poetry Contest, Poetry Soc. of Virginia, 2013; finalist, Moon City Poetry Award, Moon City Press, 2014. Publications include The Red Light Was My Mind (poems, 2007); coed., Mascot Mania: Spirit of Texas High Schools (2005); poems in Texas Review, Moon City Review, Passages North, Adirondack Review, James Dickey Review, Melancholy Hyperbole, Midwest Quarterly, and others; short stories in Drunk Monkeys, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Pale Ghosts Magazine. Statement Thank you for allowing me to stand for election to the Delegate Assembly as the representative for GS Speculative Fiction. I will support policies that establish a more equitable workplace, especially in regard to the problems of gender, race, LGBTQ, and disability bias, and policies that fight back against the erosion of tenure-track positions and the abuse of adjunct faculty members. Concerning scholarship, I will champion teaching and scholarly approaches that promote the teaching and writing of speculative fiction. Most of all, I will work to defend the value of humanities education during a period in which its worth is constantly being questioned or outright disregarded. I see the study and production of speculative fiction as a playing a key role in our ability to imagine and prepare for the future, something that seems harder and harder to do every passing year.

HEP Part-Time and Contingent Faculty Issues

220. Amy Lynch-Biniek. Assoc. prof. composition, Kutztown Univ. PhD, Indiana Univ. of Pennsylvania. Ch., Adjunct Faculty Comm., Assn. of Pennsylvania State Coll. and Univ. Faculties, 2013– ; steering comm. (2010–18), ch. (2013–15), and sec. (2015–18), Labor Caucus, CCCC. Ed., Forum: Issues about Part-Time and Contingent Faculty, 2015–18, 2018–21. Publications include coed., Contingency, Exploitation, and Solidarity: Labor and Action in English Composition (2017); guest coed., Open Words: Access and English Studies (2012); articles in Academic Labor: Research and Artistry, College Composition and Communication, Forum: Issues about Part-Time Candidate Information – 61

and Contingent Faculty, Reflections: Writing, Service-Learning, and Community Literacy, CEA Forum, Teaching English in the Two-Year College. Statement I spent ten years teaching as a contingent faculty member at several intuitions before having the good fortune to get a tenure-line position. Since that time, one of my professional goals has been to use my tenured status to be an ally of contingent faculty members. To that end, I have aimed to bring more attention to labor- focused scholarship, service, and pedagogy in English studies; to listen to non-tenure-track faculty members’ concerns; and to make allies of more tenure-line faculty members. My work with the NCTE journal Forum: Issues about Part-Time & Contingent Faculty and the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s Labor Caucus has been focused on these goals, and I would likewise strive to encourage labor consciousness and to amplify the voices of non-tenure-track faculty members in the Delegate Assembly.

221. Robin J. Sowards. Adjunct lecturer English, Chatham Univ. PhD, Cornell Univ. Board member, New Faculty Majority, 2013– . Publications include contrib., Stylistics: Prospect and Retrospect (2007); articles in Modern Philology, Minnesota Review.

LLC 20th- and 21st-Century American

222. Stephanie Foote. Jackson and Nichols Ch. of English, West Virginia Univ., Morgantown. PhD, Univ. at Buffalo, State Univ. of New York. Previous appointments: Univ. of Illinois, Urbana (UIU), 1994–2016; Colby Coll., 1993–94. NEH fellowship, Winterthur Library, summer and fall 2002; Mellon Foundation fellowship, 2005–06; Natl. Humanities Center fellowship, 2017–18; Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, Carnegie Corp. of New York, 2018–20. Visiting appointment: Duke Univ., spring 2001. Campus Award for Excellence in Undergrad. Teaching, UIU, 2001; Robert Schneider Award for Outstanding Service, Dept. of English, UIU, 2012. Nominating Comm., Amer. Lit. Section, 2012–13; ch., Nominations Comm., C19: The Soc. of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, 2016–18; ch., Norman Foerster Prize Comm., Amer. Lit. Soc., 2017; ASA; Soc. for the Study of Narrative; Soc. for Lit., Science, and the Arts; Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies; NWSA. MLA activities: exec. comm., Div. on Late-19th- and Early-20th- Century Amer. Lit., 2008–Jan. 2013. Series ed., Salvaging the Anthropocene, West Virginia Univ. Press; cofounder and coed., Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities. Ed. boards: Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, Journal of Sport and Social Issues. Publications include Regional Fictions: Culture and Identity in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (2001), The Parvenu’s Plot: Gender, Culture, and Class in the Age of Realism (2014); ed., Ann Aldrich, We Walk Alone (2006), Anne Aldrich, We, Too, Must Love (2006); coed., Histories of the Dustheap: Waste, Material Cultures, Social Justice (2012); contrib., A Companion to the Regional Literatures of America (2003), A Companion to American Fiction, 1780–1865 (2004), The Cambridge History of American Women’s Literature (2012), The American Novel, 1870–1940 (2014), Keywords for Environmental Studies (2016), Teaching Climate Change in the Humanities (2016); articles in J19: The Journal of Nineteenth- Century Americanists, PMLA, Pedagogy, American Literature, Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Henry James Review, College Literature, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Concerns: The Journal of the Women’s Caucus for the Modern Languages, MELUS, Studies in American Fiction, Arizona Quarterly, American Literary History. Statement I have spent the last two decades of my career working at public institutions and am committed to the idea that scholarly professional organizations like the MLA must pay attention to broad issues of access to higher education. As a delegate, I hope to work with the MLA on three key issues: encouraging conversations about the shape of graduate education in an economic climate and a higher education system that drive graduate students into debt, developing ways to address the systemic and steadily increasing 62 – Candidate Information

adjunctification of labor in the academy, and developing initiatives for public humanities projects, especially digital and open access projects.

223. Angela Naimou. Assoc. prof. English, Clemson Univ. PhD, Cornell Univ. Mellon grad. fellow, Soc. for the Humanities, Cornell Univ., 2005–06; Davis Fellowship for Peace, Middlebury Inst. of Intl. Studies, summer 2018. Dean’s Prize for Distinguished Teaching, Coll. of Arts and Sciences, Cornell Univ., 2006; honorable mention (for Salvage Work), William Sanders Scarborough Prize, MLA, 2015; ASAP Book Prize (for Salvage Work), Assn. for the Study of the Arts of the Present (ASAP), 2016; Univ. Research, Scholarship, and Artistic Achievement Award, Clemson Univ., 2018. Treasurer and Motherboard, ASAP, 2016– . Coed. (2018– ) and ed. board (2016–18), Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development; assoc. ed., Contemporary Literature, 2018– ; reviews ed. (2013–14) and assoc. ed. (2014–18), College Literature. Publications include Salvage Work: U.S. and Caribbean Literatures amid the Debris of Legal Personhood (2015); guest ed., Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development (2017); guest coed., South Carolina Review (2014), College Literature (2016); contrib., Kathy Acker and Transnationalism (2009); articles in College Literature, Callaloo. Statement I am eager to contribute to the MLA’s public advocacy of the humanities and the forms of honest inquiry that studies of language, literature, and culture take in the world. It would be an honor to represent LLC 20th- and 21st-Century American in the Delegate Assembly. This field has been crucial to my work on contemporary literature in its entanglements with the nation, international politics, systems of race and law, and literary forms and histories. I would work for an MLA that vigorously advocates for its members— nourishing our scholarship and teaching while reckoning with the intense strains on the livelihood of graduate students, contingent faculty members, and untenured junior faculty members. We must contend with how institutions of higher education support, degrade, redirect, and otherwise affect the work we do and how we do it. I see service as an opportunity to shape our profession and to encourage intellectual vitality and fairness. I have organized conferences to make space for needed conversations, and I have served on editorial teams to help promote scholarship and feature the work of junior scholars. In all my service to the profession—including as current treasurer for the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, recent associate editor for College Literature, incoming associate editor for Contemporary Literature, and incoming coeditor of Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development—I will encourage the spaces and conditions we need for robust, meaningful, and convivial intellectual life.

LLC Chicana and Chicano

224. Jackie Cuevas. Assoc. prof. English, Univ. of Texas, San Antonio. PhD, Univ. of Texas, Austin. Univ. of Texas Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, 2018. MLA activities: Delegate Assembly, 2011–Jan. 2014; forum exec. comm., LLC Chicana and Chicano, 2017–Jan. 2022. Publications include Post-Borderlandia: Chicana Literature and Gender Variant Critique (2018); coed., El mundo zurdo 4: Selected Works from the 2013 Meeting of the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa (2015).

225. Belinda Rincon. Assoc. prof. English and Latin Amer. and Latina/o studies, John Jay Coll. of Criminal Justice, City Univ. of New York. PhD, Cornell Univ. Faculty fellowship, Amer. Assn. of Hispanics in Higher Educ., 2012; faculty fellowship, Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York (CUNY), 2013–14; participant, Young Scholars Symposium, Inst. for Latino Studies, Univ. of Notre Dame, 2014; Candidate Information – 63

Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellowship, Natl. Research Council, 2014–15. Frederick A. Cervantes Student Premio, NACCS, 2009; Antonia I. Castañeda Prize (for published article), NACCS, 2015; finalist, Intl. Latino Book Award for Best Women’s Issues Book, Latino Literacy Now, 2018. Cofounder and coorganizer, Biennial Latina/o Literary Theory and Criticism Conference, John Jay Coll. of Criminal Justice, CUNY, 2013– . Publications include Bodies at War: Genealogies of Militarism in Chicana Literature and Culture (2017); articles in Modern Fiction Studies, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Latino Studies.

LLC Jewish American

226. Benjamin Schreier. Prof. English and Jewish studies, Penn State Univ., University Park. PhD, Brandeis Univ. Faculty Senate, Penn State Univ., 2009–13. Mellon summer research fellowship, 1998; resident scholar, Inst. for the Arts and Humanities, Penn State Univ., 2010–11. Juror, Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, Penn State Univ. Libraries, 2013–14; judge (for fiction), Natl. Jewish Book Awards, Jewish Book Council, 2017– . MLA activities: exec. comm., Discussion Group on Jewish Cultural Studies, 2011–Jan. 2016; forum exec. comm., LLC Jewish Amer., 2015–Jan. 2020. Ed., Studies in American Jewish Literature, 2011– . Publications include The Power of Negative Thinking: Cynicism and the History of Modern American Literature (2009), The Impossible Jew: Identity and the Reconstruction of American Jewish Literature (2015); ed., Studies in Irreversibility: Texts and Contexts (2007); coed., The Year’s Work in Nerds, Wonks, and Neocons (2017); contrib., The Cambridge History of Jewish American Literature (2016); articles in American Literature, Symplokē, Modern Fiction Studies, American Literary History, Jewish Social Studies, Prooftexts, Shofar, Contemporary Literature, Twentieth Century Literature.

227. Donald Weber. Prof. English, Mount Holyoke Coll. PhD, Columbia Univ. Fellow, Woodrow Wilson Intl. Center for Scholars, 1991–92; NEH fellowship, 1994–95; visiting fellow, Inst. of United States Studies, Univ. of London, 2002; fellow, Bellagio Center, Rockefeller Foundation, 2003; fellow, Bogliasco Study Center, Bogliasco Foundation, 2012; visiting fellow, Inst. of Mod. Langs., Univ. of London, 2016. Posen Lecturer in Judaic Studies, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2009–10. Ed. board, American Quarterly, 1991–92. Publications include Rhetoric and History in Revolutionary New England (1988), Haunted in the New World: Jewish American Culture from Cahan to The Goldbergs (2005); contrib., The Other Fifties: Interrogating Midcentury American Icons (1997), New Essays on Seize the Day (1998), Talking Back: Images of Jewish Women in American Popular Culture (1998), Key Texts in American Jewish Culture (2003), The Cambridge Companion to Jewish American Literature (2003), You Should See Yourself: Jewish Identity in Postmodern American Culture (2006), The Turn around Religion in America: Literature, Culture, and the Work of Sacvan Bercovitch (2011), Hidden in Plain Sight: Jews and Jewishness in British Film, Television, and Popular Culture (2016); articles in Studies in Jewish American Literature, Massachusetts Review, Early American Literature, American Quarterly, American Literature, American Literary History, Chronicle Review. Statement In the light of the recent publication of The Cambridge History of Jewish American Literature, the field is currently undergoing an exciting revaluation that has prompted an expansion of its archive to include a range of new or neglected figures (above all, writers from an array of Sephardic traditions), reconsiderations of the transatlantic dimensions of the field, and, most important, a desire to set Jewish American texts in dialogue with multicultural literatures in general. In this respect, what has been called the “new” Jewish cultural studies has sought to apply more theoretical pressure to Jewish American literature, deepening and expanding the hegemonic Ashkenazi canon; in the process, Jewish literary and cultural studies seeks to engage adjacent fields—postcolonial studies, whiteness studies, and critical ethnic studies—so far with, at best, mixed results. 64 – Candidate Information

As the delegate representing LLC Jewish American, my goal would be to create conditions for dialogue and debate among these academic and theoretical constituencies (above all, the potential affiliations between Jewish studies and postcolonial studies), perhaps leading to team teaching across multicultural literatures and collaborative MLA panels. As the category of Jewish literature continues to expand, hopefully the disciplinary boundaries currently limiting academic engagement will become more porous, fluid. It is with this aim that I would be honored to serve as an MLA delegate for Jewish American literature.

LLC Latina and Latino

228. William Arce. Asst. prof. English, California State Univ., Fresno. PhD, Univ. of Southern California. Consortium for Faculty Diversity fellowship (Bowdoin Coll.), 2007–08; Council on Intl. Educational Exchange grant, 2011. Gertrude Golladay Memorial Award for Outstanding Teaching, Univ. of Texas, Arlington, 2010. Publications include contrib., Re-framing the Transnational Turn in American Studies (2011); articles in Ácoma: Rivista internazionale di studi nordamericani, Confluencia: Revista hispánica de cultura y literatura, Journal of the American Studies Association of Texas. Statement I am a longtime member of the MLA, and, as a Latinx scholar by training, I have participated in both the Latina/o forum and the Chicana/o forum at the MLA convention. I am motivated to run for this position because I would like Latina/o studies, as a humanities discipline and as an interdisciplinary field, to continue being positively presented in the sociopolitical discussions and debates the MLA confronts. Scholars who work in the field of Latina/o studies draw from a diverse range of intellectual disciplines, such as literature, art, photography, and digital media, to provide readers with a cultural lens into what is currently the largest minority group in the United States. If elected to the Delegate Assembly as the representative for LLC Latina and Latino, I would listen carefully and advocate for more inclusivity and intellectual diversity. I would also wish to address issues such as academic freedom, free speech, the academic market (especially as it pertains to non-tenure-track positions), and international intellectual exchange with Latin America and the Caribbean. I am energized by the possibility of being elected a member of the Delegate Assembly, a position that will allow me to solicit feedback from, and represent, members working in the field of Latina and Latino literary and cultural studies. In a fraught political climate in which United States Latina and Latino populations are targets of governmental and populist discrimination, I look forward to fostering positive critical awareness and representation at a time when it is of utmost importance.

229. Maritza Cardenas. Asst. prof. English, Univ. of Arizona. PhD, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Mellon postdoctoral fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Natl. Fellowship Foundation, 2013; Benson Research Fellow, Center for Mexican Amer. Studies, Univ. of Texas, Austin, summer 2014. Program comm., Latina/o Studies Assn., 2017– . MLA activities: Delegate Assembly, 2003–05. Publications include Constituting Central American–Americans: Transnational Identities and the Politics of Dislocation (2018); contrib., Race and Contention in Twenty-First Century U.S. Media (2016), U.S. Central Americans: Reconstructing Memories, Struggles, and Communities of Resistance (2017); articles in Symbolism: An International Annual of Critical Aesthetics, Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies, Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature. Statement As a scholar my research and teaching are guided and fueled by my commitment to diversity and to redressing epistemological silences. I view my intellectual work as political work—focusing on Latinx cultural expressions to illuminate the displacements and dislocations of Latinx bodies, histories, and knowledges from symbolic and physical spaces. Within the field of Latina/o studies I think it is imperative that scholars continue to highlight the need to study this analytic category alongside issues of ethnicity, race, citizenship, class, disability, gender and sexuality and to underscore the ethno-racial/national heterogeneity Candidate Information – 65

within the term Latinx itself. Moreover, it is equally important to call attention to the ways in which Latinx scholars are continually confronted with overt and inferential forms of racism within academia. I therefore welcome to the opportunity to have another platform to advocate for these issues and feel humbled to be nominated as the representative for LLC Latina and Latino in the Delegate Assembly.

LLC South Asian and South Asian Diasporic

230. Kanika Batra. Prof. English, Texas Tech Univ. PhD, Loyola Univ., Chicago. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LLC South Asian and South Asian Diasporic, 2015–Jan. 2020; Elections Comm., 2016–17. Publications include Feminist Visions and Queer Futures in Postcolonial Drama: Community, Kinship, and Citizenship (2010); contrib., Convergences and Interferences: Newness in Intercultural Practices (2001), Postcolonial Cinema Studies (2012), The Cambridge Companion to British Black and Asian Literature (1945–2010) (2016); articles in Signs, Narrative, Callaloo, Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies. Statement I am honored and humbled to be nominated to the Delegate Assembly. My current MLA responsibilities include service on the executive committee of the forum on LLC South Asian and South Asian Diasporic, a five-year commitment, which has led to my direct involvement with the MLA annual convention. With research and teaching interests in comparative postcolonial and gender studies, I have had opportunities to interact with scholars in African, Caribbean, Global South, and comparative literatures and women’s, gay, and lesbian studies. In the decade and a half of my association with the MLA, I have admired the organization’s role in promoting innovative, diverse, and responsible scholarship and teaching. I believe that a greater representation of regional and scholarly diversity in the Delegate Assembly would enrich the working processes of the MLA. In the spirit of this diversity, if elected to serve in the Delegate Assembly, my aim would be to encourage junior scholars and graduate students working in noncanonical literatures to take an active role in the organization.

231. Asha Sen. Prof. English, Univ. of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. PhD, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette. Max Schoenfeld Distinguished Professorship, Univ. of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, 2017–18. Outstanding Women of Color in Educ. Award, Univ. of Wisconsin System, 2002. Consultant, South Dakota Humanities Council, fall 1998; reviewer, NEH, summer 2017. MMLA, NWSA, South Asian Literary Studies Assn. Publications include Postcolonial Yearning: Reshaping Spiritual and Secular Discourses in Contemporary Literature (2013); contrib., Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture (2001), The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Travel Writing (2017); articles in Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, Kunapipi, Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature, South Asian Review, Passages: A Journal of Transnational and Transcultural Studies, Post-War Literatures in English, World Literature Written in English, Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies. Statement I am honored to be nominated to represent LLC South Asian and South Asian Diasporic. It has been very hard to witness the elimination of tenure and smaller programs within the University of Wisconsin system and the enormous budget cuts that have drastically impacted minority programming and our ability to maintain specialized classes in South Asian literature. International faculty members and students from South Asian countries have been doubly impacted because of their own often indeterminate visa status. This attack on the humanities is also being played out on a national stage. With that in mind, I hope to bring the wisdom I have gained from negotiating local politics to a national level. Should I be elected, I will use my advocacy skills to nurture and promote the study of South Asia and the South Asian diaspora within the MLA as well as in the larger public sphere. I will also seek to foster potential collaborations between the MLA and sister 66 – Candidate Information

organizations like the National Women’s Studies Association. Within the field I would use a transnational approach that moves beyond national boundaries to examine the intersections of gender, caste, class, religion, and sexuality. I would also bring inclusivity to the field by looking beyond its focus on India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to the study of smaller South Asian countries such as Nepal. Finally, I would seek to support the interests of international and domestic South Asian faculty members and students in a time of increasing racism, Islamophobia, and visa restrictions.

LLC Dutch

232. Francien Markx. Assoc. prof. German, George Mason Univ. PhD, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana. DAAD fellowship, 2001–02. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LLC Dutch, 2018–Jan. 2023. Ed. board, German Quarterly, 2016– . Publications include E. T. A. Hoffmann, Cosmopolitanism, and the Struggle for German Opera (2015); contrib., E. T. A. Hoffmann, Leven en opvattingen van Kater Murr (2010), Weibliche Kreativität um 1800 / Women’s Creativity around 1800 (2015); articles in Goethe Yearbook, Seminar, Muziek and Wetenschap. Statement With a scholarly background in language, literature, culture, and music, I am a strong advocate of engagement across disciplines. This is all the more important at a time when the humanities are under mounting financial and political pressure. Given the current political climate, I am particularly concerned about smaller language programs. The MLA plays a decisive role in advocating for the study and teaching of global languages and insisting on their intrinsic value, regardless of their usefulness for the economy or security. While we have to find new paths in transdisciplinary research and teaching, we also have to reach out to other humanities organizations. Through such cooperation, the MLA and similar organizations can be a strong public voice against such alarming trends as an increasing corporate influence, decreasing job security, and downgrading of smaller programs. Together we can more effectively defend our independence in pursuing knowledge and support a strong liberal arts education. If elected, I would welcome the opportunity to contribute to the MLA’s efforts in promoting the humanities, public higher education, and academic freedom as a member of the Delegate Assembly.

233. Dan Thornton. Adjunct asst. prof. Dutch, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. PhD, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. FIPSE fellowship, US Dept. of Educ., 1994–95. Student Undergrad. Teaching Award, Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence, Univ. of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, 2009; Distinguished Service Award, Center for Global Initiatives, UNC, Chapel Hill, 2009. Exec. board, Amer. Assn. for Netherlandic Studies, 2008–18. Publications include guest coed., Dutch Crossing: Journal of Low Countries Studies (2018). Statement I straddle two worlds in my professional life. One concerns data, budgets, outcomes, management, yields, and endowment incomes; the other concerns bringing a (much-)less-taught foreign language and culture to life in a classroom of engaged students. In one, I carry the important-sounding title of Associate Director for Scholarships and Global; in the other, the modest one of adjunct assistant professor. Guess which one is the most rewarding, both to me and to my students? Don’t get me wrong: working hard to ensure that money is available for scholarships and programmatic opportunities for great students is rewarding enough. It serves the stated enrollment goals of the institution, and I know that students benefit from the work that I do. In teaching Dutch, I get to shed the gray world of numbers and outcomes and step into the bright, colorful world of language and expression. My students are delighted and eager to learn, and I am delighted and eager to teach them. Most foreign language teachers can (hopefully) relate. Unfortunately, the foreign language teacher is an endangered species. Less-taught languages like Dutch are disappearing from college campuses across the United States. These teachers, despite their passion Candidate Information – 67

and dedication, are swimming against an increasingly powerful tide of xenophobia, provincialism, anti- intellectualism, and disinterest in things that do not have a direct transactional utility. If elected, I aim to continue my joyful promotion of Dutch language and literature and support their study and scholarship in the MLA.

LLC English Romantic

234. Jared Richman. Assoc. prof. English, Colorado Coll. PhD, Univ. of Pennsylvania. Brizdle-Schoenberg Fellowship in the History of Material Texts, Univ. of Pennsylvania, 2007–08; George B. Cooper Fellowship, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale Univ., spring 2008; Pew Foundation summer research fellowship, 2009; Caroline Swann Foundation Fellowship for Cartoon Art, Library of Congress, 2008–09; Folger Shakespeare Library short-term research fellowship, 2014; Huntington Library short-term fellowship, spring 2016; Mellon Foundation fellowship, Library Company of Philadelphia, 2018–19. Organizing comm., British Women Writers Conference, 2012; conference coch., Intl. Conference on Romanticism, 2016; ASECS. Publications include contrib., William Blake, 1757–1827: Le génie visionnaire du romantisme anglais (2009), Transatlantic Literary Exchanges, 1790–1870: Gender, Race, and Nation (2011); articles in Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, Essays in Romanticism, Eighteenth-Century Studies, European Romantic Review. Statement I am honored to be nominated as a candidate for the Delegate Assembly. If elected, I would encourage exploration in several areas essential to the ongoing revitalization of Romanticism as an area of scholarly inquiry: critical disability studies; historical media studies and digital technologies; animal studies, the Anthropocene, and other environmental and ecocritical approaches; and the expansion of Romantic studies to account for global and diasporic cultural traditions and materials. In addition to supporting faculty research across various types of institutions (including small liberal arts colleges and regional public universities), I would seek to promote discussions of innovative and inclusive pedagogies. Moreover, my commitment to faculty and student inclusivity with regard to the profession goes beyond thinking about research and pedagogy to consider meaningful changes to our graduate training and institutional hiring practices. In this sense, I also hope to generate and implement ways to support graduate students seeking academic and nonacademic careers. Thank you!

235. Yasmin Solomonescu. Assoc. prof. English, Univ. of Notre Dame. PhD, Univ. of Cambridge. SSHRC doctoral fellowship, 2003–07; SSHRC postdoctoral research fellowship, 2009–11; Robert F. and Margaret S. Goheen Fellowship, Natl. Humanities Center, 2014–15; visiting fellow, Chawton House Library and Univ. of Southampton, July 2016. Cofounder (2009) and North Amer. administrator (2011– ), John Thelwall Soc. Review coed., Keats-Shelley Journal, 2017– . Publications include John Thelwall and the Materialist Imagination (2014); ed., John Thelwall: Critical Reassessments (2011); coed., Enlightenment Liberties / Libertés des Lumières (2018); contrib., John Thelwall: Radical Romantic and Acquitted Felon (2009); articles in Modern Philology, ELH, Keats-Shelley Journal, European Romantic Review, Romanticism. Statement Having studied or worked in three countries—the United States, Canada, and England—I am interested in helping to enhance the MLA’s international profile, including by strengthening its ties with overseas members and scholarly organizations. My contributions as a delegate would also be informed by my background in journalism as well as literary studies (I studied and worked in the former field before pursuing graduate degrees in English). In particular, I would encourage the MLA to uphold and increase its public advocacy for the study of literatures and languages in response to the overshadowing of these disciplines by STEM subjects and funding priorities. At this political and cultural juncture, it seems imperative, both inside and outside the academy, to assert, explain, and celebrate the value and relevance of 68 – Candidate Information

our fields and to promote deeper understanding of their histories, methods, debates, and achievements. I also share the MLA’s concern with issues of academic freedom, workplace equity, graduate education and training, and the representation of marginalized groups. As the delegate for LLC English Romantic specifically, my priorities will include advocating for the distinctiveness and visibility of Romantic studies within the MLA and the academy while also encouraging transhistorical, transdisciplinary, and transnational modes of inquiry. More generally, I hope to contribute a spirit of Romantic resistance or negative capability, as the case requires, to Delegate Assembly deliberations. I am honored to have been nominated as a candidate and will do my utmost to represent both the forum and the profession.

LLC 16th-Century French

236. Sanam Nader-Esfahani. Asst. prof. French, Amherst Coll. PhD, Harvard Univ. Previous appointment: New York Univ., 2016–17. Villa I Tatti grad. fellowship, fall 2012. Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Harvard Univ., 2011–12, 2013–14. Statement At the intersection of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of the French and Italian literary traditions, and of literature and history of science, my scholarship and teaching are informed by dialogue with other periods, national literatures, and disciplines. Such study of the literature of early modern France, in its particularity and within a larger network of ideas, is made possible by the spirit of the Renaissance itself. In the face of rising tensions between the humanities and STEM fields, or of the presentism that is privileged within the humanities themselves, I would, in my capacity as your delegate, galvanize the very material of our field to advocate for the value of a robust premodern curriculum in language and literature departments. As a period that inaugurates and champions the study of the humanities, that precedes the disciplinary divide, that is at once embedded in a deep study of the past and in ambitions of modernization, and that is characterized by exchange, encounters with alterity, discovery, and scientific innovation, I believe that the Renaissance and its lessons are naturally equipped to play a leading role in our conversations about the place of the humanities in general and the place of the past in particular within higher education.

237. Corinne Noirot. Assoc. prof. French, Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. PhD, Rutgers Univ.; doctorat, Université Grenoble-Alpes. Folger Shakespeare Library short-term fellowship, Mar. 2011; Katharine F. Pantzer Jr. Fellowship in Descriptive Bibliography, Houghton Library, Harvard Univ., May 2011; Fondation des Treilles short-term residency, June–July 2011; participant, Mellon seminar, Getty Research Inst., summer 2013. Certificate of Teaching Excellence, Coll. of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ., 2012. Publications include “Entre deux airs”: Style simple et ethos poétique chez Clément Marot et Joachim Du Bellay (1515–1560) (2011); coed., “Revelations of Character”: Ethos, Rhetoric, and Moral Philosophy in Montaigne (2007); contrib., Du Bellay, une révolution poétique? (2007), Virgilian Identities in the French Renaissance (2012), French Renaissance and Baroque Drama: Text, Performance, Theory (2015), Rabelais et l’hybridité des récits rabelaisiens (2017), La simplicité: Manifestations et enjeux culturels du simple en art (2017), Itineraries in French Renaissance Literature (2017); articles in Albineana, EMF: Studies in Early Modern France, Europe, Explorations in Renaissance Culture, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Information littéraire, Littérature, Montaigne Studies, Noesis, Nottingham French Studies, Op. Cit., Renaissance and Reformation. Statement Humanities professors at land-grant universities and STEM-focused institutions need to be more proactive in communicating what they do so as not to fight the short-term, constrictive logic of commercialization, technocentricity, ephemeral news making, and quantitative metrics. The challenge is greater at public and rural institutions, supported by but unde-represented in the MLA, as are contingent Candidate Information – 69

faculty members. Growing financial inequity contributes to imbalance in representation. (Commitment to serve in the Delegate Assembly requires an investment of at least $5,000.) Equity and diversity very much matter to me. Let us amplify the voices of scholars from institutions with low access to centers of research and advocacy. While some professional organizations appear increasingly anglocentric, I am proud that the MLA still fosters multilingual voices. As a delegate, I hope to advocate for scholarship in minority languages, to counterbalance the global dominance of English. (To wit: why are book prizes systematically awarded to English-language monographs?) Finally, as an international scholar with over fifteen years of professional growth experienced in America, I have enjoyed the continuing stimulation of a congenial, engaged, brilliant community in French studies, with too few opportunities to connect. I am therefore delighted at the idea of fostering future synergies.

LLC 18th-Century French

238. Blanca Misse. Asst. prof. modern langs. and lits., San Francisco State Univ. PhD, Univ. of California, Berkeley. Mellon Discovery Fellowship, Townsend Center for the Humanities, Univ. of California, Berkeley, 2007–10. Exec. board, California Scholars for Academic Freedom, 2016– ; ACLA; ASECS. Publications include article in Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines. Statement I am a scholar who strongly believes in the need to make a public case for the humanities and the study of literature and languages in a rapidly changing university system. The logic of cost-efficiency and financial rationality has led to decreased funding for our disciplines and to the loss of our specificity and breadth of scope through imposed mergers. We need an MLA that can project a vision of our profession based on our own values and that can attract public support for our educational mission. I am especially interested in strengthening the labor protections for contingent faculty members and pushing for a new labor model that will restore the tenure density of our universities that has been eroded over the past five decades. The decline in tenure-track jobs and workload increases for contingent faculty members have had a direct impact on the capacity of our institutions to deliver a quality education and have diminished our collective resources for research and intellectual engagement inside our profession and with the communities that surround us. Last, I am committed to defending academic freedom in our institutions and profession, and I believe in the need to expand our current activities to protect critical thinking and public debate in our universities. We live in critical times that require higher visibility for public intellectuals and more interventions of our intellectual community in the public sphere. Our higher education institutions should foster and support such voices.

239. Masano Yamashita. Assoc. prof. French, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder. PhD, New York Univ. Faculty fellow, Center for Humanities and the Arts, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, 2015–16. Board member, Rousseau Assn., 2017–19. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LLC 18th-Century French, 2018–Jan. 2023. Publications include Jean-Jacques Rousseau face au public: Problèmes d’identité (2017); contrib., Les discours du corps au XVIIIe siècle: Littérature, philosophie, histoire, science (2009), Le “théâtral” de la France d’Ancien Régime: De la representation de soi à la representation scénique (2010), Rousseau and Revolution (2011), Rousseau et le spectacle (2014), Rousseau between Nature and Culture: Philosophy, Literature, and Politics (2016); articles in L’Esprit Créateur, Early Modern Drama and Performance Studies. Statement I have been a member of the MLA for a decade and currently serve on the executive committee for LLC 18th-Century French. I have taught French literature and culture courses at a large public state university since 2009, where I have been invigorated to think deeply about the vital connection between 70 – Candidate Information

language and literature departments and the world outside of the academy. In a time of rising intolerance and sharp political and socioeconomic divides, foreign language studies and literary analysis are powerful tools for cultivating nuanced, outward-facing world perspectives that prepare students for meaningful and engaged membership in the global community. As a female scholar of color and a former international student, I am committed to diversity in its myriad forms. If elected to represent LLC 18th-Century French in the Delegate Assembly, I would be eager to work on resources and initiatives that further ethnic and gender diversity in addition to advocating for programs that enhance career diversity for students in the humanities. I am deeply committed to issues of equity and inclusivity in the academic labor force and hope to continue the MLA’s important work on creative initiatives that highlight and advance the role of the humanities in today’s global society.

LLC 19th-Century French

240. Raisa Rexer. Asst. prof. French, Vanderbilt Univ. PhD, Yale Univ. Previous appointments: City Coll., City Univ. of New York, 2015–17; Yeshiva Univ., 2014–17. Chateaubriand Fellowship, Embassy of France in the United States, 2010–11. Publications include contrib., Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty (2016); articles in Nineteenth- Century French Studies, Research in African Literatures. Statement Since finishing my degree in 2014, I have worked as an adjunct at Yeshiva University and City College, CUNY, and on the tenure track at Vanderbilt University. These diverse employment experiences have shaped my positions on a variety of pressing issues in higher education. If elected, I would work for the MLA to take an active leadership role on gender pay equity, increased financial support for public institutions of higher learning, the right to unionize, support (including better pay and benefits) for adjuncts, and the development of long-term strategies to combat the ever-growing reliance on contingent faculty members.

241. Jessica Tanner. Asst. prof. French and francophone studies, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. PhD, Harvard Univ. Schwab Academic Excellence Award, Inst. for the Arts and Humanities, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2017. Naomi Schor Memorial Award (2011) and Larry Schehr Memorial Award (2015), Nineteenth-Century French Studies Assn. Ed. board, Romance Notes, 2013– . Publications include articles in Nineteenth-Century French Studies, L’Esprit Créateur, Romance Notes, Cahiers naturalistes. Statement I am honored to stand for election to the Delegate Assembly. As an early-career scholar who advises graduate students at a public research university, I am keenly aware of the urgent issues we face in the profession. It is as a community that I believe we must address those issues, and I want to contribute to the collective work of reimagining that community in two ways. First, I want to work to encourage deeper, more extensive investment in the convention and the MLA more generally, so that more members will see the convention not as a site for interviews but as an inclusive and dynamic space for collaborative thinking across national and disciplinary boundaries. Second, I want to continue to shape the MLA as an engaged, public-facing community that advocates not only for the value of the humanities but also for the values that subtend, and are engendered by, the work we do as teachers and scholars: freedom of expression, critical attention to language and form, the enduring relevance of the past, the value of disciplinary and historical modes of thought, and the value of bringing those modes of thought together across disciplines and periods.

Candidate Information – 71

My research is fundamentally concerned with the politics of literature: the power of reading and writing to disrupt and reconfigure modes of thought. I believe that thinking critically about the politics of the work we do as a community of humanistic scholars and teachers is imperative as we look to support our colleagues and students.

LLC 20th- and 21st-Century German

242. Carol Anne Costabile-Heming. Prof. German, Univ. of North Texas. PhD, Washington Univ. in St. Louis. Previous appointments: Northern Kentucky Univ., 2008–12; Missouri State Univ., 1997–2008; Penn State Univ., 1992–97. IREX research fellowship, 1990; DAAD research grant, 1990, 1995; NEH summer seminar fellowship, 2000; ACLS fellowship, 2001–02; Fulbright senior research award, Jan.–Apr. 2002; Hunt Fellowship, Amer. Council on Germany, 2004–05; Surhkamp Fellowship (2014) and Marbach Fellowship (2016), Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach; DAAD fellowship, 2016. DAAD Research Ambassador, 2011–17; Outstanding German Educator, AATG, 2012; Educator of Excellence, Southern Conference on Lang. Teaching (SCOLT), 2018. Reviewer: Kentucky Dept. of Educ., 2009; ACLS, 2014; SSHRC, 2016. Foreign Langs. Discipline Workgroup, Missouri Dept. of Higher Educ., 2007–08; Board of Examiners, Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, 2011–15. Exec. comm. (2006–08) and Memory Studies Network coord. (2010–13), German Studies Assn.; vice pres. (2008– 09), pres. (2010–11), and Strategic Planning Comm. (ch., 2010–12), AATG; board of directors, DAAD Alumni Assn., 2012–14; board of directors (2012–17), pres.-elect (2014–15), pres. (2015–16), past pres. (2016–17), SCOLT; board of directors, Joint Natl. Comm. for Langs.–Natl. Council for Langs. and Intl. Studies, 2014–16; ACLA; ACTFL; Amer. Friends of Marbach; Texas Foreign Lang. Assn., Women in German. Asst. ed., Journal of Contemporary Urban Studies, 2017–18. Ed. boards: Women in German Newsletter, 1997–2000; Neues Curriculum, 2008–14. Publications include Intertextual Exile: Volker Braun’s Dramatic Re-vision of GDR Society (1997); coed., Textual Responses to German Unification: Processing Historical and Social Change in Literature and Film (2001), Berlin—The Symphony Continues: Orchestrating Architectural, Social, and Artistic Change in Germany’s New Capital (2004), Taking Stock of German Studies in the United States: The New Millennium (2015); contrib., Virtual Connections: Online Activities and Projects for Networking Language Learners (1995), Kunert-Werkstatt: Materialien un Studien zu Günter Kunerts literarischen Werk (1995), The Berlin Wall: Representations and Perspectives (1996), Beyond 1989: Re-reading German Literary History since 1945 (1997), What Remains? East German Culture and the Postwar Public (1997), German Writers and the Politics of Culture: Dealing with the Stasi (2003), After the Berlin Wall: Germany and Beyond (2011), Tatort Germany: The Curious Case of German-Language Crime Fiction (2014), Catastrophe and Catharsis: Perspectives on Disaster and Redemption in German Culture and Beyond (2015), Rereading East Germany: The Literature and Film of the GDR (2015), Secret Police Files from the Eastern Bloc: Between Surveillance and Life Writing (2016); articles in Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Edinburgh German Yearbook, German Quarterly, Glossen, Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, Colloquia Germanica, Orbis Litterarum, German Life and Letters, Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature, German Monitor, German Studies Review, Literatur für Leser, Monatshefte, SMSU Journal of Public Affairs, Mosaic, GDR Bulletin, Germanic Notes. Statement I am honored to be nominated to represent this forum. I have been an advocate for the study of German and world languages, literatures, and cultures for nearly two decades, having served state, regional, and national associations including the German Studies Association, the Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT), JNCL-NCLIS, and the American Association of Teachers of German. Our profession faces and will continue to face a number of challenges. The erosion of the tenure system, steadily increasing dependence on contingent faculty members, and the questioning of the value of humanities study will continue to challenge the MLA and like-minded organizations. I welcome the opportunity to serve the profession as a forum delegate, advocating for strong a strong humanities curriculum and for the rights of contingent and marginalized faculty members and working to strengthen communication both within and 72 – Candidate Information

outside the profession. It is imperative that MLA continue to serve as a voice for the importance of the humanities and as an advocate for the study of diverse and multiple languages, literatures, and cultures.

243. Alys George. Asst. prof. German, New York Univ. PhD, Stanford Univ. Dir. of Undergrad. Studies, Dept. of German, New York Univ. Fulbright research grant, 2005–06; junior fellow, Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften, 2005–06; research grant, Botstiber Inst. for Austrian-Amer. Studies, 2011–13; Richard Plaschka Fellowship, Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research, 2015–16. Centennial Teaching Award, Stanford Univ., 2004; Golden Dozen Teaching Award, New York Univ., 2014. Publications include ed., Hugo von Hofmannsthal und The Dial: Briefe 1922–1929 (2014); contrib., Interwar Vienna: Culture between Tradition and Modernity (2009), Die Bühnen des Richard Teschner: Eine filmische Dokumentation (2013), Noch einmal anders: Zu einer Poetik des Seriellen (2016), Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism (2016); articles and reviews in Journal of Austrian Studies, Central European History, Austrian Studies, Kritische Berichte, Hofmannsthal Jahrbuch zur europäischen Moderne, Fotogeschichte, German Studies Review. Statement It would be my great honor to represent LLC 20th- and 21st-Century German in the Delegate Assembly. If elected, I will advocate on behalf of forum members’ interests while working to uphold the MLA’s core mission to advance teaching and scholarship in languages, literatures, and cultures. I bring six years of administrative experience in departmental and university service roles, including two terms as director of undergraduate studies overseeing the dramatic renewal and growth of an undergraduate program. Guaranteeing the survival of our discipline necessitates investing foremost in our undergraduate programs, which form the bedrock not just of our graduate programs but of our profession as a whole. This entails diversifying undergraduate study of languages, literatures, and cultures while also stressing the relations among the humanities, informed global citizenship, and professional goals. We must continue devoting energy to ensuring academic freedom and improving working conditions for all people teaching the humanities on the postsecondary level. Workplace inequality, with specific attention to the precarity of those most susceptible to shifting employment markets, has been one of the most pressing issues confronting the MLA. To broaden the career horizons of teachers and scholars, we need to continue to think creatively, proactively, and, above all, ethically about how to expand on and frame the relevance of graduate education in the humanities. The MLA’s Connected Academics initiative is a significant step in the right direction, as are mentorship networks that offer MLA members professional development opportunities and guidance at all career stages.

LLC Irish

244. Nicholas Allen. Franklin Prof. of English, Univ. of Georgia. PhD, Trinity Coll. Dublin. Dir., Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, Univ. of Georgia. Faculty of Arts Visiting Fellow, Natl. Univ. of Ireland, Galway (2005); Mellon fellowship, Harry Ransom Center, Univ. of Texas, Austin, 2007; principal investigator, Programme of Research in Third Level Institutions grant, Higher Educ. Authority (Ireland), 2010; Woodruff Library fellowship, Emory Univ., 2010; NEH grant, 2017; Mellon Foundation grant (for Willson Center’s Global Georgia Initiative), 2018. Burns Visiting Ch., Boston Coll., 2011; Astor Visiting Lectureship, Univ. of Oxford, 2017. Inaugural Eda Sagarra Medal of Excellence, Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2007. Postdoctoral Assessment Comm. (2009) and Intl. Advisory Comm. (2009–11), Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences; board member, Joint Research Programme, Humanities in the European Research Area, 2009–10; founding board member, Atlantic Archipelagos Research Consortium, 2015– ; Exec. Comm. and Research Comm., Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities, 2016– . Advisory ed., New Hibernia Review, 2004– . Ed. boards: An Sionnach: A Journal of Literature, Culture, and the Arts, 2005–10; Irish Studies Review, 2009–16. Candidate Information – 73

Publications include George Russell (Æ) and the New Ireland, 1905–30 (2003), Modernism, Ireland, and Civil War (2009); ed., The Proper Word: Collected Criticism—Ireland, Poetry, Politics (2007); coed., The Cities of Belfast (2003), That Island Never Found: Essays and Poems for Terence Brown (2007), Broken Landscapes: Selected Letters of Ernie O’Malley, 1924–1957 (2011), Coastal Works: Cultures of the Atlantic Edge (2017); contrib., Print Culture and Intellectual Life in Ireland, 1660–1941 (2006), The Reception of W. B. Yeats in Europe (2006), Frank O’Connor: Critical Essays (2007), Modernism and Colonialism: British and Irish Literature, 1899–1939 (2007), Classics and National Cultures (2010), W. B. Yeats in Context (2010), The Ghost Story from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century (2010), The Oxford History of the Irish Book, vol. 5 (2011), Synge and Edwardian Ireland (2011), Rural Ireland: The Inside Story (2012), Making 1916: Material and Visual Culture of the Easter Rising (2015), A History of the Modernist Novel (2015), The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre (2016), Modern Ireland and Revolution: Ernie O’Malley in Context (2016), The Cambridge Companion to Irish Poets (2017), Atlas of the Irish Revolution (2017), John McGahern: Authority and Vision (2017), A History of Irish Autobiography (2018); articles in Irish Review, Modernist Cultures, Irish University Review, New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua. Statement The study of Ireland is dynamic, transnational, and constantly changing. The MLA represents a diverse group of scholars across a range of institutions with a rich range of approaches to their research, teaching, and public commitment. There is a deep history of Irish study in the United States and an exciting future for scholarship that seeks to engage with the global contexts for contemporary and emerging Irish writing. This is an especially engaging time to think about Irish studies at large: questions of gender, equality, and sovereignty are critically important in the context of debates about issues ranging from bodily autonomy to Brexit in an environmentally and politically challenged world. At the same time there is now a brilliant crop of writers, presses, and critics, as the work of Anne Enright, Kevin Barry, the Tangerine, the Stinging Fly, and many others shows. If elected I would work with the wider group to engage members with the diversity and excellence of contemporary Irish studies internationally, with a particular view to encouraging research students and emerging scholars; to foster links with the very active network of Irish consulates and the embassy to provide opportunities for members to host and interact with Irish artists; and to build links with Irish institutions so that members are aware of as many opportunities as possible to elevate the connection between American and Irish institutions.

245. Cóilín Parsons. Assoc. prof. English, Georgetown Univ. PhD, Columbia Univ. Robert Rhodes Prize for Books on Lit. (for The Ordnance Survey and Modern Irish Literature), 2016; finalist (for The Ordnance Survey and Modern Irish Literature), Modernist Studies Assn. Prize for a First Book, 2016; Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award (for The Ordnance Survey and Modern Irish Literature), 2017. Publications include The Ordnance Survey and Modern Irish Literature (2016); coed., Relocations: Reading Culture in South Africa (2015); contrib., Ireland and India: Colonies, Culture, and Empire (2006), Essays on James Clarence Mangan: The Man in the Cloak (2014), Zoë Wicomb and the Translocal: Writing Scotland and South Africa (2017); articles in Modernism/Modernity, Journal of Beckett Studies, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Victorian Literature and Culture, English Language Notes, Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa, Theatre Journal. Statement As the LLC Irish delegate to the assembly, I would concentrate my efforts in one area primarily: increasing the visibility of Irish literary studies in the profession and arguing for Irish studies’ continuing relevance across a broad range of fields. While the number of tenure-line and full-time non-tenure-line jobs across the humanities in general has been shrinking since 2007, new jobs in Irish literature have all but disappeared. It is, I believe, incumbent on us to insist loudly that scholars of Irish literature can and do teach across the spectrum, from women’s and gender studies to postcolonial studies and from novel theory to drama. Given my interests in global modernism, African literature, and postcolonial studies, I am committed to the development of comparative Irish studies and to highlighting Irish literature’s capacity to speak to 74 – Candidate Information

questions not only of form and aesthetics but also of politics and social justice, from Palestine to southern Africa and across the Global South. The MLA can and should have a powerful voice, and I want to ensure that the Delegate Assembly’s discussions and resolutions are informed by the deep and broad body of work in the field of Irish literature today.

LLC 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-Century Italian

246. Clorinda Donato. Prof. French and Italian, California State Univ., Long Beach. PhD, Univ. of California, Los Angeles. George L. Graziadio Ch. of Italian Studies, California State Univ., Long Beach (CSULB), 2011– . NEH grant, 2011–14. Distinguished Faculty Scholarly and Creative Achievement Award, CSULB, 1998–99; Prix de Felice, Fondation de Felice, 2000; Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques, 2005; Outstanding Prof. Award, CSULB, 2016. Reviewer, ACLS, 2017. Regional representative for California, AATI, 2017–20. MLA activities: exec. comm., Div. on 17th-, 18th-, and 19th- Century Italian Lit., 2008–Jan. 2013; Comm. on Academic Freedom and Professional Rights and Responsibilities, 2010–13; Marraro Prize / Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies Selection Comm., 2016–18 (ch., 2018). Ed. boards: Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2014– ; Humanities, 2018. Publications include coed., The Encyclopédie and the Age of Revolution (1992), L’Encyclopédie d’Yverdon et sa résonance européenne (2005), Discourses of Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Enlightenment (2009), Jesuit Accounts of the Colonial Americas: Intercultural Transfers, Intellectual Disputes, and Textualities (2014), Enlightenment Spain and the Encyclopédie méthodique (2015); guest coed., Italian Studies (2015); contrib., Germaine de Staël: Forging a Politics of Mediation (2011), Travel Narratives in Translation, 1750–1830 (2012), Scholars in Action: The Practice of Knowledge and the Figure of the Savant in the Eighteenth Century (2013), Developments in the Histories of Sexualities: In Search of the Normal, 1600–1800 (2013), Life Forms in the Thinking of the Long Eighteenth Century (2016), Fortunato Bartolomeo De Felice: Un intellettuale cosmopolita nell’Europa dei lumi (2016), Tribadi, sodomiti, invertite e invertiti, pederasti, femminelle, ermafroditi: Per una storia dell’omosessualità, della bisessualità e delle trasgressioni di genere in Italia (2017), Queering Translation, Translating the Queer: Theory, Practice, Activism (2017), Corporeality and Performativity in Baroque Naples: The Body of Naples (2017), The Internationalization of Intellectual Exchange in a Globalizing Europe, 1636–1780 (2018); articles in Italica, Italian Studies, ADFL Bulletin, Profession, Hispania, Heliotropia, Philosophical Transactions, New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century, Dieciocho, Achzehnte Jahrhundert, Revista de humanidades, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Historical Reflections, Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie, Annales Benjamin Constant, Trienio: Ilustración y liberalismo. Statement My primary concern is the erosion of full-time teaching employment and the exploitation of part- time lecturers in language, literature, and cultural studies programs. Full-time employment, whether it be tenure-track or lecturer, is required to reestablish higher education teaching as a viable option for earning a living wage. The impression that what we teach is expendable is due in large part to the transience of the faculty members who teach in these disciplines. If you are not worth a full-time position, then your discipline must not be worth a solid place in the academy. I am also a strong proponent for matching people holding humanities PhDs with professional options outside of academe that can make use of their talents. People holding PhDs in any of the disciplines represented by the MLA have the ability to write well, think critically, and respond with compassion. Such people are sorely needed in our society. It is my hope that growing numbers of companies will want to work with the MLA and PhD-granting institutions to strengthen these partnerships and demonstrate the viability of the PhD outside of academe.

247. Suzanne Magnanini. Assoc. prof. Italian, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder. PhD, Univ. of Chicago. Fulbright scholarship, 1997–98; NEH summer inst. fellowship, 2001; Audrey Lunsden-Kouvel Fellowship, Newberry Library, Mar.–May 2003; NEH collaborative research award, May 2004; Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation research grant, 2014; faculty fellow, Center for Candidate Information – 75

Humanities and the Arts, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, 2014–15; Eugene M. Kayden Translation Award, Coll. of Arts and Sciences, Univ. of Colorado, 2017. Excellence in Teaching and Pedagogy Award, Boulder Faculty Assembly, 2015–16. Program comm. (2014–16) and council (2017–19), Sixteenth-Century Soc. and Conference. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LLC 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-Century Italian, 2018–Jan. 2023. Publications include Fairy-Tale Science: Monstrous Generation in the Fairy Tales of Straparola and Basile (2008); ed. and trans., Giovan Francesco Straparola, The Pleasant Nights (2015); contrib., Corpi: Storia, metafore, rappresentazioni fra Medioevo ed età contemporanea (2000), The Italian Novella (2003), In Dialogue with the Other Voice in Sixteenth-Century Italy: Literary and Social Contexts for Women’s Writing (2011), Fairy Tales Framed: Early Forewords, Afterwords, and Critical Words (2012); articles in Marvels and Tales, Romanic Review, Studi secenteschi, Journal of Modern Philology. Statement Now more than ever the MLA needs to advocate for the importance of the humanities in American society while working strategically to improve working conditions for all graduate students and faculty members.

LLC Japanese to 1900

248. Erin L. Brightwell. Asst. prof. premodern Japanese lit., Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor. PhD, Princeton Univ. Previous appointment: Hiroshima Univ., 2014–15. Fulbright teaching assistantship (Austria), 1995–96; FLAS fellowship (Inter-Univ. Program for Chinese Lang. Studies, Tsinghua Univ.), summer 2005, summer 2006; Coll. Women’s Assn. of Japan scholarship (Inter-Univ. Center for Japanese Lang. Studies, Yokohama), 2008–09; Japan Foundation doctoral fellowship, 2011–12; Hakuho Foundation Japanese Research Fellowship (Kyoto Univ.), 2018–19. Ian Nish Prize (for best article in Japan Forum by an early-career scholar), British Assn. for Japanese Studies, 2015; Kyoko Selden Memorial Translation Prize, Dept. of Asian Studies, Cornell Univ., 2017. Assn. for Asian Studies, European Assn. for Japanese Studies. Publications include contrib., Nihon bungaku no tenbō o hiraku (2017); articles in Japan Forum, Rikkyō Daigaku Nihon bungaku, Early Medieval China, Tamkang Review; translation in Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. Statement In the face of an environment in which historical depth, fluency in classical languages, and familiarity with premodern intellectual traditions are increasingly regarded as dispensable, the MLA can play an invaluable role by providing a forum both for developing strategies and techniques and also for presenting new research to demonstrate the continued worth of understanding the premodern and early modern worlds. The lack of appreciation for research on and the teaching of premodern literature and culture or classical languages is a challenge we face not only in the classroom, where students often arrive with the assumption that the past is boring and irrelevant, or at the administrative level, where we may be asked to defend low-enrollment courses that offer the specialist training critical to our fields, but also at conferences, where premodern and early modern panels are typically disproportionately few in number. A change for the better on any of these fronts seems unlikely unless we push for it, so I am eager to work for and with members of this forum to advocate for broader and more varied platforms that advance the study of Japan and Japanese before 1900. In my own research and teaching, this means a commitment to studying Japan in a larger framework as well as thinking through what falls under the categories of “Japan” and “Japanese,” but this is just one approach. I would be eager to hear other ideas for how we can best demonstrate and advance the continued relevance of Japan before 1900.

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249. Jason Paul Webb. Assoc. prof. (teaching) comparative lit. and East Asian langs. and cultures, Univ. of Southern California. PhD, Princeton Univ. Assoc. dir., Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture, Univ. of Southern California (USC), 2014– . Previous appointments: Univ. of Oregon, 2009–14; Univ. of Tokyo, 2008–09. Mellon teaching fellowship, USC, 2003–05; Japan Soc. for the Promotion of Science postdoctoral grant (Univ. of Tokyo), 2005–07. Managing ed., International Journal of Asian Studies, 2008–09. Publications include contrib., An Edo Anthology: Literature from Japan’s Mega-City, 1750–1850 (2013); articles in Annual Gazette of Man’yo Historical Research Institute, Sino-Japanese Studies, Tokyo shinbun, Research in East Asian Comparative Culture; translation in International Journal of Asian Studies. Statement First: a toast to the scholars involved in LLC Japanese to 1900, whose efforts have affirmed the importance of premodern Japan to the MLA. It is an honor to have been nominated as a delegate candidate. Where to go from here? Representation in the Delegate Assembly for those of us who work on Japanese language, literature, and culture entails employing a situational style of advocacy; that is, one’s emphasis on the peculiarity or commonality of our field in part depends on the audience at hand. How best to affirm intellectual solidarity with scholars of premodern Korea and China—say, under the rubric of the kanji bunka ken—yet not dilute what is unique about Japan? How best to highlight the premodern as a counterpoint to modernist solipsism while not seeming to promote an uncritical endorsement of arbitrary lines of period demarcation such as 1600, 1868, or 1900? What alliances can be formed with premodernists working in other regions, and how best to address views of northeast Asia held by uninitiated specialists? Needless to say, the MLA is not the AAS. There is an opportunity here for Japan scholars at work on pre-1900 materials to avail ourselves of the truly global research perspectives, themes, and methodologies that the MLA has on offer and at the same time declare, “This is us. This is what we do and why we think it is a crucial element of humanistic studies.” How exciting the prospect of playing a part in that enterprise!

LLC Colonial Latin American

250. Monica Diaz. Assoc. prof. Spanish, Univ. of Kentucky. PhD, Indiana Univ., Bloomington. Dir., Latin Amer., Caribbean, and Latino Studies Program, Univ. of Kentucky, 2014– . Previous appointments: Georgia State Univ., 2010–14; Univ. of Texas, Pan American, 2005–10; Univ. of Texas, Brownsville, 2003–05. NEH research grant, 2006–07; research grant, Hispanic History of Texas Project, Univ. of Houston, 2007, 2009; project grant, Prog. for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States Univs., 2008; Newberry Library fellowship, 2011; Everett Helm Research Fellowship, Lilly Library, Indiana Univ., Bloomington, 2013; Fulbright fellowship (Mexico), 2014– 15. Reviewer, Faculty Awards Comm., NEH, 2010. Sec. (2007–09), first vice pres. (2009–11), pres. (2011– 13), and past pres. (2013–15), Grupo de Estudios sobre la Mujer en España y las Américas (pre-1800); Mexican History Prize Comm., Conference on Latin Amer. History, 2012; Exec. Council, Colonial section, LASA, 2016–18. MLA activities: forum exec comm., LLC Colonial Latin Amer., 2015–Jan. 2020; Elections Comm., 2016–17; Comm. on Scholarly Editions, 2018–22. Ed. board, Revista de estudios hispánicos, 2014– . Publications include Indigenous Writings from the Convent: Negotiating Ethnic Autonomy in Colonial Mexico (2010); ed., To Be Indio in Colonial Spanish America (2017); coed., Women’s Negotiations and Textual Agency in Latin America, 1500–1799 (2017); contrib., Religion in New Spain (2007), Estudios transatlánticos postcoloniales, vol. 3 [Imaginario criollo] (2013), Coloniality, Religion, and the Law in the Early Iberian World (2014), Provocations: A Transnational Reader in the History of Feminist Thought (2015), The Cambridge History of Latin American Women’s Literature (2015), The Routledge Research Companion to the Works of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (2017); articles in Hispanic Review, Colonial Latin American Review, Revista de estudios hispánicos, Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, Letras femeninas.

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Statement I have been a member of the MLA for many years. I have served on the Elections Committee and serve now on the Committee on Scholarly Editions and the executive committee of LLC Colonial Latin American. I am committed to diversity and inclusion in the discussions that we have about the humanities and the ways in which we approach the teaching of and research on languages, literatures and cultures in higher education. I am an advocate of the humanities, and I prioritize the value of service in our profession. The role of the MLA in a time of crisis is to maintain a healthy level of debate and to bring to the forefront the most important issues that we, as professionals, value—issues that we have determined require action. As the assembly representative of LLC Colonial Latin American, I would be able to report to the forum membership the important work the Delegate Assembly is doing and at the same time bring concerns of the forum members to a wider audience that represents the interests of the association.

251. Raul Marrero-Fente. Prof. Spanish and law, Univ. of Minnesota, Twin Cities. PhD, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst. Previous appointments: Univ. of Richmond, 2005–07; Columbia Univ., 2000–05; Wheaton Coll., MA, 1999–2000; Miami Univ., Oxford, 1997–99. Visiting fellow, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Madrid), 1998, 2000, 2002; Newberry Library short-term fellowship, 1999; Charles H. Watts Memorial Fellowship, John Carter Brown Library, Brown Univ., 2002; research grant, Prog. for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Educ., Culture, and Sport and United States Univs., 2003, 2006, 2009; project grant, Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology, 2009; project grant, Generalitat de Catalunya, 2011; project grant, Spanish Ministry of Economy, 2012; institutional grant, United States Agency for Intl. Development, 2012; Newberry [Library] Renaissance Consortium Grant, 2014. Visiting appointment: Universidad de Concepción (Chile), winter 2004. Correspondiente (elected), Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española, 2017. External evaluator, Concurso Regular FONDECYT, Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Technológica de Chile, Chilean Ministry of Educ., 2017–18. Dissertation Prize Comm., New England Council of Latin Amer. Studies, 2000; Exec. Council, Colonial section, LASA, 2013–16; Premio Iberoamericano Book Award Comm., LASA, 2014. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., CLCS Global Hispanophone, 2015–Jan. 2017. Ed. or advisory boards: Revista hispánica moderna, 2000–06; Revista iberoamericana, 2010–14; L’érudit franco-espagnol, 2011– ; Biblioteca Indiana, Editorial Iberamericana/Vervuert, 2012– ; Hispanic Issues, Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2012– ; Hipogrifo: Revista del literatura y cultura del Siglo de Oro, 2013– ; BIADIG: Biblioteca Áurea Digital, 2014– ; Nuevas de Indias, 2015– ; Parecos y australes: Ensayos de cultura de la colonia, Editorial Iberamericana/Vervuert, 2015– . Publications include Al margen de la tradición: Relaciones entre la literatura colonial y peninsular en los siglos XV, XVI y XVII (1999), La poética de la ley en Las capitulaciones de Santa Fe (2000), Playas del árbol: Una visión trasatlántica de las literaturas hispánicas (2002), Epic, Empire, and Community in the Atlantic World: Silvestre de Balboa’s Espejo de paciencia (2008; Spanish ed., 2002), Bodies, Texts, and Ghosts: Writing on Literature and Law in Colonial Latin America (2010), Trayectorias globales: Estudios coloniales en el mundo hispánico (2013), Poesía épica colonial del siglo XVI: Historia, teoría y práctica (2017); ed., Perspectivas trasatlánticas: Estudios coloniales hispanoamericanos (2004), Poéticas de la restitución: Literatura y cultura en Hispanoamérica colonial (2005); coed., Human Rights in Latin American and Iberian Cultures (2009), Silvestre de Balboa, Espejo de paciencia (2010), Coloniality, Religion, and the Law in the Early Iberian World (2014), Gender and the Politics of Literature: Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda (2017); guest ed., Hipogrifo: Revista del literatura y cultura del Siglo de Oro (2017); contrib., La ansiedad autorial: Formación de la autoría femenina en América Latina (2006), Poesía satírica y burlesca en la Hispanoamérica colonial (2009), Cultura y letras cubanas en el siglo XXI (2010), Discursos coloniales: Texto y poder en la América hispana (2011), Estudios transatlánticos postcoloniales (2011), and others; articles in Iuris Dictio, Anales de literatura chilena, Estudos ibero-americanos, Romance Notes, Revista de estudios colombianos, Taller de letras, Calíope: The Journal of the Society for Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry, América sin nombre, Revista iberoamericana, RILCE: Revista de filología hispánica, Revista canadiense de estudios hispánicos, Literatura mexicana, Anales de literatura hispanoamericana, Atenea, Revista de filología y lingüística de la Universidad de Costa Rica, Iberoromania, 78 – Candidate Information

Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Crítica hispánica, Acta Literaria, Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana, Horizontes: Revista de la Universidad Católica de Puerto Rico, Hispanófila, Cincinnati Romance Review, Romance Languages Annual, Hispania.

LLC 19th-Century Latin American

252. Vanesa Miseres. Asst. prof. Spanish, Univ. of Notre Dame. PhD, Vanderbilt Univ. Moreau Postdoctoral Fellowship, Univ. of Notre Dame, 2010–12; Mendel Fellowship, Lilly Library, Indiana Univ., Bloomington, 2017. Premio Alfredo Roggiano de la Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana (for Mujeres en tránsito), Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, 2018; honorable mention (for Mujeres en tránsito), Premio de Monografía Crítica Victoria Urbano, Asociación Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femenina Hispánica, 2017. LASA. Publications include Mujeres en tránsito: Viaje, identidad y escritura en Sudamérica (1830–1910) (2017); contrib., Viajeras entre dos mundos (2012), Las mujeres en los procesos de independencia de América Latina (2014), Teaching Gender through Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Texts and Cultures (2015); articles in Boletín del Instituto Riva-Agüero, Letras femeninas, Ciberletras, Chasqui: Revista de literatura latinoamericana, MLN, Mora: Revista del Instituto Interdisciplinario de Estudios de Género (Buenos Aires), Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana, Revista iberoamericana, Revista de estudios hispánicos, Revista mundo nuevo (Universidad Simón Bolívar), A contracorriente. Statement As an early-career scholar, I am honored to be nominated to represent LLC 19th-Century Latin American. Coming from a culturally diverse background and focusing as a scholar on issues of gender and politics in 19th-century Latin America, I strongly believe in the value of understanding literature (in both research and teaching) as being in dialogue with society and other cultural manifestations. For this reason, as a delegate I plan to work on strengthening interdisciplinary work, creating more spaces for debate, enhancing the visibility of our field, and consolidating an academic network that supports graduate students, early- career scholars, and members of the MLA working under precarious conditions. Having worked before as a foreign graduate student, an adjunct, and a visiting faculty member has helped me realize the importance of a truly diverse academic community in which our voices are equally heard, regardless of our position or the academic institution to which we belong. Within the MLA and academia as a whole, I will advocate for the fundamental value of foreign languages and cultures and will continue working actively to demonstrate their crucial social role. Spanish has to gain visibility not only as an object of study but also as the language in which a large academic community is producing knowledge vital to the understanding of both our past and current sociopolitical contexts. I hope my contribution to the MLA represents the collaborative work needed in academia to take a step toward intellectual freedom and justice.

253. José M. Rodríguez García. Assoc. prof. Romance studies, Duke Univ. PhD, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder. Ch., Arts and Sciences Council, Duke Univ., 2018–21. Faculty fellow, Soc. for the Humanities, Cornell Univ., 2004–05; research grant, Ville de Paris / Université de Paris 4 (Sorbonne), 2006; Merrill Scholar Mentor Award, Cornell Univ., 2009; PROSE Award for Excellence in Lit., Lang., and Linguistics (for The City of Translation), Professional and Scholarly Publishing Div., Assn. of Amer. Publishers, 2010. Evaluator (research projects), Italian Ministry of Universities and Research, 2011– . MLA activities: PMLA Advisory Comm., 2012–15; forum exec. comm., LLC 19th-Century Latin Amer., 2014–Jan. 2019. Series ed., Oceanic Iberia, Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 2017– . Ed. boards: Viceversa: Revista galega de tradución, 2008; Anales de la literatura española contemporánea, 2009– . Publications include The City of Translation: Poetry and Ideology in Nineteenth-Century Colombia (2010); guest ed., Diacritics (2006), Modernist Cultures (2012); articles in Modern Language Quarterly, Modernist Cultures, Comparative Literature Studies, Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture, Diacritics, Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, Revista de literatura, Comparatist, Candidate Information – 79

Bulletin hispanique, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Exemplaria, MLN, LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, Hispanic Review, Orbis Litterarum, Neophilologus, Revista hispánica moderna, Romance Notes, Revista de estudios hispánicos, Atlantis, Anales de literatura hispanoamericana, Dispositio/n, La torre, Neohelicon, Tempos novos, Anales de la literatua española contemporánea, Hispania, España contemporánea, Romance Quarterly, Iberoromania, Explorations in Renaissance Culture, RILCE: Revista de filología hispánica, Cuadernos de investigación filológica, Crítica hispánica. Statement As the assembly representative for LLC 19th-Century Latin American, I will advocate for maintaining the continued relevance and visibility of these areas of the world and the modes of inquiry connected to them within the MLA governance structure and the academy as a whole. I am committed to expanding the cohorts of young scholars in the field and encouraging their participation in MLA-sponsored events, in wider networks, and in publishing opportunities in Latin America and Europe. Another priority of mine is to foster meaningful collaborations and other communications among students and scholars on both sides of the United States–Mexico border. Last but not least, I am increasingly committed to the pedagogical project of introducing to an expanding worldwide audience the plural cultures of popular-democratic government, civic engagement, and minority rights advocacy that have originated in the Spanish-speaking countries. The ultimate goal of this project is to advance responsibly and responsively the diversity and inclusion practices that are now generally recognized as “value added” to the threefold trade of teaching, research, and service.

LLC Global Portuguese

254. Deolinda Maria Adao. Exec. dir., European Union Center, Inst. of European Studies, Univ. of California, Berkeley. PhD, Univ. of California, Berkeley. Research grant, Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento, 2004. Gold Medal of Merit, Govt. of the Republic of Portugal, 2012. Board of directors (1998– ) and pres. (2018), Luso-Amer. Educ. Foundation; advisory board, General Consulate of Portugal, San Francisco. Board of directors, Foreign Lang. Assn. of Northern California, 2015– . Ed. board, Faces de Eva: Estudos sobre a mulher, 2017– . Publications include As herdeiras do segredo: Personagens femininas na ficção de Inês Pedrosa (2013); ed., Susana Goulart Costa, Azores: Nine Islands, One History (2008), The Voice and Choice of Women in Portugal and in the Diaspora (2011); cotrans., The Doors That April Opened: A Poem by José Carlos Ary dos Santos (2014); contrib., A mulher nos Açores e nas comunidades (2003), A vez e a voz da mulher imigrante portuguesa (2005), A mulher em África: Vozes de uma margen sempre presente (2007), Portuguesas na diáspora: Histórias e sensibilidades (2011), The Portuguese Republic at One Hundred (2012); articles in Boletim do Núcleo Cultural da Horta, Revista Abril do Núcleo de Estudos de Literatura Portuguesa e Africana (Universidade Federal Fluminense), Tempo e memória.

255. Katia Bezerra. Prof. Spanish and Portuguese, Univ. of Arizona. PhD, Univ. of Minnesota. Distinguished Teaching Award, Coll. of Humanities, Univ. of Arizona, 2004; Distinguished Mentor Award, Coll. of Humanities, Univ. of Arizona, 2010; Grad. and Professional Educ. Teaching and Mentoring Award, Grad. Coll., Univ. of Arizona, 2011. Comitê Acadêmico (for 2010 conference), Brazilian Studies Assn.; Exec. Comm., Amer. Portuguese Studies Assn., 2015–18. MLA activities: Delegate Assembly, 2015–Jan. 2018; forum exec. comm., LLC Global Portuguese, 2016–Jan. 2021. Ed. board, Rocky Mountain Review, 2014– ; Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, 2014– . Publications include Vozes em dissonância: Mulheres, memória e nação (2007), Postcards from Rio: Favelas and the Contested Geographies of Citizenship (2017); contrib., Poéticas afro-brasileiras (2002), Literatura e mulher: Das linhas às entrelinhas (2002), A escrita de Adé: Perspectivas teóricas dos estudos gays e lésbic@s no Brasil (2002), Gênero e representação: Teoria, história e crítica (2002), Literatura e 80 – Candidate Information

homoerotismo: Uma introdução (2002), Refazendo nós: Ensaios sobre mulher e literatura (2003), Escritoras brasileiras do século XIX (2004; vol. 3, 2009), Entre o estético e o politico: A mulher nas literaturas clássicas e vernáculas (2006), Moinho do tempo: Estudos sobre Cora Coralina (2009), Poesia e memória: A poética de Myriam Fraga (2011), Literatura e afrodescendências no Brasil: Antologia crítica (2011), Cora Coralina, coração do Brasil (2011), Mulheres em letras: Memória, transgressão, linguagem (2015), The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and the City (2016); articles in Luso-Brazilian Review, Estudos de literatura brasileira contemporânea, O eixo e a roda: Revista de literatura brasileira, Hispanic Journal, Estudos portugueses e africanos, Graphos, Letras de hoje, Latin American Theater Review. Statement The last MLA report on enrollments shows a decline in foreign language enrollments. In the specific case of Portuguese, the report shows an enrollment decline of about twenty percent. More than ever we need to advocate for the importance and relevance of foreign languages and cultures to foster global citizenship. We need to build partnerships with other organizations and associations and to ensure that we have an active role in conversations on the profession. At the same time, it is crucial to rethink our role in a changing world. There are some pressing questions that need to be addressed: How can we better serve the needs of today’s global society? How do we find a balance between the need to finance departments and the need to offer a quality education? How can we make the learning of a foreign language and culture more relevant to our students? I must confess that it is easier to formulate the questions than to answer them, mostly because I do not believe anything can be achieved if we do not work as a team. Here lies the significance of the MLA.

LLC Romanian

256. Ileana Chirila. Asst. prof. French, Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham. PhD, Duke Univ. Julian Price Grad. Fellowship in Humanities and History, Duke Univ., 2009–10; Faculty Intl. Development Grant, Global Educ. Center, 2018. Publications include contrib., Le langage et l’homme (2011), Traits chinois / lignes francophones (2012), Diasporiques: Mémoire, diasporas et formes du roman francophone contemporain (2013), Résistances du local et aporie du global: La littérature française à l'épreuve de la mondialisation (2017); articles in Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, Intercâmbio (Portugal), L’approche poïétique/poétique (Romania). Statement I welcome the opportunity to help determine the policies of our professional organization and to serve as a critical public voice for the humanities and higher education in general. In particular, as the delegate representing LLC Romanian, I would like to strengthen professional networks that connect North American professionals and their counterparts in Europe and advocate for Romanian language and literature in American universities. Born and raised in Romania and involved in teaching and research in the United States for over fifteen years, I take seriously the MLA’s mission to advocate for the in-depth study of less commonly taught languages, which is vital in our increasingly globalized world. Given the strange position that Romanian, a Romance language, occupies in American academic institutions (usually in departments of Slavic languages), I am dedicated to initiatives that not only preserve and enhance its status but also reposition it as a rightful member of the group of languages descended from Vulgar Latin. My preference for transnational approaches to research reflects, no doubt, the idea that Romanian exists in a multicultural context that needs to be represented as accurately as possible. My research and teaching aim to situate Romanian language, literature, and culture in this wider context and to increase the visibility of transcultural writers who, because of their ethnicity or sexuality, might be marginalized even within the field of Romanian studies.

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257. Julia Elsky. Asst. prof. French, Loyola Univ., Chicago. PhD, Yale Univ. Chateaubriand Fellowship, Embassy of France in the United States, 2012; Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities, 2013–14; Mellon Foundation / VolkswagenStiftung postdoctoral fellowship, 2015–16. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LLC Romanian, 2018–Jan. 2023. Publications include articles in PMLA, Diasporas: Histoire et sociétés, Archives juives: Revue d’histoire des juifs de France, Yale French Studies. Statement I am grateful for the nomination to serve in the Delegate Assembly. In my teaching and research, I am committed to analyzing the histories of language acquisition and translation, how émigré authors choose in which languages to write in the context of twentieth-century histories of migration, and how these choices reflect political realities. As someone who came to study the Romanian language in the context of Franco- Romanian connections, I am keenly aware of the all too infrequent possibility of studying Romanian in American universities. As language departments continue to face many challenges, it is now more important than ever to promote the study of literatures and languages and especially to protect instruction in languages that are becoming increasingly less available to students.

LLC Sephardic

258. Bryan Kirschen. Asst. prof. Hispanic linguistics, Binghamton Univ., State Univ. of New York. PhD, Univ. of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Skirball Fellowship in Modern Jewish Culture (2014) and Maurice Amado Fellow (2014–15), Center for Jewish Studies, UCLA. Thirty-six under Thirty- six, New York Jewish Week, 2017. Intl. delegate, Natl. Authority of Ladino, 2018. MLA activities: exec. comm., Discussion Group on General Linguistics, 2011–Jan. 2014; exec. comm., Discussion Group on Sephardic Studies, 2013–Jan. 2016. Publications include ed., Judeo-Spanish and the Making of a Community (2015); contrib., Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in America (2016); article in Language and Linguistics Compass.

259. Nohemy Solórzano-Thompson. Assoc. prof. Spanish and film studies, Westminster Coll. PhD, Cornell Univ. Previous appointment: Whitman Coll., 2003–13. Ch., NACCS, 2009–10; ch., Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, 2014–16; LASA; Asociación Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femenina Hispánica; Association for Jotería Arts, Activism, and Scholarship. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LLC Sephardic, 2015–Jan. 2020. Publications include contrib., Transgender Rights (2006); articles in Hispanet Journal, Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature, Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, Film and History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television.

LLC Russian and Eurasian

260. Benjamin Paloff. Assoc. prof. Slavic langs. and lits. and comparative lit., Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor. PhD, Harvard Univ. Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Abroad Fellowship, 2004–05; postdoctoral fellow, Michigan Soc. of Fellows, 2007–10; NEA fellowship, 2009 (poetry), 2016 (translation); Kolegium Tłumaczy Fellowship, Book Inst. (Krakow), summer 2010; Stanford Humanities Center fellowship, 2013–14; PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant, 2014. Helen Tartar First Book Subvention Award, ACLA, 2015. Panelist, NEH, 2014; panelist, SSRC, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018; faculty selection comm., Natl. Humanities Center, 2016. Publications Comm. and translation prize jury, AATSEEL, 2018–21. MLA 82 – Candidate Information

activities: forum exec. comm., LLC Russian and Eurasian, 2014–Jan. 2019; Scaglione Prize for Studies in Slavic Langs. and Lits. Selection Comm., 2017–19. Publications include The Politics: Poems (2011), And His Orchestra: Poems (2015), Lost in the Shadow of the Word: Space, Time, and Freedom in Interwar Eastern Europe (2016); trans., Dorota Masłowska, Snow White and Russian Red (2005), Krzysztof Michalski, The Flame of Eternity: An Interpretation of Nietzsche’s Thought (2011), Marek Bieńczyk, Transparency (2012), Richard Weiner, The Game for Real (2015); introd. and notes, Zofia Nałkowska, The Romance of Teresa Hennert (2014); contrib., The Monkey and the Wrench: Essays into Contemporary Poetics (2011), Na pograniczach literatury (2012), Warszawa Miłosza (2013), Ol’ga Sedakova: Stikhi, smysli, prochteniia (2016); articles in Boston Review, Chronicle of Higher Education, East European Politics and Societies, Journal of Electronic Publishing, Michigan Quarterly Review, Modernism/Modernity, Nation, Slavic and East European Journal. Statement As the study of Central/Eastern Europe and Central Asia continues to redefine itself in the post- Soviet context, at least three areas of concern demand our attention within the field and our enthusiasm in seeking input and cooperation beyond it. First, the evolution of Slavic studies beyond Russian philology and area studies remains uneven, with remarkably little curricular coordination among graduate programs and even less consultation about the future direction of graduate studies. It is high time we engage in a serious conversation across institutions about our vision for the long-term future of the field, how best to train younger professionals for that future, and how such rethinking can benefit careers both inside and outside academia. Second, our field remains woefully homogeneous despite individual efforts to recruit future graduate students from underrepresented communities. Such lack of diversity not only threatens the field’s institutional health but also severely limits our intellectual growth. This, too, is an issue that demands a broad, sustained, and coordinated effort and a willingness to learn from other specializations within the MLA. Finally, it is vital that those of us working in Slavic and related areas collaborate with our colleagues in other fields in our scholarly endeavors themselves, whether in forming conference panels or conceiving longer-term research and publishing projects. In addition to providing Slavic and East European scholars an opportunity to weigh in on the MLA’s initiatives, the Delegate Assembly can help us meet these challenges by connecting us to colleagues beyond our sometimes ill-defined geographies.

261. Rebecca Jane Stanton. Independent scholar, New York, NY. PhD, Columbia Univ. Bazarko Fellowship for Ukrainian Studies, Harriman Inst., Columbia Univ., 2002–03; Harriman Inst. junior fellowship, 2002–03; Fulbright-Hays fellowship (Russia), summer 2005; PepsiCo research fellowship, summer 2005, fall 2006; postdoctoral fellowship, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard Univ., fall 2006; Title VIII research and lang. training fellowship, spring 2007; Teagle Foundation grant, 2012–13. Exec. board (2009–12) and pres. (2013), Northeastern Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Conference; vice pres. and membership outreach coch., AATSEEL, 2012–14. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LLC Russian and Eurasian, 2012–Jan. 2017; Delegate Assembly, 2014–Jan. 2017. Publications include Isaac Babel and the Self-Invention of Odessan Modernism (2012); contrib., Mapping the Feminine: Russian Women and Cultural Difference (2008), Rites of Place: Public Commemoration in Russia and Eastern Europe (2013), Teaching Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature (2014); articles in Вопросы литературы [Questions of Literature], Slavic and East European Journal, Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne [Poznan Slavic Studies], Ulbandus: The Slavic Review of Columbia University, Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, Australian Slavonic and East European Studies. Statement In the last three years, the MLA’s Slavic forums have been transformed from an isolated enclave into a point of contact with our colleagues in other languages and literatures. More than ever before, sessions Candidate Information – 83

sponsored by LLC Russian and Eurasian and LLC Slavic and East European have become an opportunity to forge links with colleagues across regional and linguistic boundaries, fostering intellectual collaborations, generating solidarity, and showcasing the contributions Slavists are making to the field of modern languages and literatures writ large. In the MLA Delegate Assembly, I will work to further this integration of Slavic with other MLA fields, which I see as extremely positive, both intellectually and politically. With the humanities perpetually on the defensive, funding for language study under threat, small departments (like Slavic) targeted for elimination, and language instructors especially vulnerable to the plague of adjunctification and precarity, we need all the solidarity we can muster. At the same time, scholarship and teaching in our field is getting better and better. We have much to offer our colleagues, both in second language acquisition and in critical work on topics of vital contemporary concern—from race and nationalism to energy, technology, and climate. I hope to help the MLA promote the study of modern languages, literatures, and cultures as an integral part of the university mission; support members of the profession who are making this case on their own campuses; and draw collective attention to the vibrancy, actuality, rigor, and, yes, practicality of our shared discipline.

LLC Medieval Iberian

262. Emily Colbert Cairns. Assoc. prof. Spanish, Salve Regina Univ. PhD, Univ. of California, Irvine. Spanish faculty member, Summer Lang. Schools, Middlebury Coll., 2012–14. Rhode Island Campus Compact fellowship, 2014–15; Pragda Spanish Film Festival grant, Spanish Ministry of Culture, 2016. Latin Amer. Jewish Studies Assn., Grupo de Estudios sobre la Mujer en España y las Américas (pre-1800), NEMLA. Publications include Esther in Early Modern Iberia and the Sephardic Diaspora: Queen of the Conversas (2017); articles in Hispanófila, Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America, eHumanista: Journal of Iberian Studies, Chasqui: Revista de literatura latinoamericana. Statement As a Spanish professor at Salve Regina University, I work with undergraduates in the liberal arts program. In this capacity, I am keenly aware of the benefits and challenges of a liberal arts education for young people today. My research focuses on women, conversos, and crypto-Jews in the early modern Hispanic world. Questions of identity, life in a hybrid world, and the feminization of impurity resonate strongly with my students. I bring to the MLA a willingness to encourage undergraduate interest through coursework and original research with primary sources—this is the future of our field. I work to make my scholarship accessible to my students by connecting these centuries-old texts to contemporary television, film, and social action, including the #MeToo movement. In this way, the medieval and early modern period helps contextualize and deepen their understanding of the world they inhabit. This to me is the important work of the humanities. I am very involved in the medieval and early modern field through conferences, scholarly collaborations, and publications. As I happily visit archives, I have also benefited from digital humanities projects in my research and in the classroom. Digital humanities projects allow my work to be accessible to other scholars and make connections within the field. I look forward to furthering digital humanities collaborations for scholarship and archival research within the MLA. I am honored to be a candidate for the Delegate Assembly. Thank you for your consideration.

263. Anita Savo. Asst. prof. Spanish, Colby Coll. PhD, Yale Univ. Research grant, Prog. for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Educ., Culture, and Sport and United States Univs., 2011; research fellowship, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale Univ., 2013. Publications include articles in La corónica.

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Statement It would be an honor to represent LLC Medieval Iberian in the Delegate Assembly. As a seven-year member of the MLA and a frequent participant in the MLA Annual Convention, I support the MLA’s mission to promote the study of languages, literatures, and the humanities and the well-being of people in the profession. I have studied and taught at both research institutions and small liberal arts colleges, and these experiences have familiarized me with the shared concerns of permanent and temporary faculty members about the stability of our programs and positions, fluctuations in enrollments, and an increasing reliance on adjunct and contingent labor to teach our students. If elected, I would contribute to the assembly by advocating for contingent faculty members, paying special attention to the equitable distribution of teaching, service, and research obligations. As someone who studies religious, ethnic, and linguistic diversity in medieval Iberia, I would bring this attention to issues of diversity to my position in the Delegate Assembly, working to center the voices of minority members of the assembly and advocating for equity and inclusion in terms of race, gender, sexuality, and class. Finally, I would call attention to the importance of language and literacy instruction at all levels of the curriculum and advocate for more collaboration between instructors of language and instructors of literature and culture. I would welcome this opportunity to participate in important debates and policy decisions related to our profession, and I thank you for considering my candidacy.

LLC 16th- and 17th-Century Spanish and Iberian Drama

264. Catherine Infante. Asst. prof. Spanish, Amherst Coll. PhD, Univ. of Wisconsin (UW), Madison. FLAS fellowship (Arabic), 2008, 2009, 2009–10; NEH summer inst. fellowship, 2015; Pragda Spanish Film Festival grant, Spanish Ministry of Culture, 2016; Mellon Foundation curriculum development grant, Dept. of Spanish, Amherst Coll., 2017–18. Publications include articles in Hispanic Review, eHumanista/Cervantes. Statement I am honored to be nominated to stand for election to the Delegate Assembly as a representative for LLC 16th- and 17th-Century Spanish and Iberian Drama. If elected, I would work collaboratively to continue promoting and fostering this area within the MLA and, more broadly, in other scholarly and pedagogical venues. I believe it is crucial that we continue to take advantage of opportunities to uphold the visibility and significance of early modern studies, including Iberian theater, especially as the tendency to overlook premodern fields in new tenure-track positions, among other places, becomes more prevalent. Supporting recent initiatives of the Modern Language Association, such as MLA Commons, would encourage open debate among scholars and help share our research across the humanities. In sum, my aim is to use the MLA’s forum for early modern Spanish and Iberian drama as a platform to support its members and highlight their scholarship and pedagogy in this area.

265. Natalia Pérez. Asst. prof. Spanish, Univ. of Southern California. PhD, Princeton Univ.

LLC 16th- and 17th-Century Spanish and Iberian Poetry and Prose

266. Felipe Ruan. Assoc. prof. Spanish, Brock Univ. PhD, Univ. of Toronto. Previous appointment: Univ. of Alberta, 2003–06. Advisory council, Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Brock Univ., 2007– ; board member, Humanities Research Inst., Brock Univ., 2011–13. Publications Comm., Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2010–13; Ontario Grad. Scholarship Selection Board, Brock Univ., 2010–13. Local arrangements coord., Canadian Assn. of Hispanists, 2013–14; NEMLA; Renaissance Soc. of America; Sixteenth Century Soc. and Conference; LASA. Candidate Information – 85

Publications include Pícaro and Cortesano: Identity and the Forms of Capital in Early Modern Spanish Picaresque Narrative and Courtesy Literature (2011); contrib., Monstrous Deviations in Literature and the Arts (2011), Amicitia fecunda: Estudios en homenaje a Claudia Parodi (2015), Memorias de un honrado aguador: Ámbitos ed studio en torno a la diffusion de Lazarillo de Tormes (2017); articles in Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History, Revista canadiense de estudios hispánicos, Hispanic Research Journal, Colonial Latin American Review, Hispanic Review, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America. Statement In the prologue of the first formal grammar of the Spanish language (1492), Antonio de Nebrija writes that “language has always been the companion of empire.” Nebrija’s statement about the vernacular language brings into relief the relation between politics and culture. But Nebrija also noted that, with the grammar, he was building a dwelling or home for the Spanish language—an edifice in a project for the preservation of the collective memory of a people, through history writing in a formalized vernacular language. The ideas of the early humanist Nebrija strike us today as rather modern—polemical, even. Politics and power are embedded in language, but language is also a powerful site of self-definition and shared community. Nebrija was of course defining a modern language in relation to Latin—what we today call a classical language. If Nebrija were around today he might indeed be cross-appointed in modern languages, classics, and political science. For us modern language teachers and researchers, Nebrija’s ideas remain valid. They are a salient reminder of the tradition of civic humanism in political life and of the political nature of language, which entails continued struggles to keep our modern languages relevant before the powers that be—in the academy and in the legislature. The high regard early humanists held for vernacular languages should energize activism for our modern humanities. And the central role of languages and humanities in the academy of the Renaissance should revitalize our voices of advocacy for our modern languages today.

267. Sherry M. Velasco. Prof. Spanish, Univ. of Southern California. PhD, Univ. of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Previous appointments: Univ. of Kentucky, 1999– 2006; Univ. of Kansas, 1992–99. Grant, Prog. for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States Univs., 1996, 1999, 2000, 2004; Newberry [Library] Renaissance Consortium Grant, 2003, 2004; Cervantes Soc. of America symposium grant, 2009; faculty fellow, Univ. of Southern California– Huntington Early Modern Studies Inst., 2010–11. Visiting appointments: Washington Univ. in St. Louis, 2002–03; UCLA, spring 2011. General Educ. Teaching Award, Univ. of Southern California, 2010. Reviewer, SSHRC, 2002. Organizing comm., Kentucky Foreign Lang. Conference, 1999–2006; conference planning comm., Asociación Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femenina Hispánica, 2000–01; Exec. Council, Cervantes Soc. of America, 2002–06, 2015–17; ch., Program Comm., SAMLA, 2003, 2004; Assn. for Hispanic Classical Theater; Grupo de Estudios sobre la Mujer en España y las Américas (pre-1800); Renaissance Soc. of America; Sixteenth Century Soc. and Conference. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LLC 16th- and 17th-Century Spanish and Iberian Drama, 2015–Jan. 2020. Ed. boards: Letras femeninas, 2014– ; Revista de estudios hispánicos, 2016– . Publications include Demons, Nausea, and Resistance in the Autobiography of Isabel de Jesús, 1611–1682 (1996), The Lieutenant Nun: Transgenderism, Lesbian Desire, and Catalina de Erauso (2000), Male Delivery: Reproduction, Effeminacy, and Pregnant Men in Early Modern Spain (2006), Lesbians in Early Modern Spain (2011); ed., Tradition and Innovation in Early Modern Spanish Studies: Essays in Memory of Carroll B. Johnson (2008); guest ed., Romance Quarterly (2005); contrib., Don Quijote across Four Centuries: 1605–2005 (2006), The Last Taboo: Women and Body Hair (2006), Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender (2007), Women’s Voices and the Politics of the Spanish Empire: From Convent Cell to Imperial Court (2008), Approaches to Teaching Teresa of Ávila and the Spanish Mystics (2009), A Companion to Luis Buñuel (2013), Don Quixote: Interdisciplinary Connections (2013), The Cambridge History of Gay and Lesbian Literature (2014); articles in Letras femeninas, eHumanista/Cervantes, Revista canadiense de estudios hispánicos, Hispanic Review, South Atlantic Review, Romance Quarterly, Comedia Performance, 86 – Candidate Information

Bulletin of the Comediantes, Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America, Revista de estudios hispánicos, Journal of Hispanic Philology, Pacific Coast Philology. Statement For most of my career I have worked to expand traditional ideas about the humanities both in my field and across disciplines. In recent years, I have served on the executive committee of LLC 16th- and 17th-Century Spanish and Iberian Drama and the Executive Council of the Cervantes Society of America. I have worked to promote early modern studies at various institutions as cofounder of the Early Modern Seminar, coleader of the Early Modern Iberian Voices Seminar, and organizer of the Cervantes Symposium of California. As the interim divisional dean for the humanities at my current institution, I had the opportunity to work with colleagues across the humanities to build and support our faculty and to find ways to bring scholars together for innovative and productive initiatives. My commitment to modern languages over the years has led me to chair the Department of Spanish and Portuguese as well as the Department of French and Italian. As a faculty member in the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies who has also served on the executive boards of the Digital Humanities Program and the Visual Studies Research Institute, I welcome any opportunity to rethink how we approach cross-disciplinary work and support diversity both in and outside academia.

LLC 20th- and 21st-Century Spanish and Iberian

268. Eugenia Afinoguenova. Prof. Spanish, Marquette Univ. PhD, Georgetown Univ. ACLS research fellowship, 2014. Reviewer, NEH, 2018. Exhibition advisory board, Milwaukee Public Museum, 2014. Digital project dir., La Sala de la Reina Isabel at the Prado Museum in Madrid: A 3D/VR Reconstruction According to a Photograph by Jean Laurent, 1875– 1877, 2015–17. Eleanor Tufts Award Comm., Amer. Soc. for Hispanic Art Historical Studies, 2012. Ed. board, Historia social, 2017–20. Publications include El idiota superviviente: Artes y letras españolas frente a la “muerte del hombre,” 1969–1990 (2003), The Prado: Spanish Culture and Leisure, 1819–1939 (2017); coed., Spain Is (Still) Different: Tourism and Discourse in Spanish Identity (2008); guest coed., Hispanófila (2016); contrib., National Museums: New Studies from around the World (2010), La España del Frente Popular: Política, sociedad, conflicto y cultura en la España de 1936 (2011), Un hispanismo para el siglo XXI: Ensayos de crítica cultural (2011), La retórica del sur: Representaciones y discursos sobre Andalucía en el periodo democrático (2015), Ethics of Life: Contemporary Iberian Debates (2016), Viajes de cine: El relato del turismo en el cine hispánico (2017), Rerouting Galician Studies: Multidisciplinary Interventions (2017), Guernica (2018); articles in Journal of Modern History, Hispanic Review, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, International Journal of Heritage Studies, Revista hispánica moderna, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, Archivos de la Filmoteca, Concreta. Statement In the face of rising exclusionary rhetoric, being an Iberianist is a challenge as well as a duty. The past and present of the Iberian Peninsula offer many cautionary tales about the ideological binaries, political nostalgia, and capitalized nature used to buttress the modern state and the divergent identities that it creates. It is our work, however, that brings to light the power of class-based, transnational approaches to the continuum of social and natural worlds. Having learned Spanish in Moscow before coming to the United States, I am alarmed by the falling enrollments in language classes in United States universities and see monolingualism as an impending danger that will not disappear until society at large values language learning. If elected, I will work with colleagues from other forums on developing strong arguments in defense of learning in languages other than English. Even as university administrations recast our field as a costly business divorced from any professional goal, we need to convince students and their bill-paying parents that knowing Spanish and understanding its contact zones uniquely prepares anyone to contribute to any discipline, from area studies to the arts, medicine, and engineering. As a professor of Spanish, I advocate for making all languages of the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas essential for our curricula. I believe that Candidate Information – 87

my many years of working across countries and disciplines and leading, as well as participating in, transatlantic research projects have prepared me well to serve as your delegate.

269. Jill Robbins. Dean, School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts, and prof. Spanish, Univ. of California, Merced. PhD, Univ. of Kansas. NEH fellowship, fall 2017; Mellon Foundation undergrad. research program grant, Univ. of California, Merced (UCM), 2016; Henry Luce Foundation planning grant, UCM, 2016; Henry Luce Foundation implementation grant, UCM, 2018; Mellon Foundation faculty diversity grant, UCM, 2018. Panelist, Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowships for Minorities, 2000, 2001, 2003. Bryce Wood Book Award Selection Comm., LASA, 2001; Exec. Council, Europe and Latin America section, LASA, 2001–04; vice pres. (2009–11), pres. (2011–13), and past pres. (2013–15), Asociación Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femenina Hispánica. MLA activities: exec. comm., Div. on Philosophical Approaches to Lit., 2002–04; Elections Comm., 2012–13; PMLA Advisory Comm., 2015–18; exec. dir. search comm., 2016–17. Ed. board, Letras femeninas. Publications include Frames of Referents: The Postmodern Poetry of Guillermo Carnero (1997), Crossing through Chueca: Lesbian Literary Identities in Queer Madrid (2011); ed., P/Herversions: Critical Studies of Ana Rossetti (2004); guest coed., Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature (2006), Transmodernity (2015); contrib., María Victoria Atencia: Un acercamiento crítico (1998), Afrodita en el trópico: Erotismo y la construcción del sujeto femenino en obras de autoras guatemaltecas (1999), Mulata de tal. Edición crítica (2000), Julia Uceda, conversación entre la memoria y el sueño (2004), Contemporary Spanish Poetry: The Word and the World (2005), Postcolonialidades históricas: (In)visibilidades hispanoamericanas / colonialismos ibéricos (2008), Lesbian Realities / Lesbian Fictions in Contemporary Spain (2011), African Immigrants in Contemporary Spanish Texts: Crossing the Strait (2015); articles in Hispanic Issues, Hispanófila, Nueva literatura hispánica, Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature, Lectora, Journal of Lesbian Studies, Iberoamericana, Anales de la literatura española contemporánea, Explicación de textos literarios, Letras peninsulares, Revista de estudios hispánicos. Statement The study of languages, literatures, and cultures builds bridges, not walls. I have therefore dedicated my career to finding scholarly and administrative strategies to nurture our disciplines and respond positively and creatively to the challenges we face. My latest book, Poetry and Crisis: Cultural Politics and Citizenship in the Wake of the Madrid Bombings (forthcoming, Univ. of Toronto Press), applies a variety of theoretical approaches to the study of genre, urban space, violence, trauma, media, migration, and memorials. In it, I argue that the 11 March 2004 attacks marked a critical turning point in Spanish society in which the lyric played a unique and vital role, reflecting a new political sensibility defined by mutable, informal, nonhierarchical, and affective networks of communication and memorialization that contested neoliberal forms of identification, politics, and urban reorganization. In my administrative posts, I have worked collaboratively to reconceptualize undergraduate and graduate programs, in consonance with changes in the field of Iberian and Latin American studies. I have also served as PI and co-PI on institutional grants from the Henry Luce Foundation and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. One of the Mellon grants supports supervised undergraduate research and preparation for graduate studies; the other enhances the recruitment and retention of diverse early-career faculty members and graduate students. The Luce-sponsored project fosters humanities research by community partners in collaboration with university scholars, along with new models for graduate education and policy making. I would be honored to bring my diverse experiences to critical discussions in the MLA.

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LSL Applied Linguistics

270. Fernando Rubio. Assoc. prof. Spanish, Univ. of Utah. PhD, Univ. at Buffalo, State Univ. of New York. Codir. (2012–17) and dir. (2018–19), Second Lang. Teaching and Research Center, Univ. of Utah. Previous appointments: Southern Oregon Univ., 2000–02; Canisius Coll., 1999–2000. ACTFL research grant, 2002; Inst. of Intl. Educ. Lang. Training Center grant, 2013, 2016; Lang. Flagship Proficiency Initiative grant, 2014; Lang. Flagship Teacher Workshop grant, 2016. Award for Excellence in Foreign Lang. Instruction Using Technology, ACTFL, 2012; Teacher of the Year, Utah Foreign Lang. Assn. (UFLA), 2014; Teacher of the Year, Utah, Southwest Conference on Lang. Teaching, 2015. Advisory board, Center for Open Educational Resources in Lang. Learning, Univ. of Texas, Austin, 2015– ; advisory board, Portuguese Acquisition Linkages Project, Univ. of Georgia, 2015–17. Consultant, Intl. Research Foundation for English Lang. Educ., 2014– . Oral Proficiency Interview tester (2000– ) and trainer (2015– ); AP Spanish Lang. and Culture Development Comm., Coll. Board, 2012–18 (ch., 2014–18). Board member, UFLA, 2004–09; ed. board (2010– ) and exec. board (2010–13), Amer. Assn. of Univ. Supervisors and Coordinators; Professional Development Team (2013– ), Research and Assessment Comm. (2014– ; ch., 2016– ), and board of directors (2015–19), ACTFL. MLA activities: exec. comm., Div. on the Teaching of Lang., 2010–Jan. 2015; Delegate Assembly, 2011–Jan. 2014; forum exec. comm., LSL Applied Linguistics, 2017–Jan. 2022. Ed. boards: Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Revista española de lingüística aplicada. Publications include coauthor, Tercer milenio: Gramática y composición (2009), Juntos: A Hybrid Approach to Introductory Spanish (2018); coed., Hybrid Language Teaching and Learning: Exploring Theoretical, Pedagogical, and Curricular Issues (2014); contrib., Teaching with Technology (2003), La competencia pragmática y la enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera (2006), Language MOOCs: Providing Learning, Transcending Boundaries (2014), Researching Language Learner Interactions Online: From Social Media to MOOCs (2015), Technology-Enhanced Language Learning for Specialized Domains: Practical Applications and Mobility (2016), The Interconnected Language Curriculum: Critical Transitions and Interfaces in Articulated K–16 Contexts (2018); articles in Foreign Language Annals, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Modern Language Journal, FLTMAG, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Boletín de pediatría, Espéculo: Revista de estudios literarios, Revista electronica de lingüística aplicada, Academic Exchange Quarterly. Statement The recent AAAS report, America’s Languages, has brought attention to the fact that the majority of American citizens are still monolingual despite widespread agreement that knowledge of other languages and understanding of other cultures are crucial skills in the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, the latest MLA enrollments survey does not paint a particularly optimistic picture of the future of multilingualism in the United States. I believe that, as a profession, we have the responsibility to make language education not only accessible to everyone but also effective in helping learners reach advanced levels of proficiency. As an applied linguist, I am particularly interested in the ways in which our field can provide insights into new and more effective pedagogical approaches that can help us reverse the current trend of declining enrollments in languages. If elected to represent LSL Applied Linguistics in the Delegate Assembly, I will be a strong voice in support of research, pedagogy, and policies that will bring language learning back to the forefront of American higher education.

271. Joshua Thoms. Assoc. prof. applied linguistics, Utah State Univ. PhD, Univ. of Iowa. Codir., Master of Second Lang. Teaching Program, Utah State Univ. (USU), 2018– . Previous appointment: Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge, 2008–11. Fulbright-Hays fellowship, 2003; FLAS fellowship, 2004; ACTFL grant, 2011; Amer. Assn. of Univ. Supervisors and Coordinators (AAUSC) grant, 2011. Emma Marie Birkmaier Award for Doctoral Dissertation Research in Foreign Lang. Educ., ACTFL / Natl. Federation of Modern Lang. Teachers’ Assns. / Modern Language Journal, 2010; Researcher of the Year, Dept. of Langs., Philosophy, and Communication Studies, USU, 2015. Utah Dual Candidate Information – 89

Lang. Immersion Research Advisory Board, 2012–14; research project dir., Center for Open Educational Resources and Lang. Learning (COERLL), Univ. of Texas, Austin, 2014–18. Consultant, Coll. Board, 2004– 06; consultant, Intl. Research Foundation for English Lang. Educ., 2017; proposal reviewer, ACTFL; 2017; consultant, COERLL and Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Lang., and Soc. (Univ. of Arizona), 2017. Amer. Assn. for Applied Linguistics, AAUSC, ACTFL, Computer Assisted Lang. Instruction Consortium. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LSL Applied Linguistics, 2018–Jan. 2023. Ed. board, Issues in Language Program Direction, 2010– . Publications include coed., Hybrid Language Teaching and Learning: Exploring Theoretical, Pedagogical, and Curricular Issues (2014); contrib., Lenguaje, arte y revoluciones ayer y hoy: New Approaches to Hispanic Linguistic, Literary, and Cultural Studies (2011), Educating the Future Foreign Language Professoriate for the 21st Century (2012); articles in L2 Journal, System, Language Learning and Technology, Modern Language Journal, Spanish in Context, Foreign Language Annals, Entre lenguas, Canadian Modern Language Review. Statement I am honored to be nominated to serve as a member of the Delegate Assembly representing LSL Applied Linguistics. As a delegate, I would support the concerns of fellow applied linguists within the MLA, and I would also work to promote collaboration and dialogue among colleagues working in other academic areas within and across the humanities. Building alliances with and promoting the important work of all MLA members is important now, more than ever. Being able to effectively communicate the importance of the MLA and the humanities to those outside of the organization is something that I would strive to do during my time as a delegate. I would also advocate for improving the conditions of colleagues who have heavy teaching loads without commensurate compensation. Casting a much brighter light on such labor abuses is long overdue. In sum, I look forward to contributing my time and energy to the aforementioned issues (and more) if elected to serve as a member of the Delegate Assembly.

LLS Global English

272. Jennifer Maloy. Assoc. prof. English, Queensborough Community Coll., City Univ. of New York. PhD, Temple Univ. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LSL Global English, 2018–Jan. 2022. Publications include contrib., Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Strengthening Service- Learning in TESOL (2015), What Is College Reading? (2017); articles in Teaching English in the Two-Year College, NYS TESOL Journal, Basic Writing e-Journal. Statement I am deeply committed to working with community college students at diverse urban campuses. For this reason, I believe it is essential for members of our profession to find ways to support linguistically diverse students and English language learners in all parts of our campuses and to find innovative methods for helping students to achieve their academic goals at two-year and four-year schools. For us to succeed in these pursuits, the contributions of full-time and adjunct faculty members must be valued at our institutions, and our organization should focus on how we can support all faculty members in their scholarly and pedagogical pursuits.

273. Jaynelle Nixon. Grad. student global gender studies, Univ. at Buffalo, State Univ. of New York.

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LSL Linguistics and Literature

274. Billy Clark. Prof. English lang. and linguistics, Northumbria Univ. PhD, University Coll. London. Comm. for Linguistics in Educ., Linguistics Assn. of Great Britain (LAGB) and British Assn. for Applied Linguistics, 2002–07; Educ. Comm., LAGB, 2002–07; comm. member, United Kingdom Linguistics Olympiad, 2009– . MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LSL Linguistics and Lit., 2015–Jan. 2020. Ed. boards: English Language and Linguistics, Journal of Linguistics, Journal of Pragmatics, Topics in Linguistics. Publications include Relevance Theory (2013); coed., Pragmatic Literary Stylistics (2014); contrib., Pedagogical Stylistics: Current Trends in Language, Literature, and ELT (2012), Beyond Words: Content, Context, and Inference (2013), The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics (2014), The Cambridge Handbook of Stylistics (2014), Semantics and Pragmatics: Drawing a Line (2017); articles in Cognition, Journal of Linguistics, Journal of Literary Semantics, Journal of Pragmatics, Language and Literature, Lingua, Linguagem e discorso, Linguistics and Philosophy, Linguistics Review, Topics in Linguistics. Statement My professional interests are in English understood as a diverse discipline covering a very wide range of activities, all unified by an interest in texts (understood broadly) and how they are produced, understood, circulated, and evaluated. I am keen to encourage joined-up conversations involving colleagues working in a wide range of contexts, including schools, universities, policy-making bodies, and industry. My own research aims to make connections among linguists, literary scholars, and creative writers, and I am keen to further this in any way I can. I also firmly believe in the relevance and value of work on humanities subjects in a very wide range of contexts and the benefits it brings to individuals, employers, employees, private and public institutions, teachers, and students.

275. Anja Mueller-Wood. Prof. English, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. PhD, Philipps Universität Marburg; Habilitation, Universität Trier. Publications include Angela Carter: Identity Constructed/Deconstructed (1997), The Theatre of Civilized Excess: New Perspectives on Jacobean Tragedy (2007); ed., Texting Culture, Culturing Texts: Essays in Honour of Horst Breuer (2008); coed., How Globalization Affects the Teaching of English: Studying Culture through Texts (2006), Teaching Contemporary British Fiction (2007), Die Macht des Erzählens: Transdisziplinäre Perspektiven (2017); contrib., Writing Fundamentalism (2009), Ian McEwan: Art and Politics (2009), Myth and Violence in the Contemporary Female Text: New Cassandras (2011), Telling Stories: Literature and Evolution / Geschichten erzählen: Literatur und Evolution (2012), Angela Carter: New Critical Readings (2012), Drink in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (2014), Literature as Dialogue: Invitations Offered and Negotiated (2014), The 1990s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction (2015), London in Contemporary British Fiction: The City beyond the City (2016), Constructing Coherence in the British Short Story Cycle (2018); articles in Literature and History, LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, Style, Journal of Literary Theory. Statement As an academic working outside of the United States, I hope to contribute to Delegate Assembly discussions from my external perspective. A literary scholar by training, I have for a long time been committed to research at the intersection of literary studies and linguistics and aim to promote this kind of interdisciplinary research within the framework of the MLA. My main goal is to further interdisciplinary cooperation and exchange among scholars in the association representing fields of different types, many of whom don’t seem to be aware of one another.

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LSL Romance Linguistics

276. Michael Gradoville. Lecturer Spanish and linguistics, Arizona State Univ. PhD, Indiana Univ. Publications include contrib., Lusophone, Galician, and Hispanic Linguistics: Bridging Frames and Traditions (2018), Language Variation and Contact-Induced Change: Spanish across Space and Time (2018); articles in Lingua, Journal of Research Design and Statistics in Linguistics and Communication Science, Sociolinguistic Studies, Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. Statement As a delegate, I would bring a variety of relevant experiences to the task of representing the concerns of a constituency as broad as that of LSL Romance Linguistics. I have worked and studied at different kinds of institutions (urban and rural institutions, research university and small liberal arts college, majority- and minority-serving institutions) and am thus acquainted with a variety of institutional contexts and how they affect our field. My research deals with both Portuguese and Spanish, which gives me perspective on what it is like to be in a relatively large community of scholars (Hispanic linguistics), to be in a relatively small community of scholars (Lusophone linguistics in the United States), and to do comparative work. Work in the humanities and social sciences is crucial in the 21st-century world that we inhabit. We must actively advocate for the importance of our work and look for novel ways to increase its diffusion at a time when course enrollments in many places are heading in a different direction and resources are being diverted to other endeavors. It is of crucial importance that we reach across disciplinary lines to form mutually supportive relations with colleagues in other disciplines. Although we are faced with many issues, we must as a group address reductions by university administrations in the number of tenure-track positions and the consequent increase in reliance on non-benefits-eligible part-time faculty members, who are often required to teach at multiple institutions to make ends meet.

277. María Irene Moyna. Assoc. prof. Hispanic studies, Texas A&M Univ., College Station. PhD, Univ. of Florida. Previous appointment: San Diego State Univ., 2001–06. NEH planning grant, 2018. Student-Led Award for Teaching Excellence, Office of the Chancellor, Texas A&M Univ. System, 2010. Advisory comm., Glasscock Center for the Humanities, Texas A&M Univ., 2011–13. Pres., Linguistic Assn. of the Southwest, 2011; steering comm., Asociación de Lingüística y Filología de América Latina, 2017–20. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LSL Romance Linguistics, 2018–Jan. 2023. Ed. boards: Revista virtual de estudos da linguagem, 2008– ; Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 2013– ; Topics in Address Research, John Benjamins, 2015– . Publications include Compound Words in Spanish: Theory and History (2011); coed., Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Linguistic Heritage: Sociohistorical Approaches to Spanish in the United States (2008), Forms of Address in the Spanish of the Americas (2016); assoc. ed., University of Chicago Spanish-English Dictionary (6th ed., 2012); contrib., Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage, Volume VII (2009), Spanish of the U.S. Southwest: A Language in Transition (2010), Working with Faculty Writers (2013), Contemporary Advances in Theoretical and Applied Spanish Linguistic Variation (2017), Studies in Historical Ibero-Romance Morpho-Syntax (2018); articles in Anuario de lingüística hispánica, Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, Hispania, Language and Communication, Language and Literature, Linguistics, Revista internacional de lingüística iberoamericana, Romanische Forschungen, SECOL Review, Southwest Journal of Linguistics, Spanish in Context, Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics. Statement These are complex and challenging times for the humanities in our country and very especially for the study of modern languages. Misguided isolationist winds are blowing across the state legislatures many of us depend on. If speaking a language is a political act, as Ana Celia Zentella states, whether and how we teach languages is even more explicitly so. I believe that our survival and success are dependent on our internal cohesion and our capacity to build strong interdisciplinary connections that enhance the centrality of language(s) across campus and society. These goals are only attainable if we support all the members of our 92 – Candidate Information

profession, including contingent and non-tenure-track faculty members. We must recognize the internal diversity of our field, which includes the study of text, audiovisual media, and spontaneous speech through the application of literary, cultural, and linguistic tools. The strength of our diversity is dependent on whether we can achieve meaningful collaboration rather than competition. As a former department head, I bring a wealth of experiences, including both successes and challenges, that allow me to be an effective advocate for the field.

RCWS Creative Writing

278. David Caplan. Charles M. Weis Prof. of English, Ohio Wesleyan Univ. PhD, Univ. of Virginia; MFA, Univ. of Florida. Fulbright lectureship, Univ. of Liège, 2004, 2012; NEH postdoctoral fellowship, Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Emory Univ., 2008–09; New Directions Initiative grant, Great Lakes Coll. Assn., 2010. Emily Clark Balch Prize for Poetry, Virginia Quarterly Review, 2012. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., RCWS Creative Writing, 2017–Jan. 2022. Publications include Questions of Possibility: Contemporary Poetry and Poetic Form (2005; French edition, 2016), Poetic Form: An Introduction (2006), In the World He Created According to His Will (poems, 2010), Rhyme’s Challenge: Hip Hop, Poetry, and Contemporary Rhyming Culture (2014), On Rhyme (2017); articles and poems in Virginia Quarterly Review, Poetry, New England Review, New Literary History. Statement I am honored to be nominated as a candidate for the Delegate Assembly. If elected, I would focus my efforts on encouraging the MLA to attend to the profession’s most pressing issues, namely, the need to advocate for the humanities and the most vulnerable members of our profession. I would support efforts to develop effective strategies to address the academic job market and the status of adjuncts and other contingent laborers. As the representative of RCWS Creative Writing, I also would seek to develop opportunities for creative and scholarly work to inform each other, to facilitate dialogue both within the MLA convention and beyond it.

279. Tonya Foster. Asst. prof. writing and lit., California Coll. of the Arts. MFA, Univ. of Houston. Publications include A Swarm of Bees in High Court (poems, 2015), La grammaire des os (chapbook, 2016); coed., Third Mind: Creative Writing through Visual Art (2002); contrib., LitScapes: Collected US Writings 2015 (2015), Best American Experimental Writing 2016 (2016); work in Boundary 2, Callaloo, MiPOesias, Western Humanities Review, Hat.

TM Bibliography and Scholarly Editing

280. Dawn Childress. Librarian, Digital Collections and Scholarship, Univ. of California, Los Angeles. MLS, Indiana Univ., Bloomington. MLA International Bibliography fellowship, 2011–15; Schreyer Inst. for Teaching Excellence grant, Penn State Univ. (PSU), 2014–15; Center for Humanities and Information grant, PSU, 2016–17. Sally W. Kalin Early Career Librarian: Technological Innovations, PSU, 2012–15. Conference Review Comm., Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, 2017, 2018. MLA activities: field bibliographer, 2010– ; exec. comm., Discussion Group on Libraries and Research in Langs. and Lits., 2011–Jan. 2015; Advisory Comm. on the MLA International Bibliography, 2012–15; forum exec. comm., TM Bibliography and Scholarly Editing, 2017–Jan. 2022. Publications include Global Odyssey: A Bibliography of Travel Literature, 1940 to the Present (2006); coauthor, A Century of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, 1901–2005: From Peace Movement to United Nations (2006), Islam im heutigen Europa: Eine Bibliographie / Islam en Europe contemporaine: Une Candidate Information – 93

bibliographie (2008); contrib., Assessing Liaison Librarians: Documenting Impact for Positive Change (2014); article in Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature.

281. Amanda Golden. Asst. prof. English, New York Inst. of Technology. PhD, Univ. of Washington. NEH postdoctoral fellowship, Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Emory Univ.; Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowship, Georgia Inst. of Technology. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., TM Bibliography and Scholarly Editing, 2015–Jan. 2020. Book review ed., Woolf Studies Annual, 2010– . Publications include Annotating Modernism: Marginalia and Pedagogy from Virginia Woolf for the Confessional Poets (2018); ed., This Business of Words: Reassessing Anne Sexton (2016); guest coed., Virginia Woolf Miscellany (2007); contrib., Virginia Woolf and 20th Century Women Writers (2014), Collecting, Curating, and Researching Writers’ Libraries: A Handbook (2014), Joyce and the Law (2017), Mad Heart Be Brave: Essays on the Poetry of Agha Shahid Ali (2017), Ted Hughes in Context (2018); articles in Modernism/Modernity, Woolf Studies Annual, Plath Profiles: An International Journal of Studies on Sylvia Plath.

TM Language Theory

282. Holli Levitsky. Prof. English, Loyola Marymount Univ. PhD, Univ. of California, Irvine. Dir., Jewish Studies Program, Loyola Marymount Univ. Fellow, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2000; Fulbright Distinguished Ch. in Amer. Lit. (Poland), 2001–02; scholarship, Franco-Amer. Commission for Cultural Exchange, 2002; research scholar, Polish Inst. for Natl. Remembrance, 2007; summer inst. fellow, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, Brandeis Univ., 2011; scholar in residence, Exile Studies Program, Florida Intl. Univ., Nov. 2015. Advisory board, Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, Millersville Univ.; board member, Ravensbrück Archive Project, Lund Univ. Foundation. Annual symposium dir., Jewish Amer. and Holocaust Lit. Assn.; exec. board, Western Jewish Studies Assn. Book review ed., Levantine Review. Publications include coed., Summer Haven: The Catskills, the Holocaust, and the Literary Imagination (2015), Literature of Exile and Displacement: American Identity in a Time of Crisis (2016); contrib., 1968, Forty Years After (2008), Bernard Malamud: A Centennial Tribute (2016), Holocaust Resistance in Europe and America: New Aspects and Dilemmas (2017), Reconstructing the Old Country: American Jewry in the Post-Holocaust Decades (2017); articles in Medicine and Law, Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, Medaon: Magazin für jüdisches Leben in Forschung und Bildung. Statement I am honored to be nominated to represent TM Language Theory. Having worked at a California university for twenty-eight years, I am deeply committed to working on the issues relevant to the region as well as to the profession. If elected to the Delegate Assembly, I would actively support innovations in teaching and research and promote the humanities in all private and public activities and endeavors.

283. Donny Vigil. Asst. prof. Spanish, Univ. of St. Thomas, MN. PhD, Purdue Univ. Merit scholarship, Monterey Inst. of Intl. Studies, 2002; Richard Iton Memorial Scholarship, Faculty Success Program, Natl. Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, 2016. Excellence in Teaching Award, Dept. of Foreign Langs. and Lits., Purdue Univ., 2006. Development comm. (2009–12) and exec. comm. (2010–13), Linguistic Assn. of the Southwest. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., TM Lang. Theory, 2014–Jan. 2019. Publications include articles in Estudios de fonética experimental, Pragmatics, Spanish in Context, Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, Applied Language Learning, Hispania.

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Statement I have been a member of the MLA since 2007. In the eleven years of my association, I have interacted with the organization as a graduate student seeking employment, as a tenure-track faculty member seeking employment, and as a member of the executive committee of TM Language Theory. In addition, I have attended six MLA conventions over the years. I have experience with the MLA and a perspective that will make my contributions to Delegate Assembly business valuable. Moreover, as a junior faculty member, I can advocate for positions that support and give a voice to my junior colleagues.

TM Libraries and Research

284. Laura R. Braunstein. Digital humanities librarian, Dartmouth Coll. PhD, Northwestern Univ.; MSLIS, Pratt Inst. Adviser, Schultz Library, Center for Cartoon Studies, 2005– . Vice ch. (2015–16), ch. (2016–17), and past ch. (2017–18), Lits. in English Section, Assn. of Coll. and Research Libraries. MLA activities: Advisory Comm. on the MLA International Bibliography, 2013–16. Publications include coed., Digital Humanities in the Library: Challenges and Opportunities for Subject Specialists (2015); contrib., Information Literacy: Research and Collaboration across Disciplines (2017); articles in Archive Journal, dh+lib. Statement Now that the job crisis is an ongoing condition of labor in the academy, the MLA must reimagine its purpose as a professional organization supporting tenure-line research faculty members. A broader agenda that imagines new possibilities for teaching and research in languages and literatures could help the MLA advocate more effectively for the humanities in public and private life. Partnerships with allied cultural and professional organizations would strengthen this engagement. The Association for College and Research Libraries (where I have held leadership positions), the international Association of Digital Humanities Organizations, and HASTAC—the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory— all offer collegial models for moving scholarship and teaching forward. In service as a delegate, I would work to make the Delegate Assembly open to virtual participation from delegates who are not supported to travel to the convention. I would also bring experience both as an MLA insider and as what many in the profession still consider to be an outsider. I was an index editor for the MLA International Bibliography for three years and continued to serve as a member of the Advisory Committee on the MLA International Bibliography. I would like to see the MLA become more relevant to those, like me, who are engaged professionally with the humanities off the tenure track (the majority of PhDs). Within this network, libraries and archives are not merely support organizations for teaching and research; they are communities of practice and conversation that offer models for the MLA’s future.

285. Jacob Heil. Digital scholarship librarian, Coll. of Wooster. PhD, Texas A&M Univ. Short-term research fellowship, Folger Shakespeare Library, 2010; Pantzer Fellowship in the British Book Trades, Bibliographical Soc. of America, 2010; participant, Early Modern Digital Agendas inst., Folger Inst., July 2013. Library Journal Mover and Shaker: Tech Leader, 2016. Consultant, NEH, 2017. Outreach and Web development ch. (2015) and steering comm. (2016–17; ch., 2017), Inst. for Liberal Arts Digital Scholarship. Ed. at large, dh+lib, 2018. Publications include articles in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies. Statement Though my path has been circuitous, I have found my professional home in libraries. After stints teaching early modern English literature and managing a large-scale digital humanities project, I began working in libraries as a digital scholar on a consortial grant. I have since moved into my current position as a digital scholarship librarian. I belabor this bit of biography because I think that it is this set of experiences that gives me a unique perspective on academic libraries and librarians that I would hope to share in the Candidate Information – 95

Delegate Assembly and with individuals thinking of non-tenure-track paths in academia. Traveling this path I have learned that, while many in higher education readily acknowledge that libraries and librarians offer essential opportunities for critical engagement with information, academic cultures and structures might sometimes stifle the most meaningful, innovative, and ethical work. If elected to represent TM Libraries and Research in the Delegate Assembly, I would help to deepen the understanding of libraries as dynamic spaces for knowledge creation and of librarians as experts, scholars, and teachers as well as stewards. We guide our students toward becoming discerning consumers of information, so that they might grow into responsible producers of knowledge. As such a guide, I see myself and my fellow librarians as partners with our colleagues in the teaching faculty; I believe that our curricula should be complementary at least and integrally interwoven at best. I would be honored and encouraged to represent these views in the Delegate Assembly.

TM Literary and Cultural Theory

286. Wendy Anne Lee. Asst. prof. English, New York Univ. PhD, Princeton Univ. Newcombe dissertation fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Natl. Fellowship Foundation, 2009–10. McCosh Prize for Distinguished Teaching, Princeton Univ., 2008; Sarai Ribicoff ’79 Award for the Encouragement of Teaching in Yale Coll., 2013. Publications include Failures of Feeling: Insensibility and the Novel (2018); contrib., Relocating Postcolonialism (2002); articles in PMLA, ELH, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Asian American Literary Review. Statement I am very moved by this nomination to represent TM Literary and Cultural Theory. My own work engages theories of emotions and the history of the novel, with an emphasis on gender and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Methodologically, my broadest precept for the discipline is to philosophize—a prompt meant especially for those who have not felt authorized to do so. Secondarily, I am committed to an openness to texts and ideas from other fields, especially the visual and performing arts and the natural sciences. I understand theory, moreover, as an ongoing meditation on violence: structural and fundamental. In my area, this has meant an examination of the legacy of the European Enlightenment and its constitutive entwinement of freedom and isolation, contract and consent, the subject and the slave. As a member of the Delegate Assembly, I would advance the practices and concerns of theory at its most capacious and multitudinous and as a mode whose invitation and injunction remain so vital to literary studies.

287. Ramsey McGlazer. Lecturer comparative lit. and Italian studies, Univ. of California, Berkeley. PhD, Univ. of California, Berkeley (UC, Berkeley). Fulbright teaching assistantship (Argentina), 2006; Joukowsky Postdoctoral Fellowship, Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, Brown Univ., 2015–16; postdoctoral scholar, Intl. Consortium for Critical Theory Programs, Program in Critical Theory, UC, Berkeley, 2016–19. Charles Bernheimer Prize (for best dissertation), ACLA, 2016. Coed., Italian Culture, 2018– ; assoc. ed., Critical Times: Interventions in Global Critical Theory, 2017– . Publications include guest section ed., Critical Times: Interventions in Global Critical Theory (2018); articles in differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, Italianist, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Modernism/Modernity, Postmodern Culture, Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences. Statement I am grateful for the nomination to serve in the Delegate Assembly as the representative for TM Literary and Cultural Theory. If elected, I would work to help the MLA address the real challenges facing contingent faculty members and graduate students today. These challenges are inseparable from the anti- intellectualism that threatens theory both inside and beyond the university. I am committed to defending theory against such threats. This means finding new ways to make the case for the importance of teaching 96 – Candidate Information

theory, broadly defined, as well as supporting rigorous, comparative, imaginative, and socially and politically engaged critical scholarship.

TC Digital Humanities

288. Ryan Cordell. Asst. prof. English, Northeastern Univ. PhD, Univ. of Virginia. Founding core faculty member, NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks, Northeastern Univ., 2012– . Previous appointment: St. Norbert Coll., 2010–12. Scholarship, Digital Humanities Summer Inst., Univ. of Victoria, 2011; Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography, Rare Book School, 2013–16; Internationalization Fellowship, Universität Passau, Dec. 2014; participant, Summer Inst. in Digital Textual Studies, Natl. Humanities Center, 2015, 2016; guest researcher, Lehrstuhl für Digital Humanities, Universität Leipzig, 2015–16; ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowship, 2015–16; visiting fellow, Big Data Inst., University Coll. London, May 2016; Mellon Soc. of Fellows in Critical Bibliography, Rare Book School, 2017– . Visiting appointment: North Dakota State Univ., June 2014. Editors’ Choice (for blog posts), Digital Humanities Now, Feb. 2012, Feb. 2015, June 2015, Aug. 2017; ProQuest / Research Soc. for Amer. Periodicals Article Prize, 2013; Best Digital Humanities Project for Public Audiences (for Our Marathon), Digital Humanities Awards, 2013; Outstanding Teacher Award, Coll. of Social Sciences and Humanities, Northeastern Univ., 2014–15. Consultant, NEH, spring 2011. Digital Humanities Council, Natl. Inst. for Technology in Liberal Educ., 2011–13; Exec. Council (2011–15) and North Amer. Steering Comm. (2013–16), centerNet. Newsletter and Web site ed., Harriet Beecher Stowe Soc., 2006–11; mentor, HASTAC Scholars Program, 2010–13; sec.-treasurer (2011–13) and vice pres. (2013–15), Digital Americanists; Exec. Council, NINES: Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship, 2013– ; Assn. for Computers and the Humanities; Amer. Lit. Soc.; C19: The Soc. of Nineteenth-Century Americanists; Research Soc. for Amer. Periodicals, Soc. for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., TM Bibliography and Scholarly Editing, 2016–Jan. 2021. Coed. in chief, DHCommons, 2013–17; core contrib., ProfHacker, 2010–15, 2017– . Ed. or advisory boards: Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, 2011– ; Americanist group cohead, NINES, 2013– ; Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, 2014– ; GeoHumanities, 2014– ; MapStory, 2014– ; WhatEvery1Says: The Humanities in Public Discourse, 2017– . Digital projects: author, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Celestial Railroad”: A Publication History, 2008– ; steering comm., DHCommons Initiative, 2011–13; co–principal investigator, Viral Texts: Mapping Networks of Reprinting in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals, 2012– ; team member, Margaret Fuller Transnational Archive, 2015– ; co–principal investigator, Our Marathon: The Boston Bombing Digital Archive, 2013; project codir., Historical and Multilingual OCR, 2017–18; lead investigator, Oceanic Exchanges: Tracing Global Information Networks in Historical Newspaper Repositories, 1840–1914, 2017–19. Publications include contrib., Apocalypse and the Millennium in the American Civil War Era (2013), Virtual Victorians: Networks, Connections, Technologies (2015), Debates in the Digital Humanities 2016 (2016); articles in Book History, American Periodicals, Amerikastudien / American Studies, American Literary History, Digital Humanities, Studies in American Fiction, Chronicle of Higher Education. Statement In my career thus far, I have sought to enrich critical dialogue between the digital humanities (DH) and established fields such as book history, bibliography, and American literature, working against both apocalyptic and millennial narratives about how the digital will transform the humanities. Given the current precarity of our profession, the only sustainable path forward will be marked by cooperation among practitioners of established and emerging methods. I am most keenly concerned with graduate students, who will define the future of our professional praxis and advocacy. I see the interdisciplinary, collaborative, and public mandates of DH work as profoundly generative for junior scholars and the larger profession. I believe that we must consciously prepare students for a range of careers within the academy and beyond and that we should celebrate their successes across that range. In our programs at Northeastern, we have worked to expand the kinds of professional development available to graduate students, with a particular emphasis on Candidate Information – 97

experiential, public, and digital humanities work. As a member of the Delegate Assembly, I would work to facilitate conversations about the role of DH in the future of graduate training and professional development, with a particular eye toward building bridges between DH and the MLA’s other fields. In addition, as someone just tenured on the basis of a DH-focused dossier, I would seek to advance the MLA’s important work developing standards for evaluating DH scholarship, which will redound to the benefit of junior DH scholars and their colleagues alike.

289. Matt Erlin. Prof. German, Washington Univ. in St. Louis. PhD, Univ. of California, Berkeley. Ch., Dept. of Germanic Langs. and Lits., Washington Univ. in St. Louis (WUSTL), 2013– ; steering comm., Humanities Digital Workshop, WUSTL, 2010– . Humboldt research fellowship, 2005, summer 2009; NEH summer inst. participant, 2010; NEH fellowship, 2011–12; SSHRC partnership grant, 2014–20. Honorable mention, essay prize, Goethe Soc. of North America, 2006; DAAD Book Prize (for Necessary Luxuries), German Studies Assn., 2016. Panelist, NEH, 2014. Nominating comm., Goethe Soc. of North America, 2009; AATG; German Studies Assn.; Lessing Soc. MLA activities: exec. comm., Div. on 18th- and Early-19th-Century German Lit., 2007–Jan. 2012; PMLA Advisory Comm., 2010–13. Ed. board, Journal of Cultural Analytics, 2016– . Publications include Berlin’s Forgotten Future: City, History, and Enlightenment in Eighteenth- Century German (2004), Necessary Luxuries: Books, Literature, and the Culture of Consumption in Germany, 1770–1815 (2014); coed., German Culture in Nineteenth-Century America: Reception, Adaptation, Transformation (2005), Distant Readings: Topologies of German Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century (2014); guest coed., Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies (2013); contrib., Weimar Cinema: An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era (2008), The Meaning of Culture: German Studies in the 21st Century (2009), Publishing Culture and the “Reading Nation”: German Book History in the Long Nineteenth Century (2010), Archiv/Fiktionen: Verfahren des Archivierens in Literatur und Kultur des langen 19. Jahrhunderts (2016), The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of Berlin (2017); articles in Journal of Cultural Analytics, Digital Literary Studies, Colloquia Germanica, Lessing Yearbook, German Quarterly, German Life and Letters, Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, Goethe Yearbook, Journal of the History of Ideas, Monatshefte. Statement I am honored to have been nominated to stand for election to the Delegate Assembly as the representative for TC Digital Humanities. If elected, I promise to listen carefully; to encourage serious, vigorous, and respectful debate of the issues under consideration; and to fulfill any formal obligations associated with the position in a timely and accurate fashion. With regard to the general mission of the MLA, I am particularly eager to advocate for the importance the humanities in higher education and in public life. With regard to the digital humanities more specifically, one of my primary goals is to maximize inclusivity within the field and especially to increase opportunities for collaboration with colleagues outside of North America.

TC Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities

290. Ron Broglio. Assoc. prof. English, Arizona State Univ. PhD, Univ. of Florida. Robert R. Wark Fellow, Huntington Library, summer 2006; residential fellow, Yale Center for British Art, spring 2008; Culture and Animals Foundation grant, summer 2008. Visiting appointments: Critical Media Lab, Univ. of Waterloo, fall 2009; research fellow, Univ. of Cumbria (United Kingdom), 2016–21. Vice pres. (2012–15) and pres. (2016–18), Soc. for Lit., Science, and the Arts. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., TC Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities, 2017–Jan. 2022. Assoc. ed., Romantic Circles, 2000–09; book review ed., Configurations, 2005–10. Ed. or advisory boards: Antennae, 2008– ; Romantic Circles, 2014– ; AnthropoScene: The SLSA Book Series, Penn State Univ. Press, 2015– . 98 – Candidate Information

Publications include Technologies of the Picturesque (2008), Surface Encounters: Thinking with Animals and Art (2011), Beasts of Burden: Biopolitics, Labor, and Animal Life in British Romanticism (2017); coed., Being Human: Between Animals and Technology (2015), You Must Carry Me Now: The Cultural Lives of Endangered Species (2015), The Edinburgh Companion to Animal Studies (2018); guest ed., Romantic Circles Praxis (2005), Art and Research (2011); guest coed., Configurations (2006), Romantic Circles Praxis (2007), Angelaki (2013); contrib., New Media / New Methods: The Academic Turn from Literacy to Electracy (2008), Welfare of Production Animals: Assessment and Management of Risks (2009), Second Nature: Origins and Originality in Art, Science, and New Media (2011), Animals and the Human Imagination: A Companion to Animal Studies (2012), Beyond Human: From Animality to Transhumanism (2012), Gorgeous Beasts: Animal Bodies in Historical Perspective (2012), The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Posthuman (2016); articles in AI and Society, Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, Essays in Romanticism, ImageTexT, Journal of Visual Culture, Society and Animals, TEXT Technology, Visible Language, Wordsworth Circle. Statement We do good work in the humanities, and the challenge is to translate our scholarship to wider publics in ways that matter. This is particularly true in issues of ecology and social justice. Having worked in graduate education for some time, I believe in making available a range of paths and opportunities for the next generation of scholars. Finally, much of my work is interdisciplinary, and I would like to see us maintain and promote a broad picture of how thought is realized through engagement across areas of study.

291. Clare Echterling. Grad. student English, Univ. of Kansas. MA, Univ. of Kansas. Mellon Fellow in Technology-Enhanced Learning, Dietrich Coll. of Humanities and Social Sciences, Carnegie Mellon Univ., 2017. Grad. Student Service Award, Univ. of Kansas, 2014; Emerging Scholar Award, Children’s Literature in Education, 2015; Grad. Student Essay Award, Children’s Lit. Assn., 2015. Conference organizer (2012–13) and MLA liaison (2014– ), Assn. for the Study of Lit. and Environment (ASLE). Conference presentations: ASLE (United Kingdom and Ireland), Sept. 2015; ASLE, 2017; MLA, 2016, 2017, 2019; Children’s Lit. Assn., 2018. Publications include articles in Children’s Literature, Children’s Literature in Education, Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association. Statement Thank you for considering me as a candidate for the TC Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities seat in the Delegate Assembly. Since 2015, I have collaborated with the TC Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities forum in my role as the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment’s liaison to the MLA, and I look forward to representing the forum in the Delegate Assembly. As a graduate student and early-career scholar working in ecocriticism and the environmental humanities, I aim to help the MLA advocate for the humanities and liberal arts education, labor reform, and the welfare of graduate students.

TC Law and the Humanities

292. Alex Feldman. Lecturer English, Univ. of Haifa. DPhil, Merton Coll., Univ. of Oxford. Alon Fellow, Univ. of Haifa, 2015–18. Junior fellow, Program in British Studies, Univ. of Texas (UT), Austin, Oct. 2009; research fellowship, Harry Ransom Center, UT, Austin, summer 2014. Publications include Dramas of the Past on the Twentieth-Century Stage: In History’s Wings (2013); contrib., Culture and Power: The Plots of History in Performance (2008); articles in Law, Culture, and the Humanities, Comparative Drama, New Theatre Quarterly, Law and Literature, Modern Drama, Ransom Center Magazine.

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Statement As the TC Law and Humanities representative in the Delegate Assembly, I would seek to promote core elements of the MLA’s mission. Of urgent significance at present is the “ideal of free and unfettered scholarly exchange” and the determination to “oppose discrimination—among faculty members, staff members, and students—on the basis of race, gender, class, ethnicity, color, age, sexual orientation, disability, religion, political belief, or national origin” (Emergency Resolution 2017-4) in the face of threats posed to minority communities by the present American administration. I would also use my vote to ensure, where possible, the recognition of the rights of part-time and non-tenure-track faculty members and to advocate for the representation of this community—indispensable as it is to the life of our universities—at all levels of MLA governance, from committees to the Executive Council. Whenever resolutions addressing the corporatization of universities and the casualization of labor come before the Delegate Assembly, I should see it as my duty to advocate on behalf of adjunct and contingent faculty members. The Delegate Assembly also has considerable responsibility for shaping the format of MLA conventions and the nature of scholarly debate in which we engage as a community. As the forum’s representative, I would take an active part in those discussions, seeking to ensure that the MLA convention— in the changing structure of its panels, workshops, and roundtables—continues to facilitate the development of our forum’s research interests and our participation in the academic community.

293. Lucy Sheehan. Asst. prof. English, Texas A&M Univ., Corpus Christi. PhD, Columbia Univ. Mellon fellow, Interdisciplinary Center for Innovating Theory and Empirics, Columbia Univ., 2015–16. Trollope Prize (for grad. essay), Univ. of Kansas / Fortnightly Review, 2011; Hamilton Prize (for grad. essay), Victorian Review, 2011; David Underdown Memorial Prize (for best grad. paper), Northeast Conference on British Studies, 2013. North Amer. Victorian Studies Assn., Northeast Victorian Studies Assn. Publications include articles in Victorian Review, Fortnightly Review; reviews in Public Books. Statement In my current research, I examine how the laws that once governed slavery found an afterlife in the burgeoning field of family law. The legal intimacy between slavery and the family in Britain can help us understand anew the impact slavery had on the development of the novel as a form in which history, politics, and the formation of the family are inextricably linked. Through this work, I have come to see the intersection of law and literature as a crucial site for studying how history, form, and language shape one another; expanding this study, moreover, can enable us to understand the relations between past and present, marginalization and legitimation, in new ways. The work of examining how literatures participate in and reflect back the legal orders that organize our histories and our present is more vital today than ever. As the TC Law and the Humanities representative in the assembly, I would look forward to continuing to support and advocate for this work within the MLA and beyond. I would especially look forward to helping organize roundtables and other opportunities at the MLA convention for scholars who study law and literature to create scholarly alliances that reach across field and period boundaries. Finally, I would draw on my recent experiences on the academic job market and at a regional university in the border region to advocate for using these opportunities to examine marginalization and legitimation within higher education more broadly.

TC Memory Studies

294. Kyle Pivetti. Assoc. prof. English, Norwich Univ. PhD, Univ. of California, Davis. NEH summer inst. participant, 2011; MLA activities: forum exec. comm., TC Memory Studies, 2015–Jan. 2020. Publications include Of Memory and Literary Form: Making the Early Modern English Nation (2015); coed., Sexuality and Memory in Early Modern England: Literature and the Erotics of Recollection (2015); contrib., Mapping Gendered Routes and Spaces in the Early Modern World (2015), The Cinematic 100 – Candidate Information

Eighteenth Century: History, Culture, and Adaptation (2017); articles in Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, Shakespeare, Upstart: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies, Modern Philology. Statement I urge the MLA to advocate for all of its members, especially those in precarious professional situations. Faculty members in non-tenure-track positions benefit from the MLA’s financial support, its guidance for collective bargaining, and its published standards for university hiring. Many faculty members at a range of schools depend on such statements and standards as a means to resist the increasing dependence on non-tenure-track labor and high teaching loads. To this end, the MLA must make public statements in a number of venues (court briefs, Internet petitions, political advocacy, etc.) outside the annual convention. Furthermore, the MLA is a global organization, and it must remain committed to this global outlook in its protection of academic freedom for all members. The organization should advocate for the exchange of scholarship from around the world, including financial or political support for scholars at risk or those barred from travel based on place of origin. Finally, I grow increasingly concerned for the devaluing of the humanities in general and literary scholarship specifically. The MLA’s broad reach allows it to defend education in the humanities, and it can continue to do so through innovative opportunities for teachers at both the secondary and collegiate levels. Endorsing literary scholarship at all levels creates sustained support for the future.

295. Debarati Sanyal. Prof. French, Univ. of California, Berkeley. PhD, Princeton Univ. Previous appointment: Yale Univ., 1996–99. Distinguished Teaching Award, Univ. of California, Berkeley, 2013. Board of Governors, Univ. of California Humanities Research Inst., 2018– . MLA activities: forum exec. comm., TC Memory Studies, 2016–Jan. 2021; PMLA Advisory Comm., 2017–20. Ed. board, Representations, 2017– . Publications include The Violence of Modernity: Baudelaire, Irony, and the Politics of Form (2006), Memory and Complicity: Migrations of Holocaust Remembrance (2015); guest coed., Yale French Studies (2010); contrib., The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of World War II (2009), Concentrationary Cinema: Aesthetics as Political Resistance in Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog (2011), Albert Camus au quotidien (2013), Mémoires occupées: Fictions françaises et Seconde Guerre mondiale (2013), Lectures du Spleen de Paris (2014), Approaches to Teaching Baudelaire’s Prose Poems (2017); articles in Representations, Public Books, Yale French Studies, L’Esprit Créateur. Statement A member of the MLA for over twenty years, I’ve had a chance to see the full range of this organization’s support for our disciplines, from mentoring graduate students to setting up spaces for new interdisciplinary conversations. The recent creation of the TC Memory Studies is an example of this commitment to rethink the pertinence of our collaborative work for contemporary global problems; its most recent panels have been on the Anthropocene and the current refugee crisis. As one whose research and teaching areas tend to shift—from 19th-century French poetry to Holocaust/memory studies and, more recently, critical refugee studies—I’m especially aware of what it takes to learn about new histories and frameworks while retaining one’s essential commitments. Creativity is as essential as critique in our struggle against the dominance of dollars and data. If elected to the Delegate Assembly, I would bring this perspective to the conversation, with a particular focus on how the MLA can support international scholars at risk, DACA students, and all those affected by the increasing precarity of our academic labor force.

TC Popular Culture

296. Kimberly Nichele Brown. Assoc. prof. gender, sexuality, and women’s studies, Virginia Commonwealth Univ. PhD, Univ. of Maryland, College Park. Previous appointment: Texas A&M Univ., College Station, 2005–12, 1998–2004. Candidate Information – 101

Publications include Writing the Black Revolutionary Diva: Women’s Subjectivity and the Decolonizing Text (2010); contrib., Other Sisterhoods: Literary Theory and U.S. Women of Color (1998), El color de la tierra: Las minorías en México y Estados Unidos (2001), Women Faculty of Color in the White College Classroom: Narratives on the Pedagogical Implications of Teacher Diversity (2002), Hollywood’s Africa after 1994 (2012); articles in Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, South Central Review, In Process.

297. Simone C. Drake. Youngberg Trustees Distinguished Prof. of African Amer. and African Studies, Ohio State Univ., Columbus. PhD, Univ. of Maryland, College Park. Ch., Dept. of African Amer. and African Studies, Ohio State Univ., Columbus, 2018– . Participant: NWSA Junior Scholar Inst. on Women of Color, June 2009; Scholars’ Network on Black Masculinity and the Well-Being of African Amer. Men, 2009–11; Women’s Regional Leadership Forum, Amer. Council on Educ., Apr. 2017; HERS (Higher Educ. Resource Services) Inst., July 2018. Shumate Council, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State Univ., 2017– . Ed. boards: Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men, 2011– ; Ohio State Univ. Press, 2016–19. Publications include Critical Appropriations: African American Women and the Construction of Transnational Identity (2014), When We Imagine Grace: Black Men and Subject Making (2016); contrib., America and the Black Body: Identity Politics in Print and Visual Culture (2009), Fathers, Preachers, Rebels, Men: Black Masculinity in U.S. History and Literature, 1820–1945 (2011), Black Genders and Sexualities (2012); articles in Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men, MaComère: Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars. Statement I am grateful for the nomination to represent TC Popular Culture in the Delegate Assembly. I am committed to bringing humanist perspectives to disciplines and professional fields outside of the humanities. I believe strongly that literature and other cultural productions are forms of knowledge that can enable society to better understand and address structural inequalities. My research interests are therefore broadly interdisciplinary, placing literature, visual art, film, music, law, public policy, and social justice and cultural theories into conversation within local, national, and transnational contexts. One of my primary research and teaching interests is how culture influences law and policy and how law and policy are addressed in cultural productions. The field of popular culture studies is a valuable space for such explorations. If elected, I would like to work collaboratively within the association to consider how popular culture is incorporated into English departments, relating to both curriculum development and pedagogy. I am particularly invested in working to ensure that graduate education treats popular culture as a field of study with a genealogy.

TC Postcolonial Studies

298. Imani Owens. Asst. prof. English, Univ. of Pittsburgh. PhD, Columbia Univ. Previous appointments: postdoctoral research assoc., Center for African Amer. Studies, Princeton Univ., 2013–14; Riley Scholar-in-Residence, Colorado Coll., 2012–13. Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellowship, 2017; scholar in residence, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 2018; faculty fellow, Humanities Center, Univ. of Pittsburgh, 2018–19. ACLA, ASA, Assn. for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora, Caribbean Studies Assn., Haitian Studies Assn. Publications include articles in Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, MELUS, Journal of Haitian Studies, sx salon: a small axe literary platform. Statement I am honored to be nominated for the Delegate Assembly. Building on my background in comparative literature, my current book project, Writing the Crossroads: Folk Culture, Imperialism, and U.S.-Caribbean Literature, charts the connection between black experimental writing, folk culture, and the 102 – Candidate Information

rise of United States imperialism in the anglophone, francophone, and Spanish Caribbean. My research is committed to rethinking the uses of the postcolonial in an ongoing context of United States hegemony—a context that has urgent implications for our work in the academy. As a field that crosses national, linguistic, and disciplinary boundaries, postcolonial literary studies is poised to facilitate collaborative thinking between international and United States–based scholars on the question of entangled empires and their legacies. I hope to join the Delegate Assembly’s efforts to promote robust creative thinking around structures of power and the politics of language and literature, to encourage the mentorship of graduate students and early-career scholars, and to provide needed support for contingent faculty members.

299. Sangina Patnaik. Asst. prof. English, Swarthmore Coll. PhD, Univ. of California, Berkeley.

TC Race and Ethnicity Studies

300. Maya Aghasi. Asst. prof. transnational lits., American Univ. of Sharjah. PhD, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison. FLAS fellowship, 2007–08, summer 2008, 2008–09; Sawyer Seminar Humanities Dissertation Fellowship, Mellon Foundation, 2011–12; participant, AMICAL Consortium workshop, 2017. Honored Instructor Award, Univ. Housing, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, 2010, 2011. Publications include contrib., Identity and Conflict in the Middle East and Its Diasporic Cultures (2016), Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, Supplement 14 (2016). Statement I am both humbled and honored to have been nominated for the Delegate Assembly. I grew up internationally, moving frequently, and I currently work as an expatriate American at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. This global movement has informed my research on gender, race, ethnicity, and the postcolonial condition, and it shows that problematics vary greatly and have vastly different implications when studied comparatively in an international context. Indeed, my international experience coupled with my academic trajectory have further afforded me insight into some of the most critical issues we scholars in the humanities face today: job security; the commercialization of education, which is linked to the devaluation of the humanities; and the reality that both academia and humanities scholarship, even when claiming to be comparative, remain troublingly Euro- and Americentric. As a member of the Delegate Assembly, I hope to foreground the issues of job security, advocating for genuine rather than token diversity in academia; to push back against the commodification of education globally; and to encourage more international collaboration and exchange to produce more attentive and progressive scholarship.

301. Anthony Alessandrini. Prof. English and Middle Eastern studies, Kingsborough Community Coll., City Univ. of New York. PhD, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick. Faculty Senate, City Univ. of New York (CUNY), 2010–14. Mellon faculty fellowship, Center for the Humanities, CUNY Grad. Center, 2008–09; Mellon midcareer faculty fellowship, Comm. on Globalization and Social Change, CUNY Grad. Center, 2011–12. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., LLC West Asian, 2017–Jan. 2022. Coed., Jadaliyya Ezine, 2011– ; senior ed., Arab Studies Journal, 2004–08; ed. advisory board, South Asian Popular Culture, 2003–06. Publications include Frantz Fanon and the Future of Cultural Politics: Finding Something Different (2014); ed., Frantz Fanon: Critical Perspectives (1999); coed., “Resistance Everywhere”: The Gezi Protests and Dissident Visions of Turkey (2013); contrib., A Companion to Postcolonial Studies (2000), World Bank Literature (2003), Mediating the Arab Uprisings (2013), Retrieving the Human: Reading Paul Gilroy (2014), Revolutionary Egypt: Connecting Domestic and International Struggles (2015), The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies (2016), The Postcolonial Contemporary: Political Imaginaries for the Global Present Candidate Information – 103

(2018); articles in Arab Studies Journal, Cultural Studies, Diaspora, Foucault Studies, Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, Journal of Pan African Studies, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Minnesota Review, Reconstruction, Periscope: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Issues. Statement It is an honor to have the opportunity to run for the Delegate Assembly as the representative of TC Race and Ethnicity Studies. This is a crucial moment for the MLA. We need to better represent those literatures, cultures, and communities that are most marginalized today and most under attack—sometimes symbolically but sometimes in the most literal sense. Having taught since 2005 at the City University of New York, I know all too well what the current war on public education has wrought. Today, the MLA’s defense of the humanities needs to be continued but also broadened and sharpened to meet the intellectual and political challenges of our time. It is also past time for this work to become more explicitly internationalist, to match the borderlessness of the best literary and cultural scholarship being produced today. We need to do more to protect the academic freedom—and, in some cases, the lives and well-being—of all our colleagues who find themselves under attack. We need to be prepared to defend the principle of public education, not just in terms of its utility but as a common good in and of itself. And we need to do much, much better at representing those members of our profession who have been most marginalized, specifically contingent faculty members and graduate student workers. If elected to the Delegate Assembly, I will do my humble best to advance these principles and to remain accountable to the communities and disciplines that I represent.

TC Religion and Literature

302. Laura Arnold Leibman. Prof. English and humanities, Reed Coll. PhD, Univ. of California, Los Angeles. Fulbright lectureship (Panama), fall 1998; NEH fellowship, 2002–03; NEH summer stipend, 2007; Mellon Foundation grant, 2009–10; Fulbright senior scholar (Netherlands), spring 2013; Sid and Ruth Lapidus Fellowship, Amer. Jewish Historical Soc., 2014–15; Franklin Research Grant, Amer. Philosophical Soc., 2016; Hadassah-Brandeis Inst. research award, summer 2016; Joseph and Eva R. Dave Fellowship, Amer. Jewish Archives, July 2016; visiting fellow, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Jan.–Mar. 2017. Jordan Schnitzer Book Award (for Messianism, Secrecy, and Mysticism), Assn. for Jewish Studies (AJS), 2012; Natl. Jewish Book Award in Amer. Jewish Studies (for Messianism, Secrecy, and Mysticism), Jewish Book Council, 2012; Choice Outstanding Academic Title (for Messianism, Secrecy, and Mysticism), 2013; Wasserman Essay Prize (for best article in a vol. of American Jewish History), Amer. Jewish Historical Soc. (AJHS), 2015. Digital Media Comm. (ch., 2013– ) and board of directors (2017–20), AJS; Acad. Council (2011– ), exec. comm. of Acad. Council (2014–16), and Biennial Scholars’ Conference Planning Comm. (coch., 2014–16), AJHS. Advisory board, American Jewish History, 2014– . Publications include Messianism, Secrecy, and Mysticism: A New Interpretation of Early American Jewish Life (2012); ed., Experience Mayhew’s Indian Converts: A Cultural Edition (2008); coed., Jews in the Americas, 1776–1826 (2017); contrib., American Passages: A Literary Survey (instructors and student guides, 2003), Early Native Literacies in New England: A Documentary and Critical Anthology (2008), Vida Sefaradi: A Century of Jewish Life in Portland (2014); articles in American Jewish History, Studies in American Jewish Literature, Sephardic Horizons, Markers (Assn. for Gravestone Studies), Jewish History, Religion in the Age of Enlightenment, Early American Literature, American Literature, American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Statement I am a strong advocate of academic freedom. For our field to grow, academics need unrestricted liberty to address controversial subjects and to test received wisdom without fear of disciplinary action or dismissal. When the basic civil rights of many MLA members and other citizens and residents of the United States are called into question daily, academic freedoms become all the more precious. As a member of the Delegate Assembly, I would strive to make the MLA not only a safe but also an encouraging space for all 104 – Candidate Information

people who want to present their work, seek new opportunities, and learn more about the field. As a Caribbeanist and former Fulbright scholar to Central America, I would specifically like to help the MLA support our colleagues teaching languages and literatures in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America and to promote MLA international symposia. As a person privileged to work at a liberal arts college since 1995, I have a responsibility to share resources with others. Much of my multimedia work, including American Passages: A Literary Survey (2003), Artifacts and Fiction: A Professional Development Series for Secondary Teachers of American Literature (2003), and the ten-volume Gale Researcher American Literature I: Colonial Era to the 19th Century in American Literature (2018), has aimed at bringing innovations in the field to a wider audience and to resource-impoverished communities. I would like to help the MLA think of innovative ways to share resources and create dialogues with more scholars, students, and individuals.

303. Joshua Pederson. Assoc. prof. humanities, Boston Univ. PhD, Boston Univ. Previous appointments: Marymount Manhattan Coll., 2008–10; Berkeley Coll. (New York City), spring 2010; Pace Univ., fall 2009; Hofstra Univ., 2008–09; Ithaca Coll., 2007–08. James Phelan Award for the Best Essay in Narrative, Intl. Soc. for the Study of Narrative, 2014. Organizer, THATCamp New England, May 2014. MLA activities: forum exec. comm., TC Religion and Lit., 2017–Jan. 2022. Publications include The Forsaken Son: Child Murder and Atonement in Modern American Fiction (2016); contrib., Making the Stage: Essays on the Changing Concept of Theatre, Drama, and Performance (2008), Trauma and Literature (2018); articles in Narrative, Religion and Literature, Twentieth-Century Literature, Religion and the Arts, Contemporary Literature. Statement It would be a pleasure and honor to expand my work with the MLA and join the Delegate Assembly. My time on the TC Religion and Literature executive committee has given me a better view of the valuable work that the MLA does, and I would welcome the opportunity to contribute even more energetically to that work. Two major beliefs animate my thinking about the study of language and literature. First, as a scholar of both trauma theory and religion and literature, I am firmly convinced of the value of interdisciplinary work in the humanities, and I would encourage efforts to strengthen the MLA’s relations with both individuals and organizations working in other fields. I also believe that those interested in doing interdisciplinary work do so with diligence and care, producing work that can pass muster with scholars in the fields with which they are liaising. Second, I believe that literature scholars must continue to develop and defend nonvocational arguments for the value of the humanities. Clearly, the study of language and literature can and does effectively prepare students to thrive as lawyers, doctors, scientists, and entrepreneurs. But I also believe we must redouble our efforts to advocate for our fields in less transactional terms.

TC Science and Literature

304. Pamela Gossin. Prof. history of science and literary studies, Univ. of Texas, Dallas. PhD, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison. Dir., Medical and Scientific Humanities Program, Univ. of Texas (UT), Dallas, 2009– ; faculty member, UTeach Dallas, School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, UT, Dallas, 2008– . Natl. Science Foundation (NSF) travel grant, 1988; Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, US Dept. of Educ., 1986–88; Rockefeller Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Humanities, Univ. of Oklahoma, 1990–91; Oklahoma Foundation for the Humanities grant, 1993; Herbert C. Pollock Award, Dudley Observatory, 1993, 1995, 2010; NEH summer stipend, 1997; George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Research Fellowship in the History of Science, Brown Univ., 1997–98; NSF grant, 2010–11; Plains Humanities Alliance Fellowship in Digital Humanities, 2011–12, 2013. Victor Worsfold Award for Outstanding Teaching, UT, Dallas, 2004–05. Consultant, Dudley Observatory, 1994; consultant, NSF, 2006. Project dir., Across the Spectrum: The Interdisciplinary Life and Letters of John G. Neihardt (Web archive), 2010– . Affililiate fellow, Center for Great Plains Studies, Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln, 2011– . Exec. Board (1992– Candidate Information – 105

94), Program Comm. (1992 ch., 1993, 1999), Nominating Comm., 2000), and Publications Comm. (2015– ), Soc. for Lit., Science, and the Arts; History of Science Soc. MLA activities: exec. comm., Div. on Lit. and Science, 2000–04; forum exec. comm., TC Science and Lit., 2013–Jan. 2018. Ed. boards: Women in Science, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996–2000; Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, 2007– . Publications include Thomas Hardy’s Novel Universe: Astronomy, Cosmology, and Gender in the Post-Darwinian World (2007); ed., Encyclopedia of Literature and Science (2002); contrib., Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution: From Copernicus to Newton (2000), The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science (2000), The Cambridge History of Science, vol. 5 (2002), Teaching the Graphic Novel (2009), The Ashgate Research Companion to Thomas Hardy (2010), Artifacts and Illuminations: Critical Essays on Loren Eiseley (2012), The Routledge Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Science (2017), Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism (2017); articles in Journal for Medical Humanities, Neihardt Journal, Mechademia, Higher Education, Victorian Studies, Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Decodings, Isis (History of Science Soc.), Hardy Review, Western American Literature, Journal of the History of Astronomy, English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920, Review of English Studies, Metascience, Journal of American Studies, Journal of British Studies, Scotia: Interdisciplinary Journal of Scottish Studies, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Early Science and Medicine, Clio: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History. Statement Where there’s a metaphor, there’s a way. For over a century, MLA scholars engaged in the study of science and literature have variously plumbed the divide and bridged the gap between the two cultures. We have mapped terrain and patrolled borders, traced natural connections and encoded new nexus points, incited revolution and evolution, essayed social construction and deconstruction, embraced organic emergence and braced for the impact of climate change and AI. Employing the crucial survival skills of humanistic reading and writing, we have sought unity in diversity across disciplinary differences and created affiliations and alliances across time and space, cultures, identities, and politics. Situated at a crossroads often described in the language of conflict and antagonism, zero-sum thinking, and us vs. them funding, our trans- and interdisciplinary endeavors have also shaped safe spaces for invaluable creative trade, translation, and collaboration. Bringing several decades of experience integrating the ideas, values, and concerns of the MLA with the History of Science Society and the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, I seek to serve TC Science and Literature by advocating for innovative public humanities and activist humanities initiatives. Drawing on our unique strengths, we can reach new readerships and audiences via new platforms of communication and forms of education that work to imagine and develop sustainable solutions for our planet’s diverse human and environmental crises. By partnering with the OpEd Project, Action Network, and new grant programs, together we can motivate, mobilize, and make meaning while making a real-world difference.

305. Alan Rauch. Prof. English, Univ. of North Carolina, Charlotte. PhD, Rutgers Univ. NEH fellowship, 1992–93; Ball Brothers Foundation Fellowship, Lilly Library, Indiana Univ., 1994; C. P. Snow Fellowship, Harry Ransom Center, Univ. of Texas, 2002; fellow, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, Univ. of Cambridge, 2003; Trent Dames Fellow in the History of Civil Engineering, Huntington Library, 2003–04; Franklin Research Grant, Amer. Philosophical Soc., 2005; Boston Athenæum Bicentenary Fellow, 2006; Gilder Lehrmann Inst. of Amer. History fellowship, New York Public Library, 2007. Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year, Student Govt. Assn., Georgia Inst. of Technology, 1996; Prof. of the Year, English Grad. Student Assn., Univ. of North Carolina, Charlotte, 2012. Baldwin Library Scholars Council, Univ. of Florida, 2014– . Pres., Soc. for Lit., Science, and the Arts, 2009–10; pres., Council of Eds. of Learned Journals, 2012–15. MLA activities: Delegate Assembly, 1994–96; exec. comm., Div. on Lit. and Science, 1994–98; Program Comm., 2008–11. Ed., Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology, 2001–10; ed., Intersections in Lit. 106 – Candidate Information

and Science, Univ. of Wales Press, 2008–17; advisory board, Animalibus: Of Animals and Cultures, Penn State Univ. Press, 2011–16. Publications include Useful Knowledge: The Victorians, Morality, and the March of Intellect (2001), Dolphin (2014); ed., Jane Loudon, The Mummy!: A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (1994), England in 1815: A Critical Edition of The Journal of Joseph Ballard (2009); asst. ed., One Culture: Essays in Science and Literature (1987); contrib., A Companion to Victorian Poetry (2002), Victorian Animal Dreams; Representations of Animals in Victorian Literature and Culture (2007), Science in the Nursery: The Popularisation of Science in Britain and France, 1761–1901 (2011), The Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature (2015); articles in Nineteenth Century Contexts, Studies in Romanticism, Studies in the Novel, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, Chronicle of Higher Education, Journal of Scholarly Publishing, Children’s Literature, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, American Studies. Statement The many disciplines that have emerged from literature and science (science studies) represent a sea change in academia. Yet this change, which recognizes the liminality of the social practices that we call science and culture, remains unacknowledged within the administrative structures of our institutions of learning and our granting agencies. The very formulation of STEM (or even STEAM) is based on a stacking mode of thinking rather than a worldview that draws on intersections and commonality. The Delegate Assembly is one of many places to argue for an intellectual stance the MLA is certainly aware of but must advocate for more persuasively. And that is that our scholarship and our pedagogy are central to a complex worldview—extending beyond traditional taxonomies—that embraces, parses, analyzes, and synthesizes the many forms of cultural understanding.