MLA 2008: Exciting Tidbits.

Visit the Modern Language Association 2008 Convention homepage here: http://www.mla.org/convention. Jaschik, Scott. "David Horowitz Does the MLA." Inside Higher Ed December 30, 2008:

It’s not standard practice at meetings of the Modern Language Association to have visible security or a roped-off divide between the dais for speakers and the audience. But it’s not every MLA meeting that features David Horowitz, who has spent years attacking the group. . . . (read the rest here: http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/12/30/horowitz)

Howard, Jennifer. "MLA 2008: a Buyer's Market?" Chronicle of Higher Education December 30, 2008:

So Harvard’s not hiring this year, and it’s not alone. A lot of language-and-literature departments, though, are proceeding with searches — for now. How much do the job jitters extend to the employers’ side of the interviewing table? The Chronicle talked to professors on several search committees to find out. . . . (read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/news/article/5720/mla-2008-a-buyers-market.)

McMillen, Liz. "Politics in the Classroom, Stanley Fish Style." Chronicle of Higher Education December 29, 2008:

MLA attendees packed into an overflowing room yesterday to hear Patricia Lynn Bizzell, Judith Butler, and Jonathan Culler, along with Mr. Fish himself, dissect Mr. Fish’s latest book, Save the World on Your Own Time (Oxford University Press). Although the discussion here was civil and even good-natured, Mr. Fish annoys people on both the left and the right by maintaining that politics has no role in the classroom and that inculcating values such as social justice and citizenship in students amounts to hubris. . . . (read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/news/article/5716/politics-in-the-classroom-stanley-fish-style)