📚 MELUS 2024 Presentation: Thoughts 

In April, I presented on a MELUS panel discussing memory and resistance. Below is the abstract for my paper:

     Some of the more common definitions of memories are rather amorphous. Lovorka Grmusa and Biljana Oklopcic in Memory and Identity offer several, that memories are “knowledge from the past,” “‘the capacity to remember, to create and re-create our past,’” or “‘an experience of time’” (1). Though these definitions seem to make sense, they leave out an important factor in how memories work, or in fact, how they are reworked, by individuals through storytelling. Grmusa and Oklopcic turn to The Great Gatsby as a key example; the narrator, Nick, is not simply telling someone’s story, but rather reshaping a memory, both individual and collective, chronicling his experiences and helping Gatsby rewrite his own, all through the power of storytelling. In American literature, the question of who gets to tell their own story, and how, is one that authors are still wrestling with today. Many factors affect the way these authors answer this question; for example, one’s identity (race, gender, religion, etc) seems to largely dictate the personal and cultural importance of telling one’s story. In this presentation, I will look to Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, and Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to explore the ways contemporary American authors of varying backgrounds have tackled the importance of storytelling as both a personal means of reclaiming agency and as a cultural movement. In these instances, and many others, these movements and reclamations of agency arise as modes of resistance that are often tied directly to memory. 

Date and Time: April 12, 2:00 PM-3:15 PM

The other panelists brought incredible papers! I was particularly interested in two essays about Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s The Undocumented Americans; a book I now must read. Another essay, on Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway, was also illuminating. I am once again excited for next year!