Teaching World Literature (Portland, Oregon)
CALL FOR PAPERS
PACIFIC ANCIENT AND MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATE
(PAMLA October 26-29, 2023)
Conference Theme: SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES
Roundtable Session #18948: Teaching World Literature
Dear Colleagues,
The deadline for submission to the PAMLA conference this fall in Portland, Oregon has been extended until July 20 and perhaps later. I invited you to submit a brief proposal to a roundtable session where we will discuss the role of teaching “world literature” at our respective institutions. Please see the descriptions below.
SESSION ABSTRACT
In this session, we will discuss the ways in which the teaching of world literature may provide us with fruitful opportunities for connection and collaboration among departments of national languages, comparative literature and English. We need to open sustainable dialogues in our institutions that will provide us with a platform to acknowledge similarities concerning our historical origins, theoretical orientations and academic missions so that we might strategize and become more proactive regarding our collective survival while endeavoring to establish a healthy ecosystem that recognizes and explores our differences.
SESSION DESCRIPTION
In a time of diminished resources and support for the humanities in academia and program prioritization taskforces calling for the elimination or consolidation of disciplinary units, how can we create fruitful opportunities for connection and collaboration among departments of national literatures, comparative literature and English? At the same time, we have seen the reduction or elimination of language requirements in our universities, which has made it increasingly difficult to advocate for the highly skilled reading of literature in a language other than English. This leaves us with the conundrum of how to read literature in a global context while acknowledging the hegemony of English, recognizing the wealth of cultural knowledge embedded in national languages and preparing students to become informed, critical and responsive participants in global communities. In this roundtable session, we will discuss the areas of theoretical and practical overlap in our disciplines and departments and how we might work together to collectively teach world literature and attempt to reclaim our central role in an increasingly interdisciplinary and culturally responsive curriculum. There are many reports on the state of affairs in each of these disciplines; however, we need to open sustainable dialogues in each institution that will provide us with a platform to acknowledge similarities regarding our historical origins, theoretical orientations and academic missions so that we might strategize and become more proactive regarding our collective survival while endeavoring to establish a healthy ecosystem that recognizes and explores our differences. Our attitudes concerning the border regions between our departments, our interdepartmental hybridity and our shifting perspectives on what we do, how we do it and why we do it will cast light on the odds of our agency to self-determine and resist mass aggregation or elimination.
Please go to https://pamla.ballastacademic.com to submit a brief proposal (one page maximum) to session 18948. In this session, we will give an overview of our ideas and concerns and then we will open the session to a discussion between participants.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me, Cynthia Sloan, presiding officer of this session: sloanc@pdx.edu.
For information about the hotel, conference fees, conference schedule, special events, etc. please visit the PAMLA conference website: https://www.pamla.org/pamla2023.
https://pamla.ballastacademic.com
Cynthia Sloan