Modern Language Association Adds Office of Scholarly Communication

The Modern Language Association has created an office of scholarly communication and named a well-regarded digital-humanities scholar to lead it, the group announced on Friday. Kathleen Fitzpatrick, a professor of media studies at Pomona College and co-founder of MediaCommons, a digital scholarly network, will lead the new office. She will oversee the group’s book-publishing unit and “a range of activities intended to promote scholarship among our members and within the larger academic community,” the association said. Rosemary G. Feal, the association’s director, told The Chronicle in an interview on Thursday that the announcement was another sign that the MLA was “devoting more effort to thinking as an organization about the digital humanities” and about how to take advantage of Web-based publishing and networking opportunities.