Journal of the Midwestern Modern Language Association
Due Date: 09-15-2024
The Journal of the Midwestern Modern Language Association (JMMLA) invites submissions for its fall 2024 issue on the 2023 Midwest Modern Language Association (MMLA) convention theme Going Public: What the MMLA Owes Democracy, which asked convention attendees to explore the following questions:
- What roles should the humanities in general and the modern languages and literatures in particular play in the public sphere?
- How can our pedagogy and scholarship help foster balance between the collective and the individual?
- How have the humanities, scholars, authors, texts, or pedagogy addressed these issues in the past?
- How can our profession help value difference, recognizing and stressing the importance of diversity across a wide spectrum, including gender, race, class, and ideology, while simultaneously encouraging the consensus and principled compromise necessary for functional democracies?
- How do we minimize our political and personal biases and critically interrogate our race, class, and gender privileges to ensure true equity and diversity?
- How do we as a profession ensure that our knowledge and practices support and encourage democratic principles?
Papers presented at the convention liberally and fruitfully interpreted this theme, addressing language, literature, and pedagogy in historical and contemporary contexts. We heard how democratic voices can be raised when teaching business Spanish, developing core curriculums, exploring the post-pandemic classroom, engaging banned book clubs, training tutors, and even when designing assessment. We learned to recognize democracy in action when colleagues engage in public-facing writing or study medieval forms of public address. Scholars at the convention explored democratic practices of knowledge, public humanities projects, and texts and authors committed to democratic engagement. We encourage scholars who presented a paper at the 2023 MMLA convention and those whose work engages with the convention theme of Going Public to submit critical articles for publication in this issue.
Possible topics include
- Feminisms and transfeminisms
- Literature and the environment
- Pop culture and visual arts
- Language and humanities pedagogies
- Queer identities
- Cultural and literary studies
- Indigenous cultures
- Disability studies
- Postcolonial studies
- Race, gender, and subalternity
- Religious discourses
- Nationalisms
- Transatlantic studies: Latin America, Europe, and Africa
- Travel writing and networks
- Women’s studies
- Interdisciplinary work and the humanities
- Language communities
- Cultures of diaspora
- Minority cultures
- Transcultural identities
Prior to submission please review the JMMLA Style Guide and JMMLA Manuscript Manager Instructions linked to on the MMLA’s website. Please direct all questions to the MMLA at mmla@luc.edu or to the editor of this convention issue, Gaywyn Moore. Articles should be between 7,000 and 10,000 words (including notes) and follow MLA guidelines.
Submission deadline: 15 September 2024