Education, Ideology, and Culture in the U. S. South
Program arranged by the Society for the Study of Southern Literature

This affiliated session invites submissions of papers that deal with depictions of Southern education in fiction, film, prose, poetry, or other media. In this era of daunting challenges to public education on every level, the goals of and values informing education in the South are subjects of intense debate. What educational models, philosophies, or practices emerge at various moments in Southern history, literature, and film, and how do they reflect, resist, or catalyze cultural change? Among many other topics, papers might explore the role of education in the thinking of southern political philosophers or crusaders; education and race, gender, and social class throughout southern history; education and ideology, religion, and politics, particularly in terms of curricular formation; the phenomenon of home schooling, especially prevalent in the South; educational goals (practical/economic versus ideal); education and the disruption of or furtherance of economic or racial hegemony; and popular or literary images of educators and of students.

Please email (as an attachment and copied into the text of your message) an abstract (250-500 words), along with any requests for a-v support, to Anthony Wilson at awilson@lagrange.edu by March 1, 2011. All panel participants must be members of MLA before April 1, 2011.