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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Welcoming Reception
September 26, 2013 - 6:00pm to 7:00pm -
Introductory Meeting
September 25, 2013 - 5:00pm to 6:00pm -
Work-in-Progress: "Across Distances Without Recognition: Susceptibility, Immunity, and the Dilemma of Speculative Agency in A Mercy."
Herman Beavers, Professor of English and Africana Studies, PennApril 10, 2013 - 5:30pm -
Sunny Yang, PhD Candidate, English, Penn
April 4, 2013 - 4:30pm to 5:30pm -
In a Future Tense: Immigration Law, Counterfactual Histories, and Chinese Invasion
Edlie Wong, University of Maryland -- College Park, Dept. of EnglishMarch 12, 2013 - 4:30pm to 5:30pm -
Eat, Sex, Race
Kyla Tompkins, Professor of English and Gender and Women's Studies, Pomona CollegeFebruary 20, 2013 - 5:00pm to 6:00pm -
Colorblind(ed): Visuality, Texuality, and Slavery in Rita Dove's and George Elliott Clarke's Verse Plays
Evie Shockley, Rutgers University -- New Brunswick, Dept. of EnglishJanuary 30, 2013 - 5:30pm to 6:30pm -
Kate Huber, Temple University, Dept. of English
November 14, 2012 - 6:00pm to 7:00pm -
Book Talk for her recent publication, Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post Civil-Rights Imagination
Salamishah Tillet, University of Pennsylvania, Assistant Professor of English and Africana StudiesOctober 25, 2012 - 5:30pm to 6:30pm -
Work in Progress: Excerpt from "American Hermaphrodite: Fantasies of Sexual Intersection in the Long Nineteenth Century"
Jessica Lewis-Turner, Temple University, Dept. of EnglishOctober 17, 2012 - 6:00pm to 7:00pm