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).
Past Events
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Jennifer Harford Vargas, Bryn Mawr College (WIP)
"The Marooned Dictatorship in Francisco Goldman's The Ordinary Seaman"March 31, 2015 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Laura Soderberg (WIP)
"Prodigious Pip: Black Infancy, Moby Dick, and the Medical Construction of Racial Kinship"March 30, 2015 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Hester Blum, Penn State University
"Polar Ecomedia"February 24, 2015 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Mark Rifkin, UNC-Greensboro (WIP)
From Indigenous Temporalities: Native Sovereignty Beyond Settler TimeFebruary 11, 2015 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Cristobal Silva, Columbia University (WIP)
"Georgic Fantasies: James Grainger and the Poetry of Colonial Dislocation"October 28, 2014 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Amy Hillier, University of Pennsylvania
October 17, 2014 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Robin Bernstein, Harvard University
"'I'm proud to be part of the reality-based community': The Stakes of Analogical and Digital Photography in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home"October 1, 2014 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Anna Brickhouse, University of Virginia (WIP)
April 25, 2014 - 5:00pm to 6:00pm -
Heather J. Hicks, Villanova University (WIP)
April 16, 2014 - 5:00pm to 6:00pm -
Andrew Rubin, Georgetown University (WIP)
April 2, 2014 - 5:00pm to 6:00pm