Category: Modern Language Association

February 10, 2022

A Stratum of Sadness That Abides

David Hajdu

One hundred and one years ago, in February 1921, Bert Williams proposed something more radical than it should have been. Williams, a three-decade veteran of the stage at age forty-six, had risen from the woolly ranks of Barbary Coast honky-tonks...

February 8, 2022

Sidney Poitier and the New York Film Renaissance

By Richard Koszarski

I have been writing and researching the history of motion picture production in New York since the 1970s. Not the image of New York, but the way our local cultural and historical traditions interacted with broader industry trends to create...

January 6, 2022

Announcing the 2022 Columbia University Press Literary Studies Catalog

Click on the down arrow above to download the PDF. Letter from the Editors: Thank you for your interest in Columbia University Press’s new books in literary studies. Amid the many crises we continue to confront, reading and studying literature...

January 6, 2022

Ellen Jones in Conversation with Erín Moure on Multilingual Translation (Part 2)

Continuing the conversation with Literature in Motion author Ellen Jones and poet-translator Erín Moure, today’s installment explores the permeability of language. Interested in the fluid and the multilingual, Moure invites readers to join her in the joy of engaging with...

January 5, 2022

Ellen Jones in Conversation with Erín Moure on Multilingual Translation (Part 1)

In Literature in Motion: Translating Multilingualism Across the Americas, I think about how authors and translators can use the defamiliarizing and disruptive potential of literary multilingualism to resist conventions of form and dominant narratives about language and gender. One of the...

January 10, 2021

Video: Eric Hayot in Conversation with Paul Saint-Amour about Humanist Reason

 “[Humanist Reason] is not another anxious apology or resentful jeremiad about the decline of the humanities. This is a confident and liberating gift that shows us how and why to practice humanist reason now.” —Chad Wellmon, coauthor of Permanent...

January 9, 2021

Peter Coviello’s Playlist for Vineland Reread

“Here is a mash note, a fan’s riff, a sizzling study of Pynchon’s most misapprehended book. . . . ” —Sam Lipsyte, author of Hark Today’s MLA featured post is a playlist from Peter Coviello to accompany his new book Vineland Reread, a...

January 8, 2021

Video: Four Reasons to Reread A Visit from the Goon Squad

 “A brilliant investigation … Ivan Kreilkamp is a music critic as well as a literary scholar, versed in both Middlemarch and Minor Threat, so he brings revelatory insight into Egan’s punk-inspired story of time lost and time regained.” —Rob...

January 7, 2021

Announcing Our 2021 Literary Studies Catalog

Letter from the Editors: We are pleased to present the 2021 Columbia University Press literary studies catalog. The past year was a challenging one on many fronts and we hope the books in this catalog reflect the various ways in...

January 7, 2021

Q&A: Sunny Xiang on Tonal Intelligence

“Tonal Intelligence boldly rethinks race and self-representation by theorizing tone as a way to read racial meaning. Sunny Xiang’s ambitious remit and strikingly original conceptualizations offer a powerful reconfiguration of aesthetics, affect, and the geopolitical.” —Jini Kim Watson, author of...

January 7, 2021

Browse Our MLA Virtual Book Exhibit with Philip Leventhal

Welcome to the Columbia University Press virtual exhibit for the MLA conference. I am Philip Leventhal, editor for literary studies, and while it is disappointing not to have the opportunity to see everyone in person at MLA this year, I...