SCMLA: Summer 1998 Newsletter

The University of Oklahoma is proud to serve as the new home of the South Central Modern Language Association beginning in January of 2005. The Offices of the President and Provost, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of English, the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics as well as the School of International and Area Studies have all given crucial support to this new addition to O.U.’s campus. Grady C. Wray, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Colonial Latin-American Literature, will assume the responsibilities of the Executive Director. The new offices will be part of the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics and open January 10, 2005. Please make note of the many new ways you can maintain contact with the new offices of the SCMLA at the University of Oklahoma. Direct all future correspondence to:

South Central Modern Language Association
Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
The University of Oklahoma
780 Van Vleet Oval, Room 202
Norman, OK 73019-2032
Phone: (405) 325-6011
Fax: (405) 325-3720
E-mail: scmla@ou.edu

SCMLA will meet at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Houston, 27-29 October 2005 (single $109 / double $129). Downtown Houston is undergoing a major renaissance with a new downtown baseball park (with new major league facilities for football and basketball) and a light rail system already open and only two blocks from the Hyatt. These developments have led to new shops and restaurants in the heart of the city, which are all within walking distance from the hotel.

Our theme for the 2005 SCMLA conference is “Literary Space(s).” Obviously, literary works occur in spaces. Their action may take place in physical spaces--both Outer Space and Inner Space--celestial or terrestrial. Setting constitutes a significant element of literary works and worlds. Literary works however, occupy more than just physical spaces; they also contain emotional spaces, intellectual spaces, and temporal spaces. They fill the heart, mind and minutes, days, and years of their characters and their readers. Most of all, literature encompasses spaces of the imagination. Come explore all of those spaces and more in Houston, the home of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency.

Fort Worth will be the site for the 63rd annual meeting to be held 26-28 October 2006 at the Radisson Plaza Hotel in Fort Worth ($96 single/double). The hotel is in the heart of Downtown Fort Worth in the midst of the city's shopping and entertainment district. It is located within a five mile radius of other popular entertainment options, such as Billy Bob's Texas, the Fort Worth Zoo, Six Flags Over Texas, the Ballpark in Arlington, and the Fort Worth Cultural District which includes the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Kimbell Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum, and the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame.