South Atlantic Modern Language Association

Extract

SAMLA's seventieth annual convention will be held in Birmingham at the Sheraton Civic Center from 10 to 12 November. William C. Calin will present the keynote address; George Ella Lyon will give the creative address; and French, German, and Spanish plenary addresses will also be featured. Sonia Sanchez will make a special appearance, and other sessions will focus on Birmingham and Alabama writers, gender and race studies, and human rights in literature and culture. Last year's highly successful reading by contemporary writers, sponsored by the literary magazine Five Points, will be repeated. Graduate students will host a poets' circle, and a special performance of Hemingway stories will take place. Among the twenty special sessions are African Influence on Western Literatures; The Holocaust in Literature and Film; Rhetorics, Rhetoricians, and the Teaching of Rhetoric; Early Modern Women of Spain; and Epics and Literature at the Millennium. During the varied program (over 140 sessions), the convention will feature issues of technology, pedagogy, and professional concerns and will offer a number of opportunities to meet and socialize. Cash bars will be held for faculty members in two-year colleges, Feministas Unidas, and gay and lesbian studies. Side trips are planned to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the Birmingham Museum of Art. A full copy of the program will be available on the SAMLA Web site in July.