NEWSLETTER #56 - aisna

AISNA Newsletter 56, p. 48
finding other ways of reconceptualizing and rethinking it is becoming all the more necessary. The
lecture was followed by responses from Cristina Giorcelli, Carlo Martinez, and Elena Spandri.
The lively and high-level debate following all sessions proved not only the enthusiastic
interest of all the participants but also the timeliness of this meeting, which ended with the
presentation of the volume America at large. Americanistica transnazionale e nuova
comparatistica, edited by Giorgio Mariani and Donatella Izzo. Alessandro Portelli and Vincenzo
Maggitti outlined the most interesting features of this volume, respectively from the point of view
of American Studies and of Comparative Literature.
Mena Mitrano, MLA 2004, Dec. 27-30, Philadelphia
I was one of the speakers in the special session “Brooks and Warren’s Understanding Poetry:
Lasting Influences and Troubling Legacies” (7:15-830 p.m., room 406, Philadelphia Marriott). My
paper was titled “Milk Cans and Well-Wrought Urns: Robert Rauschenberg and Close Reading.”
Our session leader was John (Jack) Kerkering (Loyola Univ., Chicago), who presented a paper on
“Racial Scansion and Rhapsody in Metered Lines and Raced Bodies.” The other speakers were:
Steven L. Newman (Temple Univ.), “The Call of the Popular: The Ballad as a Revision of Lyric”
and Jennifer Ashton (Univ. of Illinois, Chicago), “The New Cognitivists and the Old: or, The New
Critical Legacy of the ‘Embodied Mind.’”
The themes of the MLA Convention this year were the future of the humanities and the
question of beauty. Both were taken up with particular eloquence in one of the most representative
panels: “The Future of the Humanities in a Fragmented World.” Presided by Rey Chow, the panel
featured distinguished speakers like Toni Morrison (Princeton Univ.), Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
(Columbia Univ.), and Ngahuia Te Awekotuku (Univ. of Waikato, New Zealand). Morrison’s
speech began by expounding on the difference between humanity and citizenship. People who are
forced to be without citizenship have the right to claim human rights. Having thus introduced the
problem of the “distribution of wealth and knowledge” in a more humane society, Morrison went on
to meditate on the desirability of speed in the present age. If the digitalized age seems to promise
more time--and with it more life--it is also haunted by the fear of indistinguishability. There
persists, Morrison says, a powerful yearning for singularity “at the root between individuality and
community.” One of the tasks of the Humanities, therefore, is to assert singularity in the public
sphere. Morrison invites us to consider the uses to which art can be put, scholarship among them,
and to investigate art’s relation to conformity. Art, she says, is neither an ambassador nor a
distraction: “it is incendiary; it can frighten us.” It is, above all, “a practice of knowledge unseduced
by its own beauty.”
What is beauty? How should it be redefined in the contemporary world? For Professor
Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, who researches the origins, technology, and narratives of Maori skin
adornment, and also investigates contemporary practice, attitudes and expressions, these questions
are being posed especially by emergent literatures. Finally, Spivak lamented the little role that the
Humanities have in the U.S. despite the discourse on difference. In agreement with Morrison, she
invoked a redistribution of resources and denounced the rift between writing and criticism, referring
to “the shame of this rift.”
Robert Scholes’ Presidential Address received a standing ovation. Scholes dwelt on the
failure of theory in challenging techno-bureaucracy and focused on the responsibility of the
Humanities to justify its place in the present world.
One of the panels paid homage to Stanley Fish on the occasion of his retirement. Another
celebrated the heritage of Edward Said, with particular attention to the uses of his later writings in
the field of Disability Studies. Two panels were devoted to the memory of Phyllis Franklin who
died this past August. She was executive director of the MLA from 1985 to 2002. During her tenure
she strenghtened the financial position of the association and championed the humanities by
working at bridging the gap between academia and the world outside. She was instrumental in