Pitt to Host Northeastern Modern Language Association's 35th Annual Conference at the Omni William Penn Hotel March 4-7

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh will host the 35th annual Northeastern Modern Language Association (NEMLA) convention from March 4 to March 7 at the Omni William Penn Hotel, Grant Street, downtown. The convention will feature literature and language scholars from around the world with presentations and panel discussions on American, French, British, German, Italian, and Spanish literatures and films.

Highlights of this year's conference include a gala opening reception from 5 to 8 p.m. March 4 at the Andy Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky St., on the North Side; a keynote address, which is open to the public, by Gustavo Pérez Firmat, a Pulitzer Prize nominee and the David Feinson Professor of Humanities at Columbia University, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. March 5 in the Grand Ballroom of the Omni William Penn Hotel; and a Swiss Embassy-sponsored poetry reading and lecture by Swiss poet Hugo Loetscher, from 7 to 9 p.m. March 6 at the Omni Hotel's Phipps Room.

Faculty members and graduate students in Pitt's Department of English helped coordinate this year's convention. Pitt's Department of German, chaired by Professor Clark Muenzer, will sponsor the Germanist reception Saturday evening at the hotel.

The NEMLA is a scholarly organization for professionals in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and other modern languages. Most members are professors and students at colleges and universities from New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and eastern Canada. The group was founded as the New York-Pennsylvania MLA (Modern Language Association) in 1967 by William Wehmeyer of St. Bonaventure University and other MLA members interested in continuing scholarly discourse at annual conventions smaller than that hosted by the MLA.

For more information on this year's conference, visit the Web site at www.nemla.org, or contact Josie McQuail at JMcQuail@tntech.edu, Henry Veggian at hevst4@pitt.edu, or Richard Purcell at repst13@pitt.edu.

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