At this year’s MLA, many sessions focus on fake news in present and in literary past

At this year’s MLA meeting, many sessions will focus on fake news, both in the present and in the literary past. Can scholars of fiction change our understanding of current events?

From Humanist a link to an article by Scott Jaschik about fake news and the MLA. The article is in Inside Higher Ed and is titled, ‘All Ladies Cheat… Sad!’:At this year’s MLA, many sessions focus on fake news in present and in literary past. The article talks about sessions at the MLA taking on the issue of truth. It points out that poststructuralist scholars like the late Derrida have appeared to undermine our notions of truth leaving us with the idea that truth is constructed.

One irony is that, in many of those discussions, conservative commentators accused humanities scholars of the left of ignoring issues of truth. And Ben-Merre acknowledged that some may say poststructuralists such as the late theorist Jacques Derrida may have contributed to the current situation by questioning then-prevailing attitudes about what constituted truth.

If the truth is ideologically constructed then what’s wrong with Trump’s base constructing their own truth? Are we doomed to our silos? These MLA talks seem to be a rich set of ways of understanding the issues of fake news in terms of fiction and truth, but I think we also need to think of ways of bridging the truths which is why I liked In Conversation: Robert Reich and Arlie Hochschild (video of conversation from 3quarksdaily.) Hochschild talks about her new book, Strangers In Their Own Land which listens to a Tea Party community in Alabama. Hochschild also talks about how one can build bridges by stretching values so they can be shared and provide a ground for dialogue. Yet another way of making truths.