The Lydia Maria Child Society is issuing two CFPs for ALA 2024:
American Literature Association Conference in Chicago, IL
23–26 May 2024 at The Palmer House Hilton
https://americanliteratureassociation.org/ala-conferences/ala-annual-conference/
1. Social Justice Pedagogy Roundtable
The Lydia Maria Child Society seeks participants for a roundtable on pedagogy, social justice, and American literature. Considering contemporary social justice concerns ranging from the global rise of white supremacism to persistent gender and racial inequities accentuated by COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on Black, Hispanic, and Native American and Alaska Native people, and by various state- and community-based oppositions to, and banning of, K–12 books and public-school curricula about race or gender, the Child Society feels strongly that many of the issues for which Child fought so passionately remain deeply relevant today. To honor her lifelong commitment to both education and writing as ways to attain social change, we ask that our selected panelists prepare brief presentations (approximately 10 minutes) on how they address the above issues and/or others within the literature classroom, before engaging in what we hope will be a fruitful and wide-ranging open discussion on social justice pedagogies and American literature. What texts and social issues have proved particularly pertinent to your students’ lived experiences of activism, marginalization, etc.? How do you productively draw parallels between the concerns of the literary works you teach and those we are facing in the world outside the classroom? What specific lesson plans, textual pairings/groupings, and/or other pedagogical approaches might you recommend to colleagues striving to make their syllabi and classrooms more socially conscious and engaged?
Please send 200-word abstracts of your proposed presentation, as Word documents, to lydiamariachildsociety@gmail.com by January 15, 2024. Note that while we, of course, welcome proposals that engage with Child’s work, Child need not be included for your proposal to be considered.
2. Celebrating Hobomok (1824) at 200: New Directions, New Reflections
The year 2024 marks the 200th publication anniversary of Lydia Maria Child’s novel Hobomok (1824). Set in early 17th-century Puritan New England, the book features a taboo marriage between Puritan Mary Conant and indigenous Pokanoket Hobomok and Mary’s eventual re-assimilation, with their mixed-race child, into Puritan society. The Lydia Maria Child Society welcomes new ideas about, or inspired by, this novel. How might its treatments of religious intolerance, racial strife, and gendered rebellion against a religious patriarchy offer new ways of understanding our own times? How might using Hobomok in the writing, literature, history, education, or fine arts classroom introduce fresh perspectives about community, prejudice, and understanding? Ever wonder about “the beautiful grey fox of the Mississippi” (ch. 12)? How might focusing on the natural world—plants, animals, weather—in Hobomok or other writings help us reconceptualize or resituate human agency vis-à-vis that of other life forms? What might nonhuman life suggest about the choices that human life forms make? If neither Hobomok nor Child lie within your areas of expertise, how might your own work be in conversation with either? What fresh surprises await us through our connections to Hobomok or Child or the 19th century US?
Please send 200-word abstracts, as Word documents, to Sandy Burr at sburr@nmu.edu by January 15, 2024. Early submissions welcome!
LMC Society
Melissa Gniadek, President
Sandy Burr, VP of Programs
Gia Coturri Sorenson, VP of Membership & Records
Sarah Olivier, VP of Communications
Lori Robison, VP of Inclusive Excellence & Social Action
listserv: lmcs-listserv@googlegroups.com