CFP: From Babbitt to Rabbit: Sports in American Literature (Midwest Modern Language Association)
Midwest MLA – Cleveland, OH – November 8-11, 2007
In an America saturated with professional and amateur sporting events, the utilization of sports as a cultural metaphor in literature has a long history. Mark Twain, for instance, once declared that “baseball is the very symbol, the outward and visible struggle of the raging, tearing,
booming nineteenth century.” This panel is interested in these types of intersections: from football in Fitzgerald to wrestling in John Irving, from golf as a refuge for misogynistic business practices to baseball as a key cultural symbol of coming integration in the 1940s. How have sports been employed as a valuable tool in American literature? 300 word abstracts to Joe Webb, Saint Louis University, by March 15, 2007 (jwebb16@slu.edu).
For the complete call for papers visit: www.uiowa.edu/~mmla
