MLA 2021 – Eugene O’Neill Society Session

Modern Language Association Convention

Toronto: January 7-10, 2021

The Eugene O’Neill Society

Call for Papers

Philosophy and Modern American Drama

As an allied organization with the MLA, the Eugene O’Neill Society has a guaranteed session at each annual convention. For 2021, the Society is broadening its scope beyond O’Neill to include all of modern American drama, from plays by O’Neill, Glaspell, and the Provincetown Players through works that have premiered in the past few years. We seek proposals in three general areas:

• Discussions of dramatists who explicitly mention philosophers as inspirations for their work, such as O’Neill’s references to Arthur Schopenhauer, Max Stirner, and Friedrich Nietzsche, and the roles these philosophers’ ideas have in the dramatists’ plays.
• Discussions of philosophical theories of tragedy, comedy, or the absurd and their applications or lack of application to modern American theatre.
• Discussions of the depiction of issues in epistemology, ethics, or any other areas of philosophy in modern American drama and the ways these plays help us to explore these issues.

Depending on the number and quality of proposals we receive, we plan to have either a standard 75-minute session of three 18-minute papers or a round-table discussion with five or six participants.

Please send proposals and a brief academic biography to David Palmer (dpalmer@maritime.edu) by Sunday, March 15. Proposals that in some way discuss Eugene O’Neill will be given preference, but this is not a requirement. A decision then will be made about whether to have a three-paper panel or a round-table discussion, and selected participants will be confirmed. The proposal for the session is due to the MLA administrators on Wednesday, April 1.

Thank you for considering this call for papers.