Even as cultural and political issues revolving around questions of identity, personhood, difference, agency, and equality have dominated literary studies in recent years, the essential bases of the intellectual labor that produced these and other related concepts have become increasingly obscured from view. Artificial and social by nature, these "touchstones" of the mind are no less material for that fact. For, while made by and among human beings, rather than encountered in nature, like natural objects, they are necessarily sensory in manifestation. By the same token, materiality is required by rather than opposed to the labor of conception -- itself perhaps the only essentially non-commodifiable labor form. Just as all labor puts subjects and objects into some manner of reciprocal relation, intellectual work entails something outside it. But the particular materials to which the work of understanding applies itself are the intrinsically non-objectifiable "identities" called words, infinitely repeatable, perceptible entities whose necessary abstraction from the world of things repels all reification. For the very same reason, no formulaic equation, code or machine for the extraction of meaning can determine how we work with words. Just as it is the nature of words to resist the objectification of their content, their only appropriate mode d'emploi must rely on essentially empty conventions: the pure functionalism of grammar and punctuation, and infinitely variable vocalizations of pronunciation, stress and expression, none of which require specific contents to be operative.

In direct contrast with the actual verbal and other scripted materials with which our minds labor, and in direct contradiction with the material fact of their own verbal existence, the discourse of literary and cultural studies has sought to remodel itself on the study of three-dimensional spatial objects. As if attempting to erect a solid bulwark against the very "market forces" to which its own self-abnegation capitulates, the flight of language from language has left a growing trail of substitutive titles borrowed from other disciplines in its wake: "archaeology," "topography," "geography," "geology," "rhizomatics" and "mycology," "environmental," "global," "territorial" and "border studies," all metaphorically name something of the earth as their object; "physiology," "biology," "chemistry" (alternatively, "alchemy"), "epidemiology," (alternatively, "plague," "infection" and "contagion" studies), are some of the organic sciences loosely confused with the study of distinctly non-organic processes. With the passing of each purely notional replacement for the particular nature of words, and ever-accelerating pace of consumption of ever more "distant" modes of "reading," the alienation of the labor of textual analysis and interpretation, and obfuscation of its singularly inexhaustible surplus value, "new" meaning, ensures that language work will retain its own dialectical relation to the commodification of its negation. Through analyses of texts of diverse origin and genre -- poetry, prose fiction, and philosophical prose, each of which constructs, in its own way, the specific linguistic conditions of a surplus of referential significance -- this panel will demonstrate some of the very different ways in which the analytic reading of texts retains the ability to reveal anew to the mind the renewable critical potential of analysis itself.

The diverse interests and backgrounds of our participants, who include one asst. prof., one independent scholar (whose important forthcoming book on temporality and fiction will be featured at the Convention Book Display, pub. date 2023), one professor emeritus of great international repute, and one senior professor, each of whom specializes in and has published on different languages, discursive genres, and periods (17th-18th cent. German, English, and French philosophy and fiction; 20th and 21st century international experimental poetics; 20th century modernist fiction, Hindi, English, Urdu, Persian; British and American Romanticism, contemporary Korean literature) and are of distinct individual heritages and international origins: Korean, Indian, Austrian, American, speak to the way in which the interest of the proposed topic of the session extends to very different cultures, concerns, and research fields. Due to the diverse focuses and backgrounds of the participants, the audience for the session should be just as varied in composition, and I anticipate a very lively and fruitful discussion during the reserved discussion period. The abstracts for the talks are already written, and their high quality suggests that they will attract many session attendees in advance as well. I hope the MLA Convention Organizers will allow this proposed session to go forward, and would be happy to respond with any additional information you would like to have to assist you in your deliberations.