In her 1998 play How I Learned to Drive, Paula Vogel described Maryland as a place where “You can still imagine what how [it] used to be before the malls took over. This countryside was once dotted with farmhouses. From their porches, you could have witnessed the Civil War raging in the front fields.” Considering the preceding quotation—as well as Maryland’s geographical and figurative status as a border state between the North and South—in terms of America’s complicated racial and social history, the following panel invites scholars from a variety of disciplines to present on the representation of Maryland in the American consciousness at NeMLA’s 2017 conference in Baltimore, Maryland (March 23rd-26th). How has Maryland paradoxically been portrayed as a place of freedom and promise, and, more recently, a place of civil unrest and failed social and economic policies? Scholars are welcome to present on literature from any genre or time period, but papers should focus on Maryland as a site of ideological conflict, whether that conflict regards issues of race, class, gender, or politics in America.

Queries may be directed to Dotterman@Adelphi.edu.  Abstracts should be uploaded to NeMLA’s online submission system no later than September 30, 2016.