MLA 2023 (San Francisco)

The Society is proud to announce its panel for MLA 2023 in San Francisco: “Spring and All at One Hundred Meets ‘The Academy in Peril’ at Forty.” The session is a nod to both the centennial of the revolutionary and deeply influential Spring and All, as well as the 40th anniversary of Charles Bernstein’s essay “The Academy in Peril.” Spring and All gave us some of Williams’s richest writing on poetics and some of his most recognizable short lyrics; Bernstein’s paper traces the schism of “verse culture” at the time, while placing Williams’s lyric and rhetorical voices in context. Brought together, the two serve as an exciting intersection to hear these three deeply respected voices in poetry and scholarship converge around Williams’s work. 

Join us for what promises to be a lively and well-attended session on Saturday January 7th from 5:15-6:30pm 

Elin Käck, Associate Professor, Linköping University, Chair

  • Bob Perelman, University of Pennsylvania, “Spring and All; or, The Present after One Hundred Years” 
  • Juliana Spahr, Mills College, “‘No One to Witness and Adjust’: The Academy Still in Peril” 
  • Charles Bernstein, U of Pennsylvania, Free Thinking: Spring and All versus The Waste Land at 100

For information on registration and attendance, please see the MLA’s information page 

Featured image: Oak and sunlight on Mt. Tamalpais, Marin, California, Mark C. Long