Race in Literary Histories
A panel sponsored by the SCE

What makes a national literature? Racialism and nationalism have been bound up with one another since the nineteenth century. During this same period, literature was institutionalized as an object of formal study, and it was organized into national literatures. Nineteenth-century racial theories played a key part in defining those categories. The first modern literary history of English, Hippolyte Taine's History of English Literature, insisted that national literatures needed to be studied because they contained the unique moral essence of a people, an essence that he explained in terms of race. The role of racialism in histories of German and French national literatures is even more pronounced.
This panel encourages a re-examination of the role of race in the history of literature as an institution. Papers might look at the racially-organized past, or the role that past plays in today's institutional practice. We welcome papers that look at any aspect of the relationship between racial theory, nationalism, and literature. The following are some possible topics, but please do not feel limited by this list:

• Racial theory within a specific history of literature, including Taine's
• Racial theories in the organization of literature and foreign language departments
• Rethinking the MLA's current divisions
• Race and the restructuring of English and Foreign Language Department programs
• Race and the history of the American canon, the French canon, etc.
• Racial theory in definitions of Jewish literature
• The role of racial theory in the everyday teaching of literary history
• Race as an organizing principle in contemporary institutional practices
• Race and the conceptual shift from English to British literature

Abstracts or papers by 31 March 2001 to:
Peter Logan
English Department Box 870244
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0244
plogan[at]english.as.ua.edu