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Sunday, December 25, 2005
MLA Open Thread/Bulletin Board
’Tis the season. I’m on a panel on “Zizek and Christianity”. My paper sort of, kind of needs to get written. Oh well. I don’t think I’ll have trouble filling 15 minutes with thoughts about this fellow. Plus I’m not on til Thursday. I’ll tuck session info under the fold, plus info about other Valve author sessions.
Please feel free to use the comment box to recommend sessions, or chat about the conference, or even as a bulletin board to announce stuff.
Thursday, 29 December
414. Žižek and Christianity
10:15–11:30 a.m., Kalorama, Washington Hilton
A special session
Presiding: Peter Yoonsuk Paik, Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
1. “Traversing the Phantasmatic Holocaust,” Matthew Biberman, Univ. of Louisville
2. “Love, Sex, and Death in Žižek’s Analysis of Christianity,” Sheila Kunkle, Vermont Coll.
3. “Žižek and the Limits of Philosophical Composition,” John Holbo, National Univ. of Singapore
Tuesday, 27 December
35. English Studies and Political Literacy
7:00–8:45 p.m., Cotillion Ballroom North, Marriott
A forum
Presiding: Donald P. Lazere, Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville
1. “How Can Americans under Forty Be Tuned Back In to Following the News?” David T. Z. Mindich, Saint Michael’s Coll.
2. “Student Conservatism and Political Literacy,” Adolph L. Reed, Jr., Univ. of Pennsylvania
3. “Political Literacy in Rhetoric and Composition Studies,” Patricia Roberts-Miller, Univ. of Texas, Austin
4. “Reading and Political Literacy at Risk in Young Americans,” Mark Bauerlein, Emory Univ.
5. “Learning Political Literacy through Chicago’s Public Schools: What’s College Funding Got to Do with It?” Kenneth W. Warren, Univ. of Chicago
Tuesday, 27 December
89. Walter Benn Michaels’s Our America Ten Years Later
8:45–10:00 p.m., Coolidge, Marriott
A special session
Presiding: Christopher Douglas, Univ. of Victoria
1. “Against Race: Walter Benn Michaels and Paul Gilroy,” Wai Chee Dimock, Yale Univ.
2. “Walter Benn Michaels’s Argument,” Sean Joseph McCann, Wesleyan Univ.
3. “Our America and the Thwarted Ambition of Argument,” Kenneth W. Warren, Univ. of Chicago
Respondent: Walter Benn Michaels, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago
Somebody else from our roster is doing something as well, but I’m forgetting. (Sorry.) Amardeep has something he’s doing at the South Asian Literary Association conference, which I gather runs in parallel. I dunno. He’ll have to explain.
Comments
Lindsay Waters is responding to the panel which inspired/was inspired by his recent (and recently discussed) article in The Chronicle on the future of literary studies. That should be mandatory for all involved in that debate.
Also, if anyone wants to stalk me (and really, I’d be flattered), you can see where I’ll be and when I’ll be there next week. So if you lurk and want to shake my hand or spit in my face, you now have a quasi-official stalker’s calender to consult.
I’m co-organizing a parallel conference (because MLA isn’t big enough!), which starts Monday and runs through the day on Tuesday. A rough schedule is here; it’s taking place at the Hilton Embassy Row in Dupont Circle.
I would especially recommend the keynote address, by Suvir Kaul ("The Secular Imagination"), Tuesday afternoon.
Oh and on the above—panel 414—I went to grad school with your first panelist. Tell him I said hello, John (or maybe I’ll just show up and say hello myself!).
Alas, unless a doppleganger arrives to take my place in the appropriate hotel suite, I’ll be locked away Tuesday and Wednesday (which appears to rule out Mr. Waters; in fact, it rules out just about everything I was interested in seeing, aside from a panel on Thursday morning).
I’m planning to attend “English Studies and Political Literacy,” but I can’t make Sean’s panel. For anyone who might be ambivalent about going to see the former, maybe this essay by Patricia Roberts-Miller will persuade you.
I’m not attending the MLA this year but am eager to hear about the topics discussed at the “Žižek and Christianity” panel, so please post your reports, even if they are in esoteric, fragmentary note form.
ebr, the electronic book review, recently published an essay of mine on Žižek’s recent writings about Christianity titled What Would Zizek Do? Redeeming Christianity’s Perverse Core. The essay is included as part of ebr‘s end construction thread.
No, this comment is not (simply) an instance of shameless self-promotion.
I’m posting to invite panel members and participants - and anyone else with something to say about Žižek and Christianity (or, more generally, the recent philosophical interest in Pauline Christianity) to submit a riposte or an essay to ebr‘s editors ().
And should you visit ebr, check out Lori Emerson’s review of and ripostes related to Walter Benn Michaels’ The Shape of the Signifier. Again, if you want to enter this discussion, please send your response to ebr‘s editors.
Cheers!
Three panels, featuring 15 scholars, only three of whom are women, in a field which awards 65% of its PhDs to women.
Interesting.
It’s actually not that interesting, except as an insinuation based on a very small sample. Since you’re at the Hilton, you could probably go and look Scott up and ask him why he doesn’t go to panels with women on them.
Prefer, I was under the impression that one didn’t get to choose the other people on one’s panels, so unless you’re suggesting there’s something inherently masculine about, say, Zizek, that doesn’t strike me as very interesting. It’s also countered by the fact that the other Zizek panel (651. Zizek and Early Modern English Literature) is composed entirely of women (including UCI’s own Julia Lupton).
If you are at the Hilton, however, feel free to drop by and say hello tomorrow. Of the panels I’m definitely attending tomorrow, 8 of the 15 panelists are women. (I’ll update my list in the morning. I’m too tired to think now.)
P.S. Hope you’re feeling better, Jonathan.