I am looking forward to taking part in a roundtable titled “Strategic Presentism” at the 2018 MLA convention in New York.

Session 468. Strategic Presentism

SATURDAY, 6 JANUARY 8:30 AM-9:45 AM, NASSAU WEST (HILTON)

Presentism has often been the name for an intellectual mistake, but intervening in the present has also been one of the most urgent aims of a political criticism. This roundtable asks how and whether literary studies should perform a historical literary studies for and in the present. What kind of relation to the literary work of the past would generate a productive set of political responses to the present? Should we imagine continuity or distance? Is it wrong to instrumentalize historical knowledge for present purposes? And what might it mean to sever the past from the present?

Seven participants (Alexander Galloway, Cynthia Nazarian, Anna Kornbluh, Abigail Droge, Michael Clune, and Jeffrey R. Wilson) and a convener (Caroline Levine) from different fields, including Renaissance French, new media, contemporary US, and postcolonial studies, will in 2-3 minutes introduce a keyword or phrase to theorize the problem of presentism. The bulk of the time will then be free for conversation and active audience participation. The keywords will include: distance, continuity, juxtaposition, space, state violence, present postcolonialism, and pluperfect presentism.