About the MLA Convention

PMLA ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 125 (5) ◽  
pp. 1156-1165

The Modern Language Association Convention, First Held in 1883, is an annual gathering of teachers and scholars in the field of language and literature study. The convention enables members of the profession to share their ideas and research with colleagues from other universities and colleges. The many sessions present a range of approaches and examine a variety of languages and literary and critical traditions. Meetings will be held in the Los Angeles Convention Center (most foreign language and comparative literature sessions and exhibits) and the J. W. Marriott (most English sessions and the Job Information Center). Sessions begin at 12:00 noon on 6 January, with job-related workshops at 8:30 and 11:45 a.m. The last sessions will end at 3:00 p.m. on 9 January.

AILA Review ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 29-52
Author(s):  
Chantelle Warner

Abstract In the ten years since the Modern Language Association published their report, “Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World” (2007) dissatisfaction with the “two-tiered configuration” of US foreign language departments has become increasingly vocal. While the target of the criticism is often the curriculum, it has often been noted that programmatic bifurcations mirror institutional hierarchies, e.g. status differences between specialists in literary and cultural studies and experts in applied linguistics and language pedagogy (e.g. Maxim et al., 2013; Allen & Maxim, 2012). This chapter looks at the two-tiered structure of collegiate modern language departments from the perspectives of the transdisciplinary shape-shifters who maneuver within them – scholars working between applied linguistics and literary studies. These individuals must negotiate the methodologies and the institutional positions available to them – in many instances, the latter is what has prompted them to work between fields in the first place. The particular context of US foreign language and literature departments serves as a case study of the lived experiences of doing transdisciplinary work in contexts that are characterized by disciplinary hierarchies and the chapter ends with a call for applied linguistics to consider not only the epistemic, but also the institutional and affective labor needed to sustain transdisciplinary work.


PMLA ◽  
1958 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Whitney J. Oates

Mr. Chairman, President Fred, President Starck, ladies and gentlemen of the Modern Language Association: I suppose on this occasion, as a member of the American Philological Association, I should be tempted to reflect upon the event in the year of the great schism, 1883, when forty youthful modern linguists, smarting under the tyranny of classical philology, struck their historic blow for freedom, and formed the Modern Language Association. Suffice it to say that after years of rivalry, we have all come to the realization that we are allies in a common cause, not only within the conventional humanities but also with our colleagues in the other areas of learning. No doubt the sense of kinship between classicists and scholars in the modern foreign languages has been enhanced by the experience of adversity. Certainly a classicist has had to learn to live with, and ultimately profit from, a perpetual “bear” market. But, happily, in recent years, the whole strategy of fighting defensive rear-guard actions has been abandoned, and a new spirit of confidence has appeared. A case in point is William R. Parker's excellent piece entitled “Why a Foreign Language Requirement?” There are also the many classicists who have sworn a mighty oath never again to utter a word of apology for the classics, but rather to start from the assumption that any intelligent and sensible man knows how important they are.


PMLA ◽  
1962 ◽  
Vol 77 (4-Part2) ◽  
pp. 31-42
Author(s):  
Wilmarth H. Starr

I. Brief History of the Project: Since 1952, the Foreign Language Program of the Modern Language Association of America, responding to the national urgency with regard to foreign languages, has been engaged in a vigorous campaign aimed in large part at improving foreign-language teaching in our country.In 1955, as one of its activities, the Steering Committee of the Foreign Language Program formulated the “Qualifications for Secondary School Teachers of Modern Foreign Languages,” a statement which was subsequently endorsed for publication by the MLA Executive Council, by the Modern Language Committee of the Secondary Education Board, by the Committee on the Language Program of the American Council of Learned Societies, and by the executive boards or councils of the following national and regional organizations: National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations, American Association of Teachers of French, American Association of Teachers of German, American Association of Teachers of Italian, American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages, Central States Modern Language Teachers Association, Middle States Association of Modern Language Teachers, New England Modern Language Association, Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Northwest Conference on Foreign Language Teaching, Philological Association of the Pacific Coast, Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, and South-Central Modern Language Association.


PMLA ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 99 (3) ◽  
pp. 340-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Mead

In surveying the contributions of the Modern Language Association of America to the teaching and study of foreign languages in our country, especially during the last three decades, I hope to recapture the mood and spirit of past events and to pay tribute to those colleagues who took leading parts in them. This is not an easy task, but it is a welcome and a challenging one. Many of these colleagues are deceased, others are retired, and few if any of us during those intensely active years, I suspect, gave much thought to the task of gathering materials and memories for a chronicle of the MLA's role in the development of foreign language study. But it was an inspired and inspiring time—one happier than the present for education in our country—and I am grateful for the opportunity to set down a brief, personal, and inevitably incomplete memoir.


PMLA ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-468
Author(s):  
Florence Howe ◽  
Laura Morlock ◽  
Richard Berk

In the spring and summer of 1970 the Commission on the Status of Women of the Modern Language Association conducted a comprehensive, nationwide survey on the position of women in English and modern foreign language departments. We collected information on types of appointments, ranks, teaching patterns, and salary levels of men and women faculty members and the proportion of women among graduate enrollments and recent degrees awarded. In addition, the Commission asked for information about nepotism regulations and practices of departments in the Association. This report presents some results of the survey.


PMLA ◽  
1965 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-32
Author(s):  
Donald D. Walsh

Our major activities this year, as in each of the past five years, have been undertaken either with foundation support or through contracts with the United States Office of Education under the National Defense Education Act. In February John Harmon became Director of the Materials Center, changing places with Glen Willbern, who became Director of Research. Under Mr. Willbern's direction and through a government contract we have just completed a survey of modern-foreign-language enrollments in junior and senior colleges as of the fall of 1963. We are currently negotiating several contracts through Title VI of the National Defense Education Act. The first is to gather statistics on offerings and enrollments in all foreign languages in public and non-public secondary schools. The second is to make a survey of current college enrollments in all foreign languages. Since gathering statistics on the classical languages is not a justifiable expenditure of national defense funds, the Modern Language Association will pay out of its own funds the proportion of the total cost needed to gather the facts on Latin and Greek in schools and colleges.


1983 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-82
Author(s):  
E. Ann Kaplan ◽  
Joseph Tyler ◽  
Carol Ward ◽  
Laura Ferguson ◽  
Marjorie Tussing ◽  
...  

PMLA ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 115 (4) ◽  
pp. 854-854
Author(s):  
Cyndia Susan Clegg

The association's ninety-eighth conference will be held 10-12 November 2000 at the University of California, Los Angeles. Chairs of the local committee are Hans Wagener of the German Department and Frederick Burwick of the English Department. Registration at the conference will be $35 and $25. All paper sessions are scheduled for classrooms at UCLA and will begin Friday at 1:00 p.m. and end Sunday at 1:00 p.m. PAMLA members whose dues were paid by 1 June 2000 will receive programs by mail.PAMLA dues are $25 for regular members, $15 for lecturers, $10 for students and emeriti, and $30 for joint memberships. Membership includes a subscription to Pacific Coast Philology, a refereed journal, which, since 1993, appears in two issues each year. By reciprocal agreement, regular NEMLA and PAMLA members may participate in the meetings of both associations. For further information, write the new executive director, Lorely French, Modern Foreign Languages, Pacific Univ., Forest Grove, OR 97116 ([email protected]), or visit the PAMLA Web site (http://www.pamla.org).


2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Peter Hourdequin

Claire Kramsch is Professor of German and Affiliate Professor of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Applied Linguistics and directs doctoral dissertations in the German Department and in the Graduate School of Education. She has written extensively on language, discourse, and culture in foreign language education. Two of her books, Context and Culture in Language Teaching (OUP, 1993) and The Multilingual Subject (OUP, 2009) won the Mildenberger Award from the American Modern Language Association. She is the past president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics and the current president of the International Association of Applied Linguistics.


PMLA ◽  
1954 ◽  
Vol 69 (4-Part2) ◽  
pp. 22-25
Author(s):  
J.H.F.

Since its organization fifteen years ago, the Commission on Trends in Education, a standing committee of the Modern Language Association of America, has been concerned about the increasingly unfortunate consequences of the monolingualism of most American college graduates. Mastery of the English language and of English or American literary studies must remain forever provincial to those lacking a knowledge of foreign languages, and it is surely important, in peace as in war, to be able to communicate directly with other peoples. The Commission on Trends in Education is therefore enthusiastically supporting the Foreign Language Program of the Modern Language Association in its study of our linguistic inadequacies and its attempt to remedy them.


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