AmLit
The American Literature Working Group, generally referred to as “AmLit,” is one of the most broadly conceived working groups at Penn, considering it does not limit itself to particular timelines, topics, or sets of problematics. Even so, the grounding analytic—the “Am” in “AmLit”—points to the field’s highly situated and contested position in relation to national histories and formations. A word often deployed as shorthand for the U.S., in its adjectival state, American nevertheless belongs, more accurately, to a multiplicity of persons, communities, geographies, and states claimed across the Western Hemisphere, as well as through other continents. Rather than trying to determine where the field should begin and end, AmLit defines itself conscientiously in the interrogative, asking, what modes of living and feeling have been or are now available through the trope of the Americas? To what ends do American literary texts themselves dramatize the porosity of national frameworks? And how do we, as scholars, approach the contemporary geopolitical persistence of American empire?
To engage these questions, AmLit brings together graduate students and faculty throughout the fall and spring semesters to hear invited lectures; offer feedback on works-in-progress by visiting scholars, faculty, and grads; and discuss current issues facing the field. Our concentrations have been broad and interdisciplinary, ranging from Colonial and Antebellum print culture to Post-45 and Twenty-First Century cultural studies, and spanning African American, Asian American, Latin American, Caribbean, Postcolonial, Feminist, Queer, and Disability studies. In the past few years, we’ve heard from speakers like Jodi Byrd, Crystal Parikh, Kyla Wazana Tompkins, Lara Cohen, Caleb Smith, and Edlie Wong. We strive to promote collegial exchange between a variety of intellectual communities in the Philadelphia area and encourage Americanists from the region to join our listserv.
If you have any questions or would like to subscribe to our listserv, please contact Arianna James (aqjames@sas.upenn.edu).
Upcoming Events
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Mod/Con and AmLit: Jennifer Fleissner (Indiana): "Maladies of the Will: The American Novel and the Modernity Problem"
April 11, 2024 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Past Events
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Brian Hochman (Georgetown): "Judith Coplon's Telephone: Electronic Eavesdropping and the Origins of the American Surveillance State."
February 28, 2017 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm -
AmLit Welcome Back Reading: Christina Sharpe In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, "The Wake" and "The Ship."
January 30, 2017 - 6:00pm to 8:00pm -
Jazmín Delgado WIP
October 31, 2016 - 5:30pm to 7:30pm -
Andre Carrington (Drexel University)
October 11, 2016 - 5:30pm to 7:30pm -
FITZGERALD at 120
September 22, 2016 - 12:30pm to 10:00pm -
Discussion of “Introduction” and “Bare Life: The Flesh”
September 13, 2016 - 5:30pm to 7:00pm -
Viet Thanh Nguyen (University of Southern California)
On his new book Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of WarApril 20, 2016 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm -
Jennifer Sternad Ponce de León
"Moctezuma’s Headdress & Zapatista Coffee by the Danube: The Decolonial Politics of Raiders of the Lost Crown"April 7, 2016 - 3:30pm to 5:00pm -
Sara Sligar WIP
April 4, 2016 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Margo Natalie Crawford, Cornell University
Post-Department Lecture Series ConversationMarch 23, 2016 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm