Due to the uncertainties created by the Covid-19 pandemic, the WLA has decided not to hold a conference in 2021. Instead, there will be a variety of individual virtual events.

We gratefully acknowledge the support from the Kansas State University English Department and the Georgia State University English Department for these events.

We would also like to thank Lisa Tatonetti and Audrey Goodman, our WLA Co-Presidents, for handling the logistics surrounding the 2021 events in addition to hosting our conference in 2022.

Please direct any questions you might have regarding the 2021 virtual engagement events to Sabine Barcatta.

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If you were looking for information on the conference to be held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, please check WLA Conference 2022.

Inclusive Design:
Teaching Practices for All Bodies, All Identities

Workshop Leader: Jillian Moore, PhD Student, Duquesne University

Date: Saturday, September 11, 2021, 3-4:15pm EDT (2CDT, 1MDT, 12PDT)

[Image used with permission from Disabled And Here Collection.]

The academic landscape is often a site of exclusion for those living in disabled bodies. Partly due the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities have recently been forced to confront gaps in various teaching practices and modalities. The work of filling in such gaps can be prohibited by scarcity of academic resources, the precariousness of academic teaching lines, and personal fatigue, experiences that create a deeper divide between instructors and disabled students.

The Inclusive Teaching Practices for All Bodies, All Identities workshop responds both to academic labor practices and to the academic tendency to respond to rather than prepare for disabled students. In particular, it will offer both theoretical and practical information about inclusive pedagogical design and practices from the perspective of a disabled academic.

In order to participate, you must register by Sept. 10: tinyurl.com/wlainclusiveteaching.

Please contact Jillian directly at bennionj@duq.edu for assistive technology requests and needs.

If you’d like to forward this information to others and/or want to post a flyer in your department, please download this beautiful flyer that Jillion prepared for this purpose.

The Tulsa Race Massacre at 100: Creative Writers Reflect on Its Impact, Legacy, and Lessons

Fiction writer Rilla Askew and poet Quaraysh Ali Lansana in conversation with Kalenda Eaton, University of Oklahoma

Date: Monday, May 17, 2021 at 7 pm ET (6pm CT, 5pm MT, 4pm PT)

2021 marks the 100-year anniversary of the destruction of the famed “Black Wall Street” and neighboring community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The events of a white mob who burned, looted, and terrorized black citizens is widely known as “The Tulsa Race Massacre.”

Novelist Rilla Askew (Fire in Beulah) and Poet Quraysh Ali Lansana (The Breakbeat Poets) consider what it means for writers and artists to document the history of racist violence in the west and imagine the possibility of a different future.

Rilla Askew

Quraysh Ali Lansana

Coordinator: Kalenda Eaton, University of Oklahoma

Participation is FREE to everyone. WLA membership is not required. But you must be registered by midnight the night before the event in order to receive a zoom link to participate in this webinar.

Register here: https://tinyurl.com/wlablackwallstreet

The Politics of Public Lands in the Contemporary US West: A Roundtable Discussion

DATE: Saturday, April 17, 2021, 3 pm ET

From Standing Rock to Bears Ears, from Malheur to Nüümü Poyo, the politics of public lands in the US West remains contentious, divisive, and, occasionally, promising. This webinar, based on a special issue of Western American Literature (vol. 54.1/spring 2019), will examine issues of public lands from the perspective of literary studies, cultural studies, and settler colonial theory.

Coordinator: Tom Lynch, University of Nebraska – Lincoln

Moderator and special issue editor: Jennifer Ladino, University of Idaho

Participants (and contributors to the special issue):

April Anson, San Diego State University
Stephanie LeMenager, University of Oregon
Meagan Meylor, University of Southern California
Luke Morgan, Texas Tech University
Ashley Reis, University of North Texas
Marsha Weisiger, University of Oregon

Participation is FREE to everyone. WLA membership is not required.

Register here: https://tinyurl.com/wlapubliclands
You must be registered by midnight the night before the event in order to receive a zoom link to participate in this webinar.

All WAL issues can be accessed through Project Muse https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/418.