M/ELT (Modernist/Experimental Literature and Text-Art) is inter-departmental UCLA student reading group focused on the writing and research of students and scholars investigating “modernist” (i.e. anything roughly after 1850 or so, depending on language) and/or “experimental” (i.e. anything non-normative, purposefully or not, that reflects emergent formal or aesthetic features) literature and text art. By “text art,” we mean any form of art production that has a strong textual component, including performance, painting, film, digital text-art and video games.

Papers will be distributed to interested parties via email before the sessions, and not be “presented” in person. Sessions will be given over entirely to discussion of the paper. The main task of the reading group would be to critique standard, page-based academic productions – namely, the essays that you would hope to have published in peer-reviewed journals – but with an additional emphasis on inter-departmental information exchange.

Participants would be invited to present or attend from any number of departments, including Art History, Music, Philosophy, Film, Television and Media, and Design / Media Arts and the Humanities, from a variety of languages and sub-disciplines. We also invite scholars from Southern California (whoever would travel cheaply or for free) to present their recent, unpublished writing for critique by students (and myself).

The events are modestly catered, so that they’re nice social events to assuage the loneliness of being an impoverished, under-appreciated graduate student.

Please drop me an email at bstefans@gmail (not my humnet address, as I find it difficult to organize large volumes of email there) if you are interested in being on our mailing list.

Brian Kim Stefans
Assistant Professor, English