November 24, 2023: Thankful for Scholarly Communities: U of Buffalo’s English Department

[For thisyear’s Thanksgiving series, I wanted to express thanks for a handful ofopportunities I’ve had to connect with scholarly communities this Fall. Leadingup to a special tribute to my two most important scholarly influences!]

I’vewritten many times in this space, most fully in thistribute post, on what the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) ingeneral and the NeMLABoard in particular have meant for my career. NeMLA is quite simply myfavorite scholarly community, and its influences have extended far beyond (bothin time and in reach) my years of service on the Board or even my attendance atthe annual Convention (which will continue next Spring in Boston).Just a couple weeks ago I got to experience a particularly exciting suchextended influence, when—invited by NeMLAExecutive Director Carine Mardorossian, who is also an English Professor atthe University of Buffalo—I had the privilege of giving a talk in the Buffalo EnglishDepartment’s Juxtapositionslecture series. It was a great chance to build on prior book talks for Of Thee I Sing, but in keeping with theseries’ overt interdisciplinary focus I pushed myself to work with culturalworks I hadn’t considered for the book, including 1960s music and 1980s films.I really loved the chance to think about all the layers of culture and societythat these debates over patriotism can help us examine and engage, and am sograteful to Carine, Buffalo, and these ongoing NeMLA connections forexemplifying scholarly community once more.

Specialtribute post this weekend,

Ben

PS. Communities(or anything else) you’re thankful for this year?