The 2014 Society for the Study of Southern Literature (SSSL) Biennial Conference convenes this week in Arlington, Virginia. This venue represents the northernmost meeting in the society’s nearly 50-year history, and it fits the focus of the conference particularly well.
The theme of the 2014 conference is Other Souths: Approaches, Alliances, Antagonisms. It brings together more than sixty panels and presentations on topics including the coastal south; the concept of southern honor; treatment of race and segregation in southern literature; southern music, humor and folklore; and a look forward to the direction of the study of the south and southern literature. Arlington county, a vibrant, culturally diverse, and urban part of northern Virginia, illustrates the conference's concept of an “other south.”
“This will be the farthest north SSSL has ever met,” says Eric Gary Anderson, SSSL president and faculty member, Department of English. “As I know -- thanks to many very lively class discussions with my students -- the ‘southernness’ of northern Virginia is very much an open, complicated, fascinating question. Bringing SSSL to Mason and to Arlington gives us a terrific opportunity to think about this, and much more.”
“The SSSL is the pre-eminent, flagship organization for people who study southern literatures and cultures,” explains Anderson. “Our biennial conference is a national and international event that attracts the best minds currently working in the field.”
And that interest is wide-ranging. Participants represent southern universities such as the University of Mississippi, Auburn University, and the University of Georgia, but also universities throughout the United States like the University of Massachusetts and the University of Michigan. Society members from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, and the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada, will also be in attendance.
The broad reach of the conference expands the study of the south to address the variety of people and cultures in the region, and how the voices of these previously missed participants in the life of the south contribute to a fuller picture of its history.
The university community and the public are invited to two keynote events. Acclaimed author Monique Truong will present a reading on Friday, March 28, at 5:00 pm. Her second novel, Bitter in the Mouth, is set in North Carolina and tells the story of a Vietnamese immigrant in the south, along with themes of family, friendship, foreignness, and familiarity.
On Saturday, March 29, Jace Weaver will present a keynote address and discuss his new book, The Red Atlantic, which studies indigenous people of the Americas in the context of their role in the history of the south and the world. This history predates the south as it is traditionally studied and understood. Weaver’s address will take place at 11:20 am. Both keynote events will be held in Founders Hall, Arlington Campus, George Mason University.
These authors’ works “expand our understanding of the south and southern literature,” says Anderson. “They show us that both have a much longer history than we thought.” By expanding the consideration of various contributions to "southern" culture in the course of this conference, the SSSL seeks to move forward in the discipline’s understanding of what it means to be “the south.”
March 24, 2014