![]() ![]() And here, until recently, the field held interviews for its ever-dwindling pool of tenure-track professorships. Here scholars gather every January, performing the time-honored rite of solemnly chanting 20-minute papers before one another in hotel conference rooms. I was back: I was at MLA (short for “Modern Language Association”), the annual pageant for literary studies, my old vocation. In an instant it failed me - my Stuart Smalley self-talk, my diligent pregaming on bourbon - and I stood there in the lobby effectively naked, a gibbering infant exposed to the light. But then I got to the Hyatt Regency, and the automatic doors at front opened before me like a sort of maw, and I ventured in. It was brazen and ballsy, what I was doing, and I was to be commended for it. Fresh off the bus to downtown Chicago, eased by a steady titration since breakfast of Maker’s Mark, I’d fairly danced down Wacker Drive, rolling suitcase in tow. ![]() I’d been doing fine all day - merrily, even. ![]()
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