According to the MLA, The Modern Language Association  Convention, first held in 1883, is an annual gathering of teachers and scholars in the field of language and literature study.  The convention enables members of the profession to share their ideas and research with colleagues from other universities and colleges. 

The 2016 convention was held in Austin from 7 to 10 January, and the presidential theme for the convention is Literature and Its Publics: Past, Present, and Future.

In his welcome letter, MLA President Roland Greene wrote that this year's Convention theme invites attendees to discuss how film, digital media, and rhetoric "move among the arts and how our field engages other intellectual disciplines; to reflect on literature’s past publics and speculate on its future publics; and to think about media, reception, audience, commentary, translation, and adaptation—and more—as ways of connecting to a public."

He said that "our work as teachers, historians, editors, and critics...is a public act" and that "everything we contribute—every reading, intervention, and argument—makes an implicit claim for the social good of our common enterprise."

Reading these words, I headed into the 2016 MLA Convention expecting to feel regenerated as an educated, to remember that my role as an educator is tremendously important in our society.