NCWN

This conference aims to draw a critical mass of U.S. Latina/o literary critics and theorists, both foundational thinkers and emerging voices, for the first time in the history of the field. In response to a literature extant in the United States for roughly 150 years, U.S. Latina/o literary scholarship has grown with exponential force over the last two decades. Thinking through an array of subjects from borders to exile, poetics to politics, bilingualism, race, and sexuality, U.S. Latina/o literary scholarship offers new dimensions to the study of “American” literature. As the inaugural conference, this gathering marks a historic intervention calling attention to the robust contributions of U.S. Latina/o writers. For too long, academic conferences have relegated Latina/o literary scholars to isolated panels, in large part fueled by the erroneous perception that U.S. Latina/o literature lacks the depth and breadth of other established literatures. Yet this flies in the face not only of a rich body of literature, but scholarly community laboring to shape the field and find greater institutional inclusion. Thus, this three-day conference offers an exclusive space for intellectual exploration and exchange on a literature that sits within literary studies like the proverbial elephant in the room, just too substantial to ignore. Consolidating the field, inciting generative conversations, creating innovative modes of reading and understanding, are some of the scholarly objectives of this conference.