Northeast Modern Language Association

NEMLA has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years, to become the largest sectional branch of the MLA: Baltimore 2007 (more than 210 panels); Buffalo 2008 (more than 240); Boston 2009, fortieth anniversary (more than 320 and 1,400 participants); and Montreal 2010 (more than 360 panels proposed).

Part of this growth has been fueled by new programs, including graduate administrative fellows, seminar sessions, and noontime speakers for emerging areas. NEMLA truly has become a community of scholars, in which scholarly and social exchanges occur and graduate students and professors of all ranks plan collaborative research projects that lead to such projects as special journal issues, anthologies, or session proposals at national conferences. At this point in time, current and past board members are seriously discussing where NEMLA should go in the next forty years. To facilitate this process, input by NEMLA members to any members of the board of directors or to the executive director is welcome.

The fortieth anniversary convention in Boston, from 26 February to 1 March 2009, was a great success with outstanding and diverse panels. The attendance of a large number of past presidents and executive directors, designated with special nametags, added a special dimension to the convention. Many returned for the first time in years to chair a session, which allowed them to participate in the vibrant professional organization that they had nurtured and directed. We were honored by the keynote address of John Stauffer (Harvard Univ.), "Literary Neo-Confederates and the Civil Rights," in which he examined the racial conversations occurring within the MLA forty years ago.

The forty-first annual convention, in downtown Montreal, Quebec, with McGill University as the host institution, promises to be another memorable convention. We are fortunate to have Alan Liu (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara) as the keynote speaker. His central interests include information culture, new media, literary and cultural theory (especially formalism, cultural criticism, postindustrialism), cultural studies, and British Romantic literature and art. His most recent publications are Local Transcendence: Essays on Postmodern Historicism and the Database (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2008) and The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2004).

Gail Scott will be giving the Thursday evening Welcome Reading. She is a Canadian author with six books and several literary prizes and recognitions, most notably her novel My Paris (1999) and her translation into English of Michael Delisle's The Sailor's Disquiet (2001). Scott writes a poetic, genre-bending prose and has written essays on literary theory. NEMLA looks forward to hosting additional Canadian writers and scholars at its April 2010 convention.

In addition to its annual convention, NEMLA is dedicated to providing service to the profession, in particular its membership. This year saw the rebirth of its Annual Book Award, sponsored by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Ohio University Press, with over twenty submissions. Domestic Geographies: Neodomestic American Fiction, by Kristin Jacobson (Stockton Coll.), received the English Language Award, and National Mimesis: Figuring Performance Relations in Quebec, by Erin Hurley (McGill Univ.), received the Modern Languages Award. NEMLA also awarded seventeen research fellowship awards, including its collaborations with the American Antiquarian Society and the Newberry Library. This year NEMLA expanded its student travel grant program to make available travel grants for contingent, adjunct, and two-year college faculty members.

Modern Language Studies continues to find new ways to serve the profession and to complement the work of the Northeast Modern Language Association. Editor Laurence Roth, working with the creative writing program at Susquehanna University, has brought the journal to an impressive level of innovation and creativity. A case in point is the Winter 2009 anniversary issue, Collaborations NEMLA at Forty, which came out in time for the Boston convention. Its special section of contributions by past executive directors and past presidents, "Professional Collaborators: Reflections on NEMLA's 40th Anniversary," gave members many insights into the early history of the organization, the challenges it faced, and directions it took over the years.

NEMLA thanks all members, past, present, and future, for the vitality that the organization currently enjoys and looks forward to welcoming you in Montreal or a future convention.

ELIZABETH ABELE
Executive Director